Are you the creative type? Not put off by a hammer, saw or drill? Ever dreamed of making your own solar water heater or cooker?

Instructables is a site you’ll love! It offers step by step guides to making all sorts of amazing gear – from simple cleaning items to quite complex alternative energy related equipment. Often the projects can be made from recycling common items found around the home/shed or materials that can be purchased quite cheaply.

Here’s just a small selection of the green themed projects from the site.

How to make the “best mop in the world” using old towels and linen

Solar heater: A solar air convection heater powered by the low angle winter sun.

Build a solar hot dog cooker with minimal tools and materials.

Bicyled powered generator : use your bike to generate electricity for your notebook, television and more!

Make your own solar panels: how to source cheap solar cells and assemble them to create a solar panel.

Solar thermal water heater: heat water courtesy of the sun for under 5 bucks cost of materials.

Reading light: Instructions for making a reading light that you power by winding

Recycled Mini Dry Erase Board – have a heap of empty cd cases? Put them to good use!

Drum composter for $10 – $15 – the creates states that this project applies the fine art of meatball carpentry; with an emphasis on form rather than aesthetics :).

Instructables isn’t just green focused, so you’ll likely find some thoroughly environmentally unfriendly projects out there, but dig around for the green gold; there’s a stack to be found!

On a somewhat related note, if you’re wanting to do something with all the plastic bags you have laying around, here’s some plastic bag craft ideas.

Know of any other general do-it-yourself type sites that have a good selection of projects for the eco-conscious? Please add them below!