Best DIY Projects of 2023

2023 was a bit of a slower year project-wise but I love what I got to create this past year. These are in no particular order but I think my top three are the library, the fireplace, and the disco mirrors. I’m counting The DIY Awards as a DIY project because, well, it was quite possibly the most intense, stressful, and time consuming DIY project I did all year. Tap on each link to go to the tutorial for that project (and if you click the DIY Awards one it’ll take you to the Awards round up with photos from the event, as well as all the winners!).

I don’t have anything solid planned for 2024 projects, but I’ve had some things that have been needing to be done for many years and I’m hoping to get those projects ticked off this year (there’s a half finished bathroom staring at me right now).

All in all, I’m proud of what I did in 2023, most of all the rest I allowed myself to take. I’m feeling like I’m going into the new year recharged and re-inspired, whereas I basically dragged myself through January last year trying to finish up and put on the DIY Awards event, and then subsequently was burnt out for a good portion of the year.

So here’s to 2023 and her accomplishments, and a fresh new year ahead full of possibility.

01/ The Ikea-hack built-in library

02/ The DIY Modern Garden Trellis

03/ The DIY faux concrete electric fireplace

04/ The Disco Mirror projects

Disco Mirror Jr.

big disco mirror

DIY Disco mirror booties

05/ The DIY Awards

A DIY Minecraft Birthday Party

The two weeks before Christmas are always a little bit of a mad dash since Jack’s birthday is in that time period. Every year I try my best to create a really fun party for him to help ensure his birthday doesn’t get rolled into the busy-ness of the holiday season. This past year he’s gotten super into Minecraft (and TBH our whole family has, which has been a blast), so we obviously had to do a Minecraft themed birthday party.

All three of us were Minecraft characters for Halloween, so I saved those costumes to use as decor for the party (the Ghast below was Dan’s costume). Some of the decor was just Minecraft party decor from Target, like the table cloth, but most of it was DIY! I grabbed some of the printable decor from the Jennifer Maker blog, and then I tweaked some of her downloads in photoshop to add more things.

One of the fun ideas I got from her blog was to incorporate the in-game food as the party food. So we had melon (watermelon), apples, carrots, sticks (chocolate pocky), chicken (chicken nuggets), rotten flesh (beef jerky), and potions (apple juice and koolaid). I usually do a pretty fancy cake and this year’s was one of the harder ones I’ve done, simply because fondant is way harder to apply to a square cake, but we made it work. I did a grass block for the base layer and did green fondant with green food coloring painted squares for the grass, and then brown sprinkles stuck to chocolate frosting for the dirt part. Then the top layer was all fondant frosting and I printed the TNT on paper, cut the letters out, and stuck them on with water.

We made Minecraft themed perler bead patterns as a craft, which is definitely a 7/8 year old and older activity, but it was super fun.

I have a feeling this obsession might continue far into the future so this might not be my last Minecraft birthday party, but it was for sure a fun one!