Hi, everyone! How’s it going? This is the first post I’ve written in ages because we just got back from a month long Mainland trip! Coming home was difficult – isn’t the end of vacation always the worst part? One of the reasons it’s hard to come home is because of all the wonderful craft and thrift stores on the Mainland. The variety of crafting materials available on island is limited, and ordering online is expensive, or even downright impossible due to air mail shipping restrictions. That’s why I always save room in my luggage to go craft supply shopping on vacation! Even if you don’t live somewhere isolated, you can frequently find new and interesting supplies when you travel (local yarns, beads, etc.), so today I’m sharing my tips for craft supply shopping on vacation. I hope you enjoy and please comment with any additional advice you have!

I know friends, family, and regular readers are interested in a quick “life lately” update on our trip, so before I get into the crafting tips I’d like to share a bit about the last month!

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As regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of saving and upcyling glass jars! Upcycled jar crafts are a real win-win because you get to use free craft supplies and there are so many cute jar craft ideas. Virtually every mason jar craft idea can be made with a recycled jar, instead, but since there are plenty of mason jar craft roundups out there I’m focusing on projects that specifically use upcycled jars and bottles in the tutorials.

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Remember making macrame necklaces and friendship bracelets? Or maybe buying those little wish bracelets on summer vacation? Those braided bracelets with all the beads you were supposed to wear until they fell off on their own? This DIY summer memories necklace is inspired by those childhood summer traditions, but it’s a lot easier than those complicated macrame designs that seemed fun in middle school but completely impossible to remember now! This simple macrame bottle necklace is cute, colorful, and super easy. I hope you enjoy!

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Weirdly enough, I see a lot of cacti in Hawaii. Parts of the islands are very dry, especially when it isn’t the rainy season. One of our favorite botanical gardens is in an arid environment inside a volcanic crater! A recent trip to this botanical garden inspired today’s post, a cactus necklace tutorial. Making this polymer clay cactus necklace is surprisingly easy – you don’t need any prior polymer clay experience or many tools.

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It’s nearly the end of June, so that means it’s time for July’s planner printables!

I love the way this month’s stat tracker looks – it’s probably my favorite so far for this year! I really hope I can find a few minutes of Internet at the beginning of the month to write all my numbers down, but I’ll probably be off by a few days. Like many other posts this month, I’m scheduling this post ahead of time. At the time of writing, we’re expecting my mom & her giant fluffy dog, and probably also my sister, to be with us this coming weekend. Internet is normally difficult enough for us to come by in WV – I’m certainly not going to tell my mom “So nice of you to drive 8 hours to see us, I’m going to go camp out at McDonald’s for some wifi!” My stats may be slightly less accurate for the end of June and beginning of July, but at least the page will be fun to look at it once I have the opportunity!

To download July’s stats tracker printable, just head to the printables for subscribers tab. If you’re not an Artisan Life member and would like to become one, you can download the printable from my Selz “store.”

If you like the looks of that blue tiki, make sure to check out my tiki felt ornament tutorial! The pattern is free and the post even includes a brief video showing how to appliqué the felt.

I hope you have a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July weekend! We’re certainly looking forward to spending time with family and seeing what sort of trouble my mom’s dog gets into. By all reports he’s pretty chill, but he’s also big, goofy, and seems to enjoy playing in water. Hopefully we don’t have to comb too much wet pond scum out of his white fur!

Do you have any plans with family for the Fourth?

It’s no secret that I love crafting with found and natural materials! Since I live near the ocean and love collecting driftwood, I already posted a roundup of driftwood crafts to DIY. I also like crating with sticks, I just don’t have as many opportunities to find ‘good’ sticks where we live. In West Virginia I pick up plenty of sticks, though! I have to admit – it’s hard to haul some of them off instead of hanging on to them for a craft! I can’t realistically keep all the sticks, so instead I put together a roundup of crafts with sticks and branches! These natural crafts with sticks take advantage of free crafting materials found in nature (and they might even make yard work a little more fun). From tiny twigs to large logs, this natural crafts roundup has something for sticks of all sizes.

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Nothing says summer like mermaids! Or maybe that’s just me… Even though we’re currently enjoying our time in the mountains away from the sea, mermaids and basically everything beachy/nautical are never far from my mind! This DIY mermaid picture frame is absolutely perfect for saving summer memories or a vacation photo, plus it’s surprisingly simple to make. If you don’t already have a mermaid scale stencil, don’t worry. You can use my cut file or the PDF to hand cut your own and you’ll be on the way to having your own mermaid picture frame in no time!

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Ah, vacation. A time to relax and unwind – or, in our case, do lots of yard work and learn about electrical wiring. When you live on a tropical island, your vacations don’t always look “normal!” I’ve taken at least a month mostly away from blogging each summer for the past four years, but if you look through my blog archives you won’t find any major gaps. Depending on your personal reasons for blogging, you may be perfectly okay with taking 4-6 weeks completely off each summer, but it’s not my style. Over the past few years, I’ve developed strategies for keeping my blog at least somewhat active while I’m gone without taking myself away from vacation to post. Today I’m sharing my top 5 tips for preparing your blog for vacation to help you keep your blog on track while you’re away without giving up precious vacation minutes!

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Paper flower pomanders, or kissing balls, have had a special place in my heart ever since I made a bunch of them for our DIY wedding! With our three year (!) anniversary coming up next month, I decided to create another style of pomander that doesn’t require a paper cutter and, to be quite honest, is overall much quicker to make than the paper flower pomanders I made for our wedding! You can see that original tutorial right here. This new paper flower kissing ball tutorial uses pre-made mulberry paper flowers. They are inexpensive and easy to find in a variety of colors! I hope you enjoy this paper flower kissing ball tutorial and that it helps you plan your own DIY wedding!

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