Stained glass adds a hard-to-replicate ambiance to any room, but the stuff sure isn't cheap. One Instructables user has detailed a method for making faux stained glass with a hot glue gun, acrylic glass (also known by its trademark Plexiglas), and whatever paint colours you plan to use. As the commenters at Instructables have noted, it's not a perfect simulation, but the faux stuff can serve as a stand-in for frames missing some glass, or for trying out rough sketches (or goofier ideas) to see how they look as stained glass. While you're at the store, consider adding your own $16 DIY privacy frosting.

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The gang at IKEA Hacker have come up with another esoteric tech hack, this time using a Söt Barnslig soft toy to create a novelty USB drive. You could easily adapt this plan for other soft toys, though you might have to hunt around to get one for less than 95 cents.

While sprucing up our place earlier this year, we decided the wall above our mantle could use some art. Rather than pony up for frames, artwork, or blown up photographs, I decided to take advantage of the cheap albums in the dollar bin of my local record store to add beautiful artwork to my living room. With just a few bucks and about 30 minutes, I built an album art wall to display some of my favourite album art—both for albums I love and for albums that I love to look at. The best part: You can easily switch out the albums on display any time. Here's how I did it.

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Cats love cardboard boxes, but they don't look nice strewn around the house—so the Evil Mad Scientists DIY site details how to assemble a hilarious cardboard box "chaise lounge" for your favourite kitty. All it takes is a few boxes and some cutting and folding, and they offer a PDF pattern download to get it just right. Once your feline's chaise is done, she'll love having a cardboard box to lounge in and you'll have a conversation-starter in your liviing room.

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A good set of headphones is a key requirement for your home office, but keeping them untangled and out of the way can be a nuisance. Wiretap at IKEA Hacker details how to build your own stand using some basic IKEA parts. A quick calculation suggests the parts will cost around $56 at your local branch.

Add mood lighting to this weekend's evening backyard soiree with some jars, LED lights, and coin cell batteries. The Evil Mad Scientists DIY site describes how to make your own temporary outdoor lighting with cheap supplies and easy assembly. Tape the LED cell to the battery to light it up, then mount that inside the jar top and set it out. This setup is temporary (and will burn out eventually if you don't disassemble) but it looks like an easy way for even beginner do-it-yourselfers to light up a dark pathway without investing in a pricey outdoor system.

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iPhone/iPod touch only: Free iPhone application Dual Level uses your iPhone or iPod touch's accelerometer to turn your device into a dual-bubble level. That's really all it does, and though it's a bit jumpy at times, it seems to work pretty well. You probably shouldn't trust this level with building your home, but for a quick and crude leveling job, it seems like it could come in handy (hopefully it'll only improve with updates). This is one app that probably works best with iPod touches and first generation iPhones, since the iPhone 3G's curved back doesn't really help with leveling. Dual Level is a free download from the iTunes store.

Got a DIY project you found on, well, some site or another, or got a small area you want to try out a paint colour on? The Wise Bread blog says that a stash of powdered milk—which they list more than a dozen other clever uses for—can be used to mix up a reasonable simulation of the stuff you pay a good amount for at the hardware store:

Mix 1 part water to 3 parts powdered milk until you get something around the consistency of paint. Blend in a water-based colour if you don't want neutral white, and paint your heart out. As with normal paint, let it dry thoroughly between coats (ie: 24 hours).

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Weblog Apartment Therapy Re-Nest shows how to repurpose a pile of old magazines or vintage books into a small table in just about 10 minutes. Pulling it off is a simple matter of tucking every 10 pages or so back into the spine of the magazine—you don't even need glue or any additional supplies. As the post points out, the concept is very similar to cardboard furniture, like previously mentioned Blox, counting on folds and layers for strength. The folks at Apartment Therapy used the magazine tables as a plant holder, but you can put it to use for whatever you need (at the very least they're a cool decoration).

DIY web site Instructables steps through how to build your own scroll wheel—like the Griffin PowerMate—with an old mouse, remote control car wheel (or similarly sized wheel that fits your hand), and a fair amount of elbow greese. The guide is detailed and the results, as you can see in the video above, are very impressive. The author even uses previously mentioned Volumouse to take his scroll wheel to the next level of usefulness. If you've got the skills to follow along, this looks like an excellent weekend project.