Yes, it may be too late unless you overnight it, but these greeting cards for Mom’s day at More Ways to Waste Time are still worth a look. Mommie Dearest could easily double as art — perhaps for that guest room?

Need some garden inspiration? Check out the before and after of Jenn’s front yard at Simple Things. (We are a big fan of the no-grass look ourselves.)

Want to screen print at home? It may be easier than you think. Precious Style showed us to this how-to post at Instructables.

Here’s something interesting at Apartment Therapy: How to Read Design Blogs and Resist the Urge to Buy. May seem counter-intuitive, but sounds like valuable information.

Care for a cheescake pop? Yes, you read that right. See how well they turned out at Dozen Flours.

Thanks to Happy Mundane, we checked out these eyelet-covered rocks at Craftzine. Jon’s right — they are surprisingly beautiful.

Not ready to commit to wallpaper in a big way? Just think of all the fun projects you could do with a single roll of modern, graphic wallpaper: You could paper the back of a bookcase, affix the paper to drawer fronts, layer it under a piece of glass cut to fit a dresser-top or a coffee table, wrap it around plain lampshades, make a faux headboard, paper the inside of a paneled door, paper just the wall behind the vanity in a small powder room… Danish design company Ferm Living makes some of the most
beautiful wallpaper patterns around — whether you’re papering an entire room or experimenting with wallpaper in smaller doses. Each 21-inch by 32-foot roll normally retails for $85 — but it never hurts to check eBay to see if you can get a better deal because someone is selling off the extra roll they wound up not needing or chickened out on using. Right now, eBay seller danclarkatlanta has seven single rolls of seven different Ferm paper patterns (including Orchid, Berry Black, and Silhouette, among others) listed with Buy It Now prices of $55 per roll. (So grab ‘em before they’re gone.) What sort of projects would you use one of these for? –Leah H.

Bright ideas we gathered from your comments.

1. Everyone is doing something different with that stimulus check. Some are saving, some are spending, everyone has a different plan. Sara of Going Jesus is doing a little bit of spending but also investing in her community. “We’re getting a new mattress,” she says. “I am beyond excited about this, as the current one is killing my back. I’m buying from a local family-owned store. I’ve been trying to spend more of my money with eBay and Etsy and local stores lately.” Sounds like a very good plan.

2. Extension agencies are there to help your garden. Celene has a tip to keep your garden green: “Seek out your local extension agency — they will have master gardener volunteers who can lead you to all sorts of info about your local flora (and fauna)! I am proud to be an MG here in Florida we get questions like yours all the time. Keep up the excellent work! This time next year, your place will be amazing!” See how Angela’s garden is growing here.

3. Chris Crites’ mug shots are big hits. “Oh my god, I love the old mug shots. I am buying one now for a friend who flip for them,” says Angela. While Leah agrees, “Those mugshots are awesome!” See all the art here.

4. More cool, recycled toothbrushes are out there. Tasha says, “I just saw the Preserve toothbrushes at Trader Joe’s this weekend, and the first thing I thought of when I saw them was this post! I think their slim profile would allow them to fit in the old-style holders, and best of all, the handles are 100% recycled, at least 25% from yogurt cups! When you’re done with them, send them to the company in the enclosed reply envelope, and they’ll be recycled again into plastic lumber products like park benches. The packaging also doubles as a carrying case. How awesome are they?” Here’s what prompted her comment.

5. Angela’s so-cute crewel scores are part of a larget set. Jenny says, “Over the past year, I’ve collected these same crewel kits plus two others to complete the set and stitched them myself.” See Angela’s finds here.

We agree with You Grow Girl that these flower colors look great together and love the wall color behind them, too.

A smog-eating house at Inhabitat. We want the backyard to have a kite-eating tree.

Lots of commenters on this Small Cool entry love the duvet, and one of them found it for us at Anthropologie.

Paola at MirrorMirror tells a charming story about a trip to Cirque du Soleil and shares a lesson in excellent customer service.

More lovely affordable art from Love Made Visible.

Hot potato at Delicious Days (weigh in with your favorites).

What’s the secret to great meatloaf? How to make limoncello? Pickle popsicles?! Clearly, Not Martha is the place for every link you can think of.

Meg found some recycled rugs that got a positive reponse, and now Leah finds us even more.

I’m continually amazed by the sheer breadth of handmade goods available on Etsy — not just art and pottery and the like but, increasingly, major household items such as handcrafted furniture and even area rugs. Let’s take a look at some of the unique (and often eco-friendly) floor coverings currently on offer. Above is a 5-by-7-foot Grey Astrakhan Rug made from six vintage sheepskin coats. $2,500 from Ouno.

8-by-13-foot Felt Block Rug, available in a variety of custom-dyed colors, $1,875 from feeldesign.

So many more rugs after the jump! (more…)

Coink piggy bank via Modern Nursery.

The economic stimulus checks have started to arrive, putting anywhere from $600-1200 in your bank account. Politics aside, what are you planning to do with the cash? You could get an Eames rocker, buy yourself some art, or do some eBay shopping. Or maybe you’d prefer to put the money aside in case the economy takes an even more serious downturn. So what are your plans for the extra cash? (Thanks to reader patty bolgiano for suggesting this question!)

Have a voyeuristic itch to scratch? We do — peeking into homes far more luxe than ours is both a pleasure and tease. Happily, we found a new source on line for some mighty swanky kitchens. Over at epicurious.com, they’ve posted a few video tours of some famous kitchens of people we’d love to have dinner with (especially if they were cooking). Our favorite is Isaac Mizhari, who gushes about all of his kitchen accessories, including bowls from Target, a chic (Alessi?) bread box and his espresso machine. Click here to hang with Isaac and see more.

Bright ideas we gathered from your comments.

1) Microfiber is a good choice for people with cats. Pencils let us know that while her Sleepytime Rocker is a big hit with the cat, cleaning it isn’t a big issue: “Can’t wait to rock a baby in it, but so far the cat really is enjoying it — and her abundant Maine Coon fur doesn’t stick to the microfiber upholstery.” See where else we clicked last week.

2) You can find toothbrushes that not only are colorful and recycled, they look like they’ll fit in most holders! Inez weighed in on the toothbrush storage post with a link to these toothbrushes by Alan Stuart. Too cool.

3) We’re not the only ones who can’t leave Target with just one thing. Okay — we pretty much knew that already, but we did recognize ourselves in Becky’s comment: “I’m off to Target with the intention of spending $10, but I know I won’t leave until my cart is full. I’ll wind up with an array of unrelated items, like milk, a Jovavitch-Hawk skirt that makes me look really fat, a ‘fiendish’ platinum soduku book, some slutty looking shoes I’ll never end up wearing, some men’s pajama pants, a funny garden gnome, cat litter, a Victoria Hagan mirror, a Converse shirt I am way too old to get away with, a DVD, toilet paper, and a pink garden hose!” Thank you, readers, for always making us laugh. And check out that $10 hot pink garden hose here.

4) There are a lot of earth-friendly cat litters out there. (That sometimes dogs love a little too much, too). Susan Y says, “I used World’s Best, Swheat Scoop, Feline Pine, and right now I’m testing the litter called ‘Space’ which they sell at Trader Joe’s. World’s Best and Swheat Scoop were good, but I have a dog that LOVED to eat the litter. I’m still unsure about Space because they are made of full silica pellets, so they don’t have dust, but I’m not sure how biodegradable they are. Anyone have info?” See the Feline Fresh post here.

5) Some husbands have really interesting hobbies. Quite a few readers were excited by Angela’s family foray into beekeeping, and some of you have wanted to try it out yourselves. But only mod*mom had this to say: “I would freak out with all those bees. My husband is a falconer + it took a long time for me to like having a bird on my glove. I’m not as relaxed as he is.” Click to learn more about Angela and Chad’s new beekeeping venture.

Urban Flea alerted us to the existence of her blog (And complimented us — does this mean we’re suckers for compliments? Ummmm, maybe…?) so we checked it out. We like the weekly contest idea — this week it’s all about bookshelves.

The delightful Not Martha alerted us to some very cool new RuMe reusable shopping bags from Delight.com. (She had a giveaway, too, but unless you are reading this post before 8 a.m. Pacific time, you may have missed it.)

Remember that zebra-print rug that KTG hated? Well…here’s where to get one.

Lifehacker has some easy ways to go green with your computer — this is a big one for the laptop-addicted such as ourselves.

We liked the Sarah Jane Three Bears art as seen at Poppytalk — note that the cool rocker mentioned by one of our readers is proclaimed “just right.”

Via blogazar (another cool blog we just noticed) we admired this extremely great retro-style art from ISO50.

Another recent find is feeling stitchy — an offshoot of the Flickr Embroidery Group. We like any site that links to Jenny Hart.

Old meets new at the hands of Etsy seller Mudpuppy (aka Denver, Colorado ceramist Michael McDowell), who takes vintage fine china and refires it with modern abstract designs. See all of the offerings (such as the Baby Head Planters, $25 each, which simultaneously fascinate me and freak me out) in Mudpuppy’s Etsy shop. –Leah H.

See more of Leah’s great finds on her blog, More Ways to Waste Time.