Another expression of me need to “do it myself” is the building of pedals. There are many resources on the internet, but for kits I have used:

Build Your Own Clone

My favorite for the “real” experience is:

Guitar FX Layouts

There is a learning curve for these and I have had a few misadventures and wasted components. This site has great resources for component explanation as well as the schematics/layouts for some classic and obscure pedals that are very expensive to buy.