DIY Washer Wreath Ornament

Over at InspiredWhims.com they teach you had to make this cute little washer wreath ornament

I LOVE IT!

DIY Fastener Snowman Ornament

Go to HowWeeLearn.com to see a tutorial on how to help your kids make their own snowman ornament out of fasteners - I love the carrot/screw nose!

DIY Fastener Christmas Trees

Go to LeftBrainCraftBrain.com to learn how to make, what they call, Tinkering Trees!

They look like super cute little Christmas Trees to me - adorable.

DIY Fastener Snowflake Coasters!

Go to ilovetocreate.com and learn to make these!

Fastener Snowflake Coasters...I think they are beautiful.

Chess Set Diagram

Since we were talking about chess sets, and because we love diagrams, we're posting this too:

Someone with the username Retro-gamer posted it to the Deviant Art website.
It gives you the recipe to make your own set in one visual page.
Very cool.

Build your own Nuts & Bolts Chess Set

We've written about chess set made of nuts & bolts in the past (how they are a great gift idea - click HERE to read it.) Now we've found a website called CubScoutIdeas.com that shows you exactly how to make your very own. I particularly like how they breakdown what you'll need for each piece. Go to the site and they give you a list of all the materials you will need.

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Then after you are done they suggest you paint them which makes them look really pretty.

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

Image: Cub Scout Ideas

SUPER IMPRESSIVE!
And all the hardware will cost you around $20.

More Paper Nuts & Bolts

We found another site making nuts & bolts out of paper! 

(Who are these people?!)

We found a Japanese website called Soil Shop that gives you the diagram to make your very own version of these badboys!!

There are actual threads!!

The nut even turns on those paper threads.

I don't think these still are considered origami because I think some cutting of the paper is involved so what would they be called? Oh, I know - EXTRAORDINAMI!

Click here to go to Diagram 1 and here for Diagram 2 if you are clever enough to try to make your own!

Nuts & Driftwood

The author of Home Sweet Homemade.com came up with a great way to weave pieces of driftwood together to make a hanging sculpture.

The author, Diane, didn't want to drill through the pieces so she used the holes in hex nuts and threaded them together basically. 

This would look super pretty hanging in a house on the beach. 

More Fastener Love

We're still thinking of love so here is one more fastener valentine.

Found this at the Tried & True Blog

It's cute,right?

Head over to the blog because she teaches you how to make your own.

Tin Man Pumpkin Wins!

This pumpkin wins for Best Pumpkin with Fasteners!

Brought to you by the good people over at Celebrate Halloween.

Head over to the website and there is a tutorial on how to make your own Tin Man Pumpkin.

That is Awesome!

Festive Fasteners

Getting into the Halloween Spirit of things, and using fasteners to do it, seems more and more common these days. We found these over at The Swell Designer.com.

I like that they are not scary, they're just pretty. I would leave these out all year long.

You can learn to make your own over at her website.

Frankenstein, the Wind Chime

Over at Lowes you can learn to make this cute and perfect for Halloween wind chime:

Click this link and it will take you there.

Of course Frankenstein's Monster is one of our favorite characters, you know, since he's held together so obviously with nuts and bolts...just precious.

Make Your Own Pumpkin

Over at Jonathan Fong Style you can learn to turn this:

Into this!!!

Give us a call if you don't already have those 4 inch screws.

Stamping with Nuts & Bolts

Here's a fun thing to try...

Found a website called Picklebums that teaches a tutorial about 

printing with nuts & bolts, although I would call it stamping.

(All of the photos and info are from Picklebums.)

She has lots of these tutorials that show how to make easy art for kids.

You can use your old fasteners or grab one of something.

This little guy is doing a fabulous job!

Not a hex shape?!

Still not a hex shape?!

At least the drives show up.

So pretty!

I think this looks so messy and fun.

Thanks Picklebums!

I Love Loving Nuts & Bolts

So here's a little more love...

A love poem made with fasteners - how sweet is this?!

And you can make your own by clicking over to Vanessa Brady's website called Tried & True.

Eye love Monsters!

If you don't feel like carving up your pumpkins but you want a halloween project, try making these little monsters!

We found the tutorial how to make them (& the photo) over at a blog called AIR-DRY-CLAY - aren't they cute?! I'm mean, SCARY!  They made these adorable monsters out of clay and then added different fasteners, like nuts, washers and grommets as EYES. What a creative and effective way of using fasteners - we love it.

I can't wait to make some - in fact, I'm off to go buy the clay NOW!

Gather Tweets

This looks awesome!

And super simple, which I like.

Find some melamine (hard plastic) plates instead of glass, ceramic or porcelain and then get yourself a long carriage bolt, or even better an eye bolt, and some nuts & washers and you're almost there! With a little drilling, put it all together, add bird seed and -voila- birds will flock to your house.

The full tutorial is here on Erin's Creative Energy

What a fun little project.

The Coolest Cooler

Aunt Peaches posts great ideas of stuff to make but this one really caught my attention - a hex head covered fridge! She calls it a show stopper and she's right.

The post teaches you how to do a makeover on your boring refrigerator with peel-and-stick wallpaper. Certainly you could use any pattern but this is exactly which one I would have chosen.   

And click on the the link that directs you to the original post so you can see before and after photos.

More Holiday Fastener Crafts

Menorahs! Why not make one?!

We found some good options online...all with fasteners.

Nuts surrounded by glitter is so great! 

Super simple and super awesome - I love that she used birthday candles.

She'll teach you how to make one over at Vickie Howell's blog.

Despite being hardware, it's cute!
And you can use birthday candles in this one too.
Learn how to build it at Craftster.com

Here's one with bigger nuts.

Although I would put it on something a little more classy than cardboard, 

maybe like bubble wrap - just kidding! (Or am I?)

Found it at instructables.com

And lastly...

It's not the most complicated but the color makes it great! Go to his webpage - The Bohmérian - to see it in action. He makes the nuts move with a gif file (you know I love those from this post!) 

Start lighting December 8th - you've got two days to make one.

Happy Hanukkah!

Holiday Fastener Crafts

It's December! Time to decorate.

We like to build our own holiday decor - we do it ourselves - so we're posting a couple clever holiday crafts we found this year.

(Last years' crafts can be found here!)

DIY snowflake ornaments and tree toppers

-made out of hex nuts!

This awesome craft came from Instructables.com.  We're going to try and makes some. The website gives you all the instructions and materials you need.  I also think a wreath made out of different shapes and sizes of hex nuts would look cool too.


         And lots of people make snowmen out of recycled nuts, like the ones below, but I'm thinking if you spray paint them white and then get a little loop of ribbon - they would be great to hang from a tree!

This one is from Recycled-market.com

From the Westermans Int'l Blog

That's it for now.

Do you have a  good idea or suggestion for us to try? We'd love to hear them.

Enjoy December.