Heather Mann writes a blog called Dollar Store Crafts, which evolved from her occasional trips to the extreme-discount dollar stores near her home in Salem, Ore. Her readers admire her gift for buying really cheap stuff and then making cool and beautiful things from the pile. Her knockoff “alien abduction lamp” is jury-rigged from a small light fixture, two plastic bowls (flying saucer), a clear acrylic tumbler (tractor beam) and a small plastic toy cow (abductee) — all purchased for about five bucks.
