background preloader

DIY

Facebook Twitter

20 Awesome Do It Yourself Projects. Thursday, June 14, 2012 4:30 am, Posted by Chris Groves | Internet 20 Awesome Do It Yourself Projects. How to reuse water bottles. We all know the three “R”s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

How to reuse water bottles

Reducing can be accomplished by purchasing an eco-friendly bottle, and keeping it with you to refill from the tap or water cooler. As for recycling, almost every municipality has some type of either curbside recycling, or a local place you can take your used plastics. The fun comes when we come to the third “R,” reuse. Statistics say that only about 20 percent of plastic water bottles are actually recycled, which leaves 80 percent to end up in landfills, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Instructables - Make, How To, and DIY. Plumbing in Construction from Construction Knowledge.net. 1.

Plumbing in Construction from Construction Knowledge.net

What Three Things Must the Plumber Know? 2. It Runs Downhill...But What Then? Self Improvement. Uses for shipping pallets: From disposable packaging to a reusable resource. Cheap and plentiful, wood pallets are used to ship millions of consumer goods from one end of the globe to the other, protecting them from damage.

Uses for shipping pallets: From disposable packaging to a reusable resource

But they're often used just once and then discarded. While some are too worn to reuse, many are made of durable hardwoods like oak and walnut. Here are some of the uses for shipping pallets that reclaim this resource and either recycle it, or put it to work in the home and garden. Because they're so bulky, and many companies sending and receiving goods use hundreds of them in a single month, pallets can be expensive to dispose of. Environmentally responsible companies are starting to rebuild, reuse, recycle or reduce the number of pallets that they use to cut landfill costs and waste. Many firms work with pallet recycling companies that pick up used pallets and then use wood from broken pallets to repair others or create new ones. Weatherize this: Draft stoppers. For my kick-off “Weatherize this” post — a series of posts I’ll be publishing about affordable DIY weatherization accoutrement — I focused on caulk, not the most titillating topic.

Weatherize this: Draft stoppers

While caulking around windows and doors is a vital way to conserve household energy and save on heating bills, talking about it is, well, as exciting as watching caulk compound dry. Today, I’m highlighting a home weatherization must-have that performs a similar role as caulk — keeping warm air and cold air out — but has more appeal to arts and crafts enthusiasts than to construction-oriented fix-it fanatics: the humble, beloved, and often animal-shaped draft stopper. Draft stoppers, also called draft dodgers and door snakes, are tube-shaped objects of various lengths made with fabric (often excess/scrap fabric) and filled with some kind of insulating stuffing. You’ll most often find them placed against the bottom of closed doors or on window ledges to block pesky winter drafts from entering a room.

Frühlingskabine Micro-Farm. Build A Hydroponic Indoor Garden From IKEA Parts. © Antonio Scarponi/Conceptual Devices.

Build A Hydroponic Indoor Garden From IKEA Parts

Designer Antonio Scarponi at his 'ELIOOO Desk,' a workspace with a built-in garden. Billy bookcases and Malm bed frames are all well and good, but with a little ingenuity and some DIY skills, familiar IKEA components can become something quite unexpected: hydroponic systems to grow herbs, vegetables, or other plants in your apartment. DIY Hydroponic HacksDesigner Antonio Scarponi of Conceptual Devices, whose prototype rooftop fish farm we covered on TreeHugger earlier this year, is now working on a step-by-step instruction manual to carrying out such hydroponic hacks. © Antonio Scarponi/Conceptual Devices. Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life (9781617230028): Marcus Wohlsen.

Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery) (9780596153748): Charles Platt. Making Things Move DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists (9780071741675): Dustyn Roberts. Make a Portable Hammock. New Uses for Old Things. 25 DIY Handmade Gift Tutorials Part 2. I love handmade gifts!

25 DIY Handmade Gift Tutorials Part 2

I love to give them, I love to receive them, I love to make them. In our home May is a crazy month! We have Mother’s Day, our Anniversary and not just one but 2 birthdays. Gifts are in my mind! …It took me a few weeks however to put this list of handmade gifts together. Most favorited all-time. In case of emergency (gear for this one or the next) We made sure we had most things on FEMA’s general list, except for things you’d already have like canned food and plastic bags. You should really check out FEMA’s website, because it’s not just about having a bunch of gear ready—it’s about preparing buildings and knowing how to get a hold of your loved ones and planning ahead of problems.

(People in flood areas should have materials to construct sandbags, while people in earthquake zones should add braces to their foundations to resist seismic activity, for example.) We will be updating this list in sections over the next few days. Note that these recommendations were done swiftly and do not have the dozen hours of research most picks do backing them up, but we have done our best to vet gear that is safe to buy and own.

If you’ve got suggestions, please put them in the comments and I’ll check them out. Table of Contents 12V to 110V car inverter (plus USB) — $22 Athena Soladyne 7-inch mini solar lantern — $21 Cheap batteries — $12. 15 Cool Crafts Made with Altoid Tins & Clay & Sculpting Crafts Ideas & Kids Crafts & Activities. If you ever had an Altoid mint you know that the mints come in this wonderful little tin.

15 Cool Crafts Made with Altoid Tins & Clay & Sculpting Crafts Ideas & Kids Crafts & Activities

But, who would have thought all the imaginative things you could do with this little tin. By scouring the internet I came across a bunch of Altoid crafts you can make. In this post I am listing 15 of the coolest crafts you can make with Altoid Tins. The crafts range in skill level between easy and more challenging. But, you can count on each of them being a lot of fun. . (1) Altoids Mini Flashlight. Instructables - Make, How To, and DIY.