Craft yourself a piglet tea towel

We’re always on the lookout for ways to put our stamp on our homes and we think we may just have found the perfect idea.

This piglet tea towel tutorial from Elsie Marley is a great way of adding individuality without compromising on functionality – after all, it’s no good if it doesn’t dry the dishes and can’t be thrown in the washing machine!

Elsie has included a simple how-to and we're pleased to find that it requires hardly any effort (and minimal artistic skill!) to achieve such a professional-looking result.

Wash away the winter with citrus salt scrub

This year’s spring has been so long coming, it’s taken us a little by surprise. Now the sun is shining and there’s blossom on the trees, and our pasty arms and legs are nowhere near ready to be revealed to the world.

We’re hoping this citrus salt scrub DIY will save us from a spring spent sweating in leggings and long sleeves. Pop over to the Martha Writes blog to find how to mix up your own batch of exfoliator, which will banish dead skin and give it a zingy lemon boost. Alright sun, we’re ready for you.

Craft a blackboard bottle marker

Chalkboard paint seems to be having a moment this season. In a world of laptops and kindles, the combination of white chalk and blackboard has an element of old-school cool. Our pick of the chalkboard projects is this upcycled wine bottle DIY from craft blog Mary Janes and Galoshes. We're not quite sure what we’d use these for (blogger Taylor suggests wedding table markers), all we know is that we adore the unexpected combination of shape and surface.

Grab an empty wine bottle – we know you have one – and pop over to Mary Janes and Galoushes to see how its done.

Light up your life with Mason jar lanterns

We like a bit of nifty upcycling, but we’re even bigger fans when the new product looks even better than the original. Etsy seller Boots and Gus is an impressive example of how to do upcycling the right way. Designers Jeff and Mark have filled their shop with wonderfully quirky chandeliers fashioned from vintage Mason jars.

If you’re not ready to commit to a full-blown light feature in your living room, Blogger Chez Beeper Bebe has gone for a more toned down approach and transformed her old jars into tea light lanterns for the garden.

Gorgeous aren't they? Want to find out out how she made them? Then pop over to her blog for a printable how-to.

Made this? We would love to see a pic on our Facebook page.

Spell it out with Scrabble tile magnets

Vintage Scrabble tile magnets - why haven’t we seen this before?! Like those garish plastic letters that have for so long adorned our fridges, except more laid back and much, much cooler.

If you fancy making your own, visit The Ginger Penny Pincher for the simplest how-to ever.

We were so excited by this revelation, we had a hunt round the internet for more Scrabble-design fun and it turns out that those crafty folks at Etsy discovered the retro appeal of vintage scrabble tiles long ago.

Offerings range from jewellery to wedding favours to wine charms, but top of the crafters is Cool Boy Creations, who has knocked up a whole range of Scrabble tile coasters with quirky messages. Our pick of the slogans? The nerd set. Get your geek on!

String up some paper doily pom poms

As much as we love bunting, for a new party decoration idea we’re big fans of these paper doily pom poms.

At this summer's tea parties, we won't be hiding our doilies underneath the cakes, but stitching them together with neon thread and hanging them from our trees! We also adore the oversized tissue paper versions which will add a burst of colour.

Pop over to Swedish craft blog Pysselbolaget (nope, we don’t know how you say it either) to see how to make your own. Alright, the instructions are in Swedish, but there are photo guidelines. We think that if we can understand it even without instructions, it’ll be plenty simple enough to tackle in the pre-party panic!

Kick off your day with fruity granola

We’re struggling a little to know what to eat for breakfast at the moment. Our diaries say May, the never ending drizzle outside disagrees. Surely it’s too late in the year for porridge?

Green Kitchen Stories has come up with the answer in this  fruity yoghurt granola recipe in their guest post over at My New Roots . A bit fruity, a bit creamy, and oaty enough to prepare us for the drizzle outside.

Don’t be dismayed by the somewhat extensive recipe on the blog – with the best will in the world, no-one has the energy for that much measuring in one morning! We’ll be swapping in whatever fruit’s in season and raiding the corners of our store cupboards for nuts and seeds for the granola. Yum.

Transform an old crate into a succulent table

Who says plant pots and furniture need to be separate? Certainly not Matti and Megan, the self-proclaimed ‘plant nerds’ behind gardening blog Far Out Flora. We applaud their innovation in transforming an old shipping crate into a coffee table with built-in leafy decoration.

If you’re short somewhere to rest your coffee and have a spare shipping crate kicking around, pop over to their blog for a photo how to. Alternatively, if you’d like something more dramatic, Matty has knocked up a full-sized succulent dining table which is definitely worth a peek!

Join the bread revolution

Is there anything better than freshly-baked homemade bread? Bakery owners Duncan Glendinning and Patrick Ryan think not.

Champions of all things local, seasonal and foraged, boys behind The Thoughtful Bread Company have written their first book. Bread Revolution is packed with recipes for us to try at home. We dropped into the launch party to sample the recipes and can confirm that these bakers have some serious skills.

In particular, we couldn’t stop nibbling at their mini stone-baked flatbreads, dipped into home-made hummus and zinged-up pesto. We were sure that they’d be too fiddly to achieve at home, but we had a peek at the hummus recipe and it’s only three sentences long! Hardly more effort than buying it at the supermarket and ten times as tasty.

Sip some blueberry vodka lemonade

Spring is in the air, and we were daydreaming about picnics and casual al fresco suppers when this recipe caught our eye.

Jennifer from Keep It Simple Foods has breathed new life into traditional lemonade in her blueberry vodka lemonade recipe. The berry vodka gives a vibrant hue and a grown-up alcohol kick to the springtime favourite.

Visit her blog to find out how it’s done. We’re already pondering over which other fruits we can try this out with. All we need now is some sunshine to put our plans into action!