$3 Emergency Solar-Powered Radio Made With an Altoids Tin Joshua Zimmerman has a great project up on Instructables for turning an Altoids tin into a compact solar radio. All said, the entire project cost a whole $3. It seems like a project coming at a time when everyone is ultra aware of emergency situations, so it is both a fun and practical weekend tinkering project. And he's right. With a project time of just under an hour, it's ideal for testing out your DIY skills on a weekend. Joshua lists parts and tools as:an FM Radio, two Solar Garden Lights, 1 Diode ($1 for 100 of them online, or take one out of any random junk pile), and a few basic tools like a soldering iron, drill, some wire and wire strippers, a headset or the speakers from a set of earbuds, and of course, the Altoids tin. The full instructions are on Instructables, so you can get the details for putting this together yourself -- the steps don't look daunting, and it's a great learning project.
Multifunctional Crib Furniture Concept: 5 in 1 bundle Bam b. 5 in 1 is a furniture concept that has lots of multifunctional advantages from Gro Furniture. The gro crib offers the possibility to be used as crib, toddler bed, daybed, desk and the playtable, all bundled together. The furniture is made from solid amber bamboo plus solid birch ply with low-VOC non-toxic, organic, plant-based, fully biodegradable white finish. The white components are 100% hardwood baltic birch 13 ply solid core plywood with non-toxic low-VOC durable finish. Free Cold Frame Projects & Tutorials I mainly use my cold frame to start bedding plants a little earlier than my zone normally allows and they do work like a charm for that purpose. If you’d like to extend your growing season, these are an ideal solution. I’ve been searching online for simple, cheap plans that use recycled materials and are easy to understand, but it’s been a tricky task. A few of these come close since they use old storm windows or glass doors, while others are more advanced projects but still worth a look or two. homeenvy.com Recycled Window: Made with an old window, cedar fencing, cedar decking and 1×2 cedar. Simple & Cheap: Simple design and made with recycled materials such as a sliding glass door (or any piece of glass) and framed with wood. doorgarden.com canadiangardening.com Modular Box: Made with a salvaged wooden storm window for the top and features booster frames (preferably using cedar) that make it easy to adjust the height of the cold frame. civileats.com ronhazelton.com sunset.com resene.co.nz
A Pretty Penny | life & style. fresh-picked {almost} daily. Breadboard How To The purpose of the breadboard is to make quick electrical connections between components- like resistors, LEDs, capacitors, etc- so that you can test your circuit before permanently soldering it together. Breadboards have many small sockets on them, and some groups of sockets are electrically connected to each other. On the underside of the board there are many small metal strips which physically connect certain groups of sockets together and allow electricity to flow freely between them. These strips are probably not visible on the underside of your breadboard, but the third picture shows how they are organized. Breadboards are usually divided into four sections, two outer sections and two inner sections.
Turn Your Vehicle Into A Portable Generator | DIY Alternative Energy Battery operated tools are great, but sometimes they’re just not up to the job. If you need sustained power at a remote location, this may be just the trick for you. You can turn your car or truck into a portable generator – and the process is simple and for a decent price. Sponsored Link One of our next projects is a second shed. So, the first shed went up using hammers. Family Handyman article shows the full conversion. This project hovers around the $450 range, which is about the same price as a medium-sized portable generator.
Just in Time for Winter: How to Build Your Own Mini-Greenhouse Gardeners looking to extend the growing season into winter can do so with a cold frame. These handy mini-greenhouses trap heat and keeping cool-season veggies growing in spite of frosty weather. Cold frames are inexpensive to build and don't consume a lot of energy. This modular cold frame design offers two frame options: single- and double-tier. The lid should be kept shut on cold days and propped open for ventilation on unseasonably warm days. COLD FRAME MATERIALS A — One 36-inch x 57-inch Lexan sheet B — Five 10-foot, 1 x 12-inch and two 10-foot, 1 x 6-inch cedar boards; one 8-foot 1 x 6-inch cedar board for braces C — 20 31⁄2-inch No.10 exterior-grade screws D — Two 3-inch heavy-duty galvanized steel hinges E — 13 size # 20 wooden biscuits F — Hand tools: saw, measuring tape, pencil, set square, 2-strap clamps, straight edge ruler G — Power tools: drill, table or circular saw fitted with a universal blade, miter saw, biscuit cutter Construction time : 6 hours
How to Make Clothing Buttons from Shrink Plastic… This tutorial is an old one of mine that’s too good not to share again. Since posting the first time, I’ve had lots of questions about these buttons which will hopefully be answered in this revised post. Equipment Some handy notes: 1. single hole, hole punch (like this one here). 2. 3. Okay.. lets get started! Tracing tips: You can use either coloured pencils or permanent pens. Words must be writted backwards in order to be readable. Shrinking the buttons: To shrink the buttons, you can use an oven or a heat gun (the kind used for embellishing). After the buttons have twisted and twirled, and are LYING FLAT, it’s time to take them out. Note: If the skrinking is taking too long, you may need to turn your oven up. Here’s a short little stop-motion to make sure you’ve got the gist of how easy this is! Shrink Paper {here} Circle Punch {here} Hole punch {here} Pens {here} Update: I’ve made a video to show how to shrink the buttons using a craft embellishment heat gun. Kimanh Hi my name's Kimanh.
Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new. Hack a Day - Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.eHow - eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.Wired How-To Wiki - Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.
Build a #10 Can ROCKET STOVE: It Cooks an Entire Meal With Twigs! - Prepared Housewives Everytime I’ve done an emergency fair, the most popular alternative cooking method that I demonstrate has been the Rocket Stove (by a long shot)! People LOVE this one, including me! It has immediately shot to the top of my FAVORITE’s list and something I recommend EVERYONE should add to their emergency supplies! Why? A handful of twigs can cook an ENTIRE MEAL! And if you use the design below it fits anywhere, only weighs about 1 lb, very portable, easy to use, practically free, great for camping,…. Grab Some Scraps and Make a ROCKET STOVE! A huge thanks to Brock, who is an Organic Wellness Doctor by day, and a Rocket Stove engineer by night. He was nice enough to let me invite myself over to his workshop and be totally obnoxious with my picture-taking. #10 CAN W/ LID – Recycle one or get one from the cannery.2 LARGE 28oz CANS – Eat lots of beans tonight :)EXTRA CAN – You need an extra can to make the shelf.INSULATION – Grab some from the attic.TIN SNIPS – or anything that can cut metal!
DIY: Possibly the coolest boots you'll ever wear. Hands down, my favorite part about looking at fashion blogs are the DIY's. Nothing makes me more happy than creating something with my hands. ESPECIALLY if it sells on the internet for $400 and I can make it for $50:) I've had an extreme obsession with ankle boots for some time now, but havn't been able to find the perfect pair..... and I think I possibly just made them....... (Before picture) Just a plain ol' pair of cowboy boots that I got at the melrose flea market for $40. You can use any color or style. Cut a slit down down the back and stop at the top of the heel, or wherever you want your boots to fold at. Fold the top down. For this particular look the fold should come all the way down to the bottom of the shoe. Get yourself some vintage belts. Start rappin. Just keep layering belts until you've achieved the look you want and cinch them tight so your boots stay on. finito. Another view. Fancy instagram picture of the finished project. Try it and post your pics please:)
Build Your Own $20 Outdoor Cob Pizza Oven | The Year of Mud I must admit, I’m a bit of a breadhead. Few things are as exciting to me as freshly baked bread with a dab of butter, or hot and greasy scallion pancakes, or fluffy and airy naan, or a pizza fresh from the hearth of a wood-fired cob oven. (That last one trumps all the others.) I thrive on bread. I love eating it, and of course I love making and baking it, too. Earlier in the year, the idea of baking in the outdoors in a wood-fired oven became something of a romanticized (in every positive sense of the word) notion to me. So I picked up a copy of Kiko Denzer’s Build Your Own Earth Oven, a little gem of a book covering the construction of cob ovens from the ground up. How To Build an Outdoor Pizza Oven The Foundation With little more than some clay, sand, sawdust, brick, some recycled beer bottles and old cinder blocks, I had everything I needed to make my own oven. The Fire Brick Oven Hearth (Laying out the beer bottles, and later, filling in with sawdust/clay mortar) Sizing the Cob Oven
Recipes, Kids Crafts, DIY Ideas, Tutorials And More How To Build An Outdoor Cob Oven For $20 | Home Design, Garden & Architecture Blog Magazine Technology has brought the art of making food to a new level which may in fact ruin someone on the long term if they don’t have the necessary knowledge of dealing without the appliances and devices at our disposal nowadays. Try baking something without fossil fuels or electricity for a week and you’ll find out how really hard that is. But if you’re lucky enough to have the space for a cob oven, you can make it just fine. For building the oven from scratch, you will need some hard work, positioning the stones for the foundation, continuing with filling with clay mortar, making the arch doorway and cob dome, and finishing with clay or sand mortar between the bricks. It could take you days, but with recycled materials, you would only spend some 20 $ on the entire structure.