1) Um…you’re messy. The chance to win a free DustBuster has you all confessing your housecleaning shame. Don’t worry — we are right there with you! A lot of the entries have made us laugh, like this one from Mary, who says: “The pile of dog and cat fur I swept up last night was so big that our cat thought it was another animal! Once he spied it, he first darted down the hall and then peeked around the doorway to keep an eye on it. This is after not sweeping the living area for just three days. DustBuster, I’d like to welcome you to my world.” Ready to confess your mess for the chance to win a DusBuster? Click here.

2) We love kitschy mailbox treatments. Jen loves the horseshoe mailbox post that Megan spied, but says, “Where I live, that would last about 2 minutes before someone would destroy it.” Jen, do you live near an angry group of jockey scofflaws? Ellie says, “My favorite spotted DIY mailbox was a stack of bowling balls drilled out and slipped over the post.” Oh my gosh — now we want that, too.

3) Sites promising DIY solar panels may be fishy, but here’s a cool way to heat water. Solange says: “Here in Brazil there’s a lot of projects (ever supported by government) to use plastic bottles and milk cartons to heat water.” That sounds fascinating! Click here to see her links in comments.

4) DIY cord and cable corrals are simple. More than one of you uses paper binder clips to keep your computer cords together. Melissa says: “You just clip them around your cables (don’t clip the cables themselves, just pull your cables into a single packet and clip around them, so they’re in the hole in the middle).” See the cord and cable solution suggestions here.

5) Couroc of Monterey made glassware, too. Ita-darling says: “I just found the bull and bear plate in a thrift store last year for pennies on the dollar….a few months later and I was in another thrift (go figger) and I found the matching Bull/Bear Couroc glassware! I was unawares that Couroc even did coordinating glassware!” See that fabulous Bull and Bear ware here.

Pickles has the Puff Daddy — a knitted stool that everyone loves! Too cool. (Via Maja Brugos of Tikoli.)

City chickens nothing — we’re talking pigs, at Adventures in Eco-Living.

Some people see a conspiracy when there really — really — isn’t one, like accusing the First Lady of faking her garden’s growth, at Gawker.

“Little projects are never little,” say the folks at Our Mid Century Ranch-Bungalow. Truer words were never spoken! But they’re getting great results. (Via Retro Renovation.)

Measure, plan, become your own decorator, at Casa Sugar.

Art that celebrates summer at poppytalk.

More cool stairs, these painted pink, at Absolutely Beautiful Things.