My job is to find cool stuff. Throughout the week, I spend hours scouring the web for things that are useful or fun or ridiculously cheap. Often times, these choices coalesce into a guide of like items—for example, things to bring to the beach, awesome grill gear, or genius road trip items. But I often stumble across some pretty awesome stuff that doesn’t really fit into a list. So I made a list for those.
Today’s group is all DIY, all day. The five kits below will help you craft everything from music boxes to hot sauce.
Table of Contents
Music Box Kit
It takes two to tango, but it only takes one to make your own music box. This DIY mechanical music box kit lets you create your own melodies by punching holes in the provided paper strips. A copy of Happy Birthday is included to show you how it works. It comes with the hole punch, a crankable mechanical player, and three paper strips, but you can buy extras for $7. Note: the package doesn’t come with an actual box or musical talent.
Hot Sauce Kit
This hot sauce kit isn’t for the faint of heat. You get illustrated instructions as well as enough ingredients to make up to 14 bottles of hot sauce depending on the recipes you choose. The package includes seven containers—three glass bottles and four squeezable bottles. As for the spicy stuff, you get four different kinds of peppers—Ghost Peppers, Ancho Pasillas, Chipotle, and Habanero. Label your bottles and send some out as presents. Nothing says you care like the heat of a ghost pepper to the face.
Kombucha Kit
If you are a fan of this fermented beverage, you know how expensive it can be to buy at the store. This DIY GetKombucha kit comes with black and green tea, a kombucha culture, and some sugar cane to feed the fermentation. Use the illustrated instructions to create some refreshing ‘buch—that’s what I call it. The kit comes with lifetime access to a support line, so If you have no clue what you are doing, you can reach out for tips.
Mini Pies and Ravioli Kit
The Mastrad mini pies and ravioli kit doesn’t limit you to its namesake items. You can make dumplings, turnovers, empanadas and pretty much any other kind of food that involves cramming a filling into a delicious edible pocket. The kit comes with a recipe book, four shaped cutters, and five molds. Throw the pieces into the dishwasher when you are done for an easy clean up.
Lip Balm Kit
It’s time to outgrow that cloying cherry lip sludge you’ve been slathering on since your middle school days. This natural DIY lip balm kit comes with 23 containers—tubes, tins, and tubs—labels for those containers, and and instruction card. Melt the beeswax and then experiment with shea butter, coconut butter, and the four essential oils—peppermint, rose geranium, lavender, and lime—to find the right balance for your favorite balm.
