​We love the DIY culture. There's something about buying an old, beat up piece of furniture with a beautiful skeleton, taking the whole thing apart and building the frame up from scratch. It's like completely rebuilding your sad, crappy life.

Though we love the thought of it, the time and effort required to do this massive undertaking is a bit more than we can actually handle. That's why we loved Found Miami Design.

They've relocated and they're throwing a party tonight for their new digs! Now we love them even more.
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JennaDickes' prints: for cat ladies and Internet lovers everywhere.

​One look at the DIY website Etsy proves it: Homemade crafts have come a long way since Nana's crocheted doilies. Though there are plenty of failed attempts at creativity represented on the site -- Regretsy, anyone? -- they're balanced by pieces that are original, inventive, and aesthetically stunning. And many of them come from our own backyard.

These Miami vendors were chosen for their unique approach to the homemade item, incorporating spunky elements and makeshift glam. After all, beneath all the diamond-encrusted panache strutting about Miami, there's got to be an understated longing for the simpler things in life.
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courtesy of Julia Veli

Model Alexia Delorme models a dress made of New Times covers by friend Julia Veli

​Thousands of people read last week's feature on the deadly thrills and spills of home-built airplanes. Countless fans followed our instructions and made paper planes out of our innovative cover. But only one person took the story's DIY focus to heart.

Local artist Julia Veli made dozens of paper planes from the cover, then fashioned them into the sexiest thing to say New Times this year.

Keep reading for more photos of Veli's creation
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A sampling from the Downtown Open Market

​If you're the kind of person who shudders at the thought of Black Friday or abhors malls altogether, chances are you'd be a good candidate for buying handmade this year. Not only do you avoid fighting your way through obnoxious crowds of sale-hungry consumers, but when you buy handmade, you'll know that you're buying a unique item that wasn't manufactured by underpaid workers under sweatshop conditions.

In an age when everything seems to be imported from somewhere else, it's nice to know exactly who made something and even begin to form a relationship with the seller if you decide to purchase from them again.

Behold these three upcoming South Florida indie craft fairs where you can satisfy your handmade hankering and buy something really awesome for everyone on your list this year.
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monicannone via Etsy

Just one of the many treasures Arboleda Festival is a fan of on Etsy.

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​At last count, the PostSecret web site had counted 466,771,333 visitors. Chances are, you're one of them. But the site has only received a measly half million postcard contributions! That means only .11 percent of PostSecret's trollers have had the burning desire to publicly share the shameful secrets of their souls. Or maybe it's just that 99.89% of people are just too boring to generate secrets horrible enough to slap on a postcard for the world to see.

In honor of PostSecret Live tomorrow at the University of Miami's Gusman Hall, here's our step-by-step guide to creating your own disgusting secret and displaying it handsomely on a homemade postcard. Even the lamest among us can enjoy the thrill of having our dirty laundry (real or imagined) aired out via the glorious interweb.
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​Cheech and Chong, The Dude, Smokey, Jay, Kumar. These are some of the great heroes of weed movie history. You can add Yugo and Super Dave to that list. They are Miami's own killer bud-smoking, Yugoslav rap bro, and Kentucky redneck answer to the stoner film genre. They're raising money for their feature film with director William Avnayim on Indie GoGo. All they need is $5,420 to produce their two new scripts: one for a short, and one for a feature.

The duo's epic stoner journey began back in 2009 with the 16 mm film short Killer Bud, a Casino meets Half Baked adventure where Yugo and Dave come home to a dead Cuban rent lady, find a joint in her mouth, and dump the body in the Everglades. We caught up with Yugo and Super Dave by video conference call and found out about selling dub sacs, Kentucky Kush, their new movie, and lighters with bottle openers.More >>

Beer soap collage.

​We love beer and its many uses, such as helping us forget that fight we had with our girlfriend or the two hundred bucks we lost playing Texas Hold 'Em at the Calder Casino & Race Course after the fight with little Ms. Pissy Pants.

We are not alone in our pursuit for bigger and better ways to use beer (such as dousing our hair with it for natural highlights). The Beer Soap Co., based right here in the 305, has found a way to combine hops and hygiene. They were also one of the vendors at this past weekend's Brickell Bazaar.More >>

Jessica Herstein of Made With Log

​Nightingales in large cities have learned to belt out 95-decibel songs (i.e., as loud as a chain saw) in order to make themselves heard over everyday clamor. And it'll take a similar effort for this Saturday's Brickell Bazaar to get noticed in blingy, bass-thumping Miami. Presented by DJ Oski, Queen of the Scene, and Amanda Weiner of Indie Craft Bazaar, this handmade goods market is a rare sight in the 305.

"Broward and Palm Beach definitely have their share of awesome handmade events, so it's certainly time Miami gets a dose of it," Weiner says. "There's a huge demand for handmade and local goods within Miami, but given its size, general sense of transience, something as tied to the local community and small businesses as handmade can easily get lost within the hustle and bustle."
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Courtesy of PrettyontheOutside.typepad.com

​Something's not a meme until it's sold on Etsy, right? At least that's how we judge it (see our Human Centipede and Charlie Sheen handmade roundups). So consider us proud parents as the ladies of Real Housewives of Miami are now immortalized on the indie goods site.

David Gilmore, the illustrator behind web site Pretty on the Outside, has created caricatures of these 305 reality TV mavens. He captured the ridiculousness of Lea Black, but his Elsa Patton portrait...well, looks like someone has an Elsa crush bigger than ours. The Cuban expat hasn't looked as good as in his portrait since these before pictures.
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