$4 CPAP repair

Tired of spending $100 or more on a new mask just because they're made from inferior neoprene (thereby making you spend another $100 every 3 months or so)? Enter our good friend, Duck Tape.  Since Duck Tape now come in all different patterns and colors, you can now have a fully custom mask for the great price of $3.99.  I cannot tell you how irritating it is for an apnea sufferer to wake up in the middle of the night and either have to adjust their mask or worse, stop breathing because their mask fell off because of the crappy materials they use for the mask bands.  Anyway, there is no tutorial, I just ripped strips of duct tape off and taped them over the existing neoprene...or in some cases where the neoprene was before it chose to disintegrate.

Here is the mask in it's new, pristine state ($99 with prescription) and below it, my newly refurbished Hello Kitty model :D.

Vintage Burlap Feed Sack Chair

I saw this beautiful chair in Country Living:

 and would love a set for the dining room, but at $1,150.00 each you have to be out of your mind! Then I found this blog on Pinterest with a chair that looked even better AND was personalized with just a re-upholstering and printed burlap.  In fact, if you use the same type of burlap on each, but different types of chairs, you could have a wonderfully personalized and eclectic set of dining chairs!

Here's the tutorial at http://www.fleamarkettrixie.com

Giant Sand Dollar

I saw this giant sand dollar in Pottery Barn and I just fell in love...but not with the price tag. $100 seems pretty steep to me.

Crafts by Amanda has a great tutorial of how to create a giant sand dollar for pennies on the dollar.  She was not trying to duplicate the sand dollar but to use it as inspiration.  I think I can duplicate it by doing without the black and yellow paints:

On the plus side, not only is it inexpensive, it's also really lightweight.

Sand Dollar Pillow

I loved this pillow and thought it would look great in a coastal or beachy casual living room.  There are several motifs but I really liked the sand dollar.  No way I am paying $40-$74 for a decorative pillow no matter HOW cute I think it is.  Here is the inspiration from wabisabigreen.com:

There is a blue one as well, but I rather like the muted sand tone of this one.  The write of craftsandsutch.com came up with this no sew, diy option.  I love this and it would work with any motif:

http://www.craftsandsutch.com/2011/05/no-sew-bleached-sand-dollar-pillow.html

Pennies on the dollar and it looks terrific.

Snow globe pendant

I saw this beautiful pendant on etsy (which of course means it was created by someone and not mass produced).  I really liked this and would like to make a few of them this next Christmas ...never hurts to plan ahead :D.  Here's the inspiration:

Now, I know nothing about resin nor how to work with it, but I thought I would some translucent clay like from Sculpy or Lumina that air dries.

and this mini winter tree stamp:
which I found here: http://www.rubberstamptapestry.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=winter+oak

I figure I can roll out and bake the disk, stamp on the design in white and sprinkle some 

glitter on for the snow effect.

Inspiration Knock-Off Inspiration

So what I am trying to do if for no one else other than myself, is to find an inspiration and then the solve the problem of how I can obtain the same vision without spending a fortune.  Some of this will be by finding a designer inspiration knock-off at a less price elsewhere and the other will be to create the inspiration with my own two hands and a bit of creativity.  If anyone actually looks at this, enjoy and feel free to steal some inspiration!