Little projects help to keep our creativity going and to inspire us to come up with new ideas for future and possibly bigger projects. They’re also a nice way to pass the time when we don’t really have anything else to do.

Moreover, there’s plenty of easy things to make that you can offer as gifts or that you can use to make your own home more welcoming and pretty. Let’s take a closer look at some of the many possible ideas and to hopefully reveal a few details that you could then use in some of your own crafts and projects.

Having a place where you can hang your keys when come into the house is very practical. That way you won’t misplace the keys and have to look for them everywhere while in a hurry and they’ll also look better and more organized. This gilded square nail key rack is just one of the many easy designs that you can choose to craft. It uses supplies like square nails, a rectangular piece of wood and some gold spray paint.

Here’s a cool way to use test tubes to make a decoration for your home. It’s a test tube vase with a solid wood base which you can make out of an old block or a reclaimed piece of wood. Sand the wood and make it look nice and pretty, then drill some holes into it for the glass test tubes. Fill these with a bit of water and then add flowers in them. You can use faux flowers if you want to in which case the water is not needed or can be colored to serve as a decorative purpose.

Another simple thing to do is take a basic strand of lights and give it a makeover so you can then display it in your home. You can use some vintage mold tins (or something else, be creative) and create sort of like mini lampshades for each tiny light on the strand. They’ll glow and they’ll look nice and pretty and you can find lots of different ways to customize the design based on your preferred style and whatever resources are available to you.

Some rope that you can easily find at your local hardware store is the main material that you’re going to need to make a decorative rope basket. Start to craft it from the bottom and coil the rope into circles, adding hot glue as you go to keep the rope nice and tight. Then start shaping the edges of the basket and try to keep it symmetrical. Widen it as you add more layers of rope and when you’re happy with the size cut off the rope and secure the end with more glue. The final touch is to spray paint the bottom of the basket.

Another idea is to make a hexagonal tray which you can use to store and to organize little things like keys, jewelry, various desk items and so on. You can make the tray out of some pieces of plywood and spray paint it once it’s done so it looks nice and pretty. The hexagonal shape gives it a chic look but can be altered and changed in case you prefer something different, like a simple rectangular tray for example.

Speaking of interesting geometric shapes and designs, check out this hexagonal shelf from diys. It’s made from lots and lots of popsicle sticks which are glued together to create many layers. As you can imagine, this is not the strongest kind of shelf that you can make and it won’t be able to hold heavy items. Still, it’s nice if you want to display a little vase or a framed picture on it.

With a block of wood and a drill with various different-sized drill bits can be used to make a nice gilded pencil holder for your desk. The gilded part is optional but it definitely makes this whole thing look more stylish. An alternative can be to paint it or to use tape to create a pattern or an interesting design on it in combination with some colored paint as well. Either way, it’s an easy project with a lot of potential for customization.

If you have an empty wall that you feel could use some sort of decoration, perhaps it might look nice with some plates on it. You can easily learn how to hang plates and how to use them as display pieces just by experimenting. You can use metal picture hangers and super glue to attach them to screws into the wall so you can easily swap them, remove them to clean them or put up new ones.

Usually building a piece of furniture of furniture from scratch is not exactly a very easy or quick thing to do. However, this pallet table with hairpin legs is an exception. It’s su[er easy to put together something like this. A few simple alterations to a wooden pallet and a set of four hairpin legs give you a nice unfinished product which you can then detail and customize using stain, paint, clear varnish or whatever else you prefer.

Concrete is used for lots of big-scale projects but can also be a great resource for various little crafts. For example, it would really nice to make a bunch of small concrete planters for succulents, cacti and other plants and to have them displayed on a windowsill, a shelf or a table. You can use empty yogurt cups or other containers as molds for the planters. You can find out all the details of this simple project on diys if you’re interested.

Yarn and other similar things can be used to make various decorations, like this string wall art for instance. This is one of the easiest ways to craft a wall decoration using very few materials: just a wooden dowel and a bunch of yarn in different colors. Mix and match various types of yarns and colors to create combinations and designs that you think would suit your home best. You can easily change the design and color palette later on if you renovate the place.

This wooden photo holder is just another little thing that you can keep on your desk or put up on a shelf as a way to personalize the space a bit more. It’s very easy to make using only a little piece of wood which you can cut to the desires shape and size using a saw. Make a little slit at the top so you can insert a picture or a note in there. You can also use tape and paint to decorate this photo holder however you want to.

If you have a bit of wallpaper leftover from your remodeling project, this is a cool way to use incorporate it into another DIY project. This is also a really cool and interesting way to make a lampshade that looks beautiful and modern without relying on any of the classical techniques and materials. All you need to do if you want to turn wallpaper into a lampshade is just cut out a circle shape, find the center, make a cut halfway through and then proceed to create folds all the way around. Use double-sided tape to connect the edges.

Over the door hangers are great for bathrooms and small bedrooms in general because they give you a little bit of extra storage space for towels, clothes and various other things. They’re also out of the way but still easily accessible and they don’t take up any space on the walls, floor or counters. This facade wire hanger is just as practical and all the ones you find in stores and on top of that it has a cool handmade design. You can make the whole thing from scratch from copper grounding wire.

A wooden log (or just half of it really) is something you should definitely bring home. You can use it in all sorts of interesting ways to craft decorations and accessories for your home, like these half log bookends for example. They’re not very detailed which is why this is such an easy project. If pink is not really your color then feel free to choose something different or to decorate your log in other ways. Just leaving it plain and natural can also look beautiful.

Larger logs, or better said tree stumps, can potentially be used to make furniture. One really easy option is to make a tree stump side table. All you really need to do is make sure the stump has a flat top and bottom. You can leave the bark on if you prefer a rustic look or you can remove it for a cleaner look. Also, since this will be a heavy side table, you can install casters on the bottom so you can easily move it around the house if needed.

Here’s something else that you can use yarn for: a Halloween spider web. It’s a very easy decoration that you can make and you can make it as big as you want to. It’s great if you have a big empty wall that you don’t know how to customize for Halloween. All you need to make this web is black yarn and some tape. Make sure the tape doesn’t leave residue on the walls and that it’s strong enough to hold the yarn in place for a while.

We’ve mentioned DIY lampshades quite a few times so far. Here’s yet another interesting idea: a woven basket lampshade. It’s made from a woven basket paper bin. If you already have a hanging pendant lamp, all you need to do is make a hole into the bottom of the basket so you can fit the fixture through. It doesn’t need to look pretty at the top since you won’t be seeing it from that angle.

Framed artwork is very common and very versatile. You can frame pretty much anything and it’s a nice way to fill a gap on a wall or to create a focal point for a room. This whitewashed frame letter art is a simplified version or many other custom designs that you can potentially create based on this idea. The frames are simple which puts more emphasis on the artwork itself.