1. Pamper yourself.

Make a salon out of your home space by making hair masks and deep conditioners. Hot oil and protein treatments are easier to make and carry out than you might think, so go crazy. Whenever I’m bored at home I always end up binge watching natural hair care regimens on YouTube. I end up with a lot of ideas on how to take care of and style my hair, which usually ends up in me staying up a little too late playing in my own curls.

2. Distress some denim.

Since high school, I’ve been into distressing denim. These days, a tiny pair of stiff, distressed denim shorts can be anywhere between $25-$60. I don’t know about y’all, but I wasn’t having it. For years now I’ve been going to local thrift stores to find old (and usually more durable denim) to cut, shred and distress my own shorts and jeans. It’s time consuming but definitely a DIY project worth learning to do.

3. Learn to cook a gourmet meal.

In my humble opinion, fast food is poison (this, of course, is excluding Chipotle, Popeyes and Chick Fil A). An easy, and often slept-on alternative is to enter your kitchen, open the fridge and cook a meal yourself. And no, cooking ramen and pouring cereal does not count. If you find yourself bored at home and you need something to do, find an interesting recipe, take a trip to the grocery store and learn

to cook something new.

4. Learn to bake from scratch.

I know everyone wants to go on their summer diets and fulfill their fitness plans, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a cheat day. Everyone has somewhat of a sweet tooth, and desserts made from scratch are quite possibly one of the best things on earth. So if you’re tired of going out and need something to do one night, pour a nice glass of wine, Google some recipes, and get on your Betty Crocker flow. Learn to make cookies, cakes, pies, all of it.

5. Re-decorate your room.

We could all probably use a little more organization, and luckily enough, websites like Pinterest and Tumblr are basically comprised of cute little quirky “DIY Projects” for room storage or optimizing counter space. Sometimes its pretty cliché (like with the Mason Jar overdose where they tried to put little glass jars everywhere and in every color) and sometimes its too ambitious (like when they expect you to be able to basically carve wood or blow glass in order to finish a project). But at best, these websites give you interesting ways to re-organize and re-decorate your room by making homemade jewelry boxes or personalized picture frames. So if you’re bored, get on the internet and look into ways to give your room a little personality.

6. Make a scrapbook.

These days, everything is digital. We have a way to store everything online and we can flip through pictures on our phones whenever we want. But what happens when you lose and/or break your phone and the last time you backed it up to your computer (because no one has enough iCloud storage) was four months ago? Well…you lose some of your favorite pictures. This happened to me and it sucked, lol. What saved my life, though, was the fact that I frequently print my favorite photos to hang on the wall of my dorm room. Not everyone wants to take up their wall space with a ton of pictures, so a good alternative is to do it like our parents did back in the day: photo albums and scrapbooks. Not only does it give you something to do, but it gives you something to look forward to opening up and looking through when you’re older and feeling nostalgic.

7. Tie dye everything.

One of my favorite shirts right now is my tie-dyed Howard University t-shirt. Tie dye (although it can look a little childish sometimes) is bright and vibrant and fits perfectly into a summertime wardrobe. Tie dye isn’t hard (just messy) and, if you’re anything like me and end up babysitting most the time, it’s a perfect little project to do with young kids. If the kid you’re babysitting really needs a distraction, teach him/her to tye dye everything. Yes, everything. In his favorite color, your favorite color. Do it all.

8. Learn to sew.

We all have that one pair of pants coming apart at the hem or a beloved jacket with a hole in the sleeve or even a hat that we want to distress and sew a patch on. Instead of throwing away clothes or spending money taking them to alterations, learn to sew it yourself. More likely than not, you’ve got the time on your hands and it’s a skill that will come in handy time and time again in the future.