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diy
diy
Make A Fog Machine For $5
By Ben Popken on October 28, 2011 4:00 PM
30 Comments
Forget tossing down the sawbucks at Guitar Center, you can make your own fog machine at home for just $5 with stuff you get from the store. Nope, there's no dry ice, smarty pants. This video shows you how to do it. More »
Create An Array Of Sliding Storage Bins On Your Garage Ceiling
By Ben Popken on October 6, 2011 5:00 PM
57 Comments
They say that the key to organizing, especially in a small space, is to go vertical. Well you can't go much more vertical than on top of the ceiling! That's the idea for this DIY storage system that takes advantage of all that unused space above your head in the garage. More »
Reader Saves $400 Using YouTube To Fix Her Washer
By Ben Popken on October 4, 2011 3:00 PM
75 Comments
The fable goes that the nice white-haired appliance guys are a dying breed and they're way better than their outsourced, van-driving, retail store counterparts. But sometimes the local guy is just as bad as the guy in the store wearing the official colored shirt. When her Kenmore model 417 front-loading washer went bust-o, Jane discovered she was able to save $400 in repair costs by learning how to fix it herself from Youtube videos. More »
To Keep A Sponge Clean, Snip A Hole In It, Hang It On The Faucet
By Ben Popken on September 30, 2011 11:00 AM
68 Comments
To keep germs and grime from building up on your sponges, you can just snip a little hole in them and slip them on the faucet. Handy dandy! More »
Turn A Milk Jug Into A Sandwich Box
By Ben Popken on September 26, 2011 3:00 PM
79 Comments
With a few deft maneuvers of the scissor, you can transform an empty milk carton into a reusable sandwich or snack box. More »
Water-Filled Plastic Bottles In Roof Can Replace Light Bulbs During Day
By Ben Popken on September 13, 2011 12:00 PM
73 Comments
Here's a cheap way to bring light into a dark shed during the day while cutting down on your electricity costs. Fill a plastic bottle with water and two cap-fulls of bleach and stick it through the roof. The bottle refracts the sunlight into the space and generates as many lumens as a 50 watt bulb. It's free light! More »
Man Uses 3D Printer To Make Repair Part For $25, Instead Of Paying $250
By Ben Popken on August 4, 2011 10:00 AM
137 Comments
A man had a part break on his Bugaboo, a really nice and pricey stroller. The official repair center said it would cost $250 to replace the part. So the man said, forget that, and used a 3D printing service, which creates three-dimensional objects by laying down successive layers of material, to get it fabricated in stainless steel for $25 instead. Schweet! More »
Organize Spray Bottles Under Sink With A Tension Rod
By Ben Popken on June 30, 2011 10:00 AM
33 Comments
Sick of all those spray bottles under your sink getting cluttered? Hate having to basically knock over all the bottles just to get to one bottle? One quick and cheap fix blogger Jen Grant came up with is to simply toss a tension rod up under there. More »
Build Your Own Seltzer Maker At Home
By Ben Popken on June 29, 2011 10:00 AM
44 Comments
I am a seltzer fiend. Before I got a seltzer bottle with cartridges we could go through a liter every day or so if I was feeling parched. That's a lot of bottles to lug from the store and a lot of plastic filling up the recycling. Even cartridges can be a pain because you have to keep popping them in all the time. Really what would be ideal is one of those spray nozzles like they have in bars. It turns out that installing one isn't that hard, as the Etsy blog shows in this great how-to. You need to be cool with drilling, clamping and storing a big CO2 tank somewhere, but that's a small price to pay for an endless river of tongue-dancing bubbles. More »
Make Your Own Sweet CoCo Pomade At Home
By Ben Popken on June 20, 2011 4:00 PM
22 Comments
Here's a quick and cheap recipe for making your own pomade, a waxy material you can use to style your hair, at home. (Remember pomade? It's that stuff George Clooney is obsessed with for greasing up his locks in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.) More »
Xanthan Gum Is The Secret To Making Your Own Frappuccino At Home For $.32
By Ben Popken on June 16, 2011 1:00 PM
65 Comments
If you've ever tried to come up with your own version of the Starbucks Frappuccino at home, you may have run into this problem. It separates. That lovely smooth texture and consistency you enjoy at the Sbux emporium just seems unobtainable on your own. But it turns out the secret is a simple and cheap ingredient you can find next to the flour in the supermarket: xanthan gum! More »
(katbert)
Find The Best Stuff On Etsy With A Site-Specific Google Search
By Ben Popken on May 11, 2011 2:00 PM
18 Comments
With over 800,000 different sellers on Etsy, a major online shopping site for buying handcrafted items directly from the makers, it can sometimes be a chore to wade through the clutter to find what you're looking for. But StylishHome points out that just by doing a Google search that only scans within Etsy itself, you can take advantage of Google's ranking algorithm to find the best items. More »
Hack $30 Headphones Into Sounding Like A $300 Pair
By Ben Popken on March 25, 2011 10:00 AM
55 Comments
Does It Pew shows you how you can take a cheapo pair of $30 headphones and turn them in a set that gives you the same quality sound that you might normally pay $300 for. Basically you gut a standard pair of cans and swap in these SFI tweeters. Don't be thrown off by some of the terminology on Stacy's post, you'll need to be handy with a Dremel but this is actually a pretty easy and fun DIY weekend project. More »
Fix Your Own Broken PS3 Via Safe Mode
By Phil Villarreal on March 18, 2011 11:15 AM
19 Comments
Sony inserted a safe mode into PS3s, allowing determined gamers to take a crack at fixing their broken consoles before making phone calls of shame to the customer service department to schedule repairs. More »
(KitanaOR)
Brooklyn Smoker Grows Own Tobacco To Avoid Cigarette Taxes
By Phil Villarreal on February 25, 2011 9:45 AM
138 Comments
Frustrated by the tax-fueled rising costs of cigarettes, a Brooklyn woman has developed a private tobacco garden to feed her addiction frugally. She buys her seeds for $2 online and plants her tobacco along with roses and geraniums in her back yard. She expects to yield a total of 45 cartons of cigarettes from crops planted in 2009 and last year, saving her $5,000 from what she'd pay at retail. More »
Clean That Drain Before It Cleans You Out
By Phil Villarreal on February 17, 2011 3:30 PM
56 Comments
A clogged drain can rob you in a number of ways, either by forcing an expensive plumber's visit or causing a flood. Taking some time to learn a few pointers on how to find your way around your plumbing can pay off well. More »
10 Meals You Can Make In A Coffeemaker
By Ben Popken on February 14, 2011 12:00 PM
48 Comments
As this winter has taught us, the snowpocalypse can hit at any moment, potentially leaving you snowed in at the office, stranded in a coffee break room without access to vital food heating appliances. But armed with a coffee maker, you can make several different delicious dishes to keep you going until help arrives, or at least make being attacked by the snow zombies less painful. Because nothing sucks more than getting mauled by a snow zombie on an empty stomach. Of course, ramen is a no-brainer and so are rice and soft-boiled eggs, but how about lemon pepper chicken? More »
Make Your Own Thin Mints When The Girl Scouts Aren't Around
By Phil Villarreal on February 1, 2011 1:30 PM
110 Comments
Like other delicacies such as the McRib and eggnog, Girl Scout cookies only come around every so often, leaving you to spend your time craving them in abject misery. But anyone with a cookie sheet and the ability to follow directions can easily make the latter for themselves. More »
Save Big By Replacing DLP HDTV Lamp Yourself
By Phil Villarreal on January 13, 2011 3:00 PM
58 Comments
HDTVs that use DLP technology have faded in popularity, meaning you can find some great deals out there. One aspect of DLPs that tends to scare people off is that their lamps degrade over time and will need to be replaced eventually. More »
Make Your Own Glitter Flats At Home
By Ben Popken on December 22, 2010 10:00 AM
71 Comments
Why drop $285 on a pair of Kate Spade glitter flats when you can make some yourself? Over at We Are Not Martha they show you how to take an old pair of flats and turn them into foot bedazzlers with just some mod podge, glitter, a foam brush, clear glaze spray and a mimosa. More »
