Hot The Secret Yumiverse Posts « The Secret Yumiverse

How To: Wash Your 'Dry Clean Only' Clothes at Home for Cheap

Dry cleaning can be a pain the butt, not to mention super expensive, especially if you're wearing a lot of wool sweaters during the cold winter season. Thankfully, with a little time and effort, you can wash most of your "dry clean" or "dry clean only" clothing at home.

How To: 4 Cheap & Easy Ways to Unclog Your Kitchen Sink Without Any Nasty Chemicals

Oh, boy. A stopped-up drain. It'll inevitably happen with any home plumbing system and your kitchen sink is no exception. That clog won't go away on its own and will require immediate attention to keep any standing water from rising. But you don't have to resort to calling an expensive plumber or using a bottle of hazardous chemicals. Using simple kitchen staples or common household objects, as well as some determination, you can unclog your kitchen sink on your own without paying a dime.

How To: 7 DIY Ways to Remove Oil Stains from Your Asphalt Driveway

If you have an oil stain on your asphalt driveway, wipe up the excess oil with an absorbent cloth or mop it up, then act quickly using the common household items below to make sure that it doesn't become a permanent eyesore or a headache to clean up later.

How To: 9 DIY Ways to Eliminate Static Cling Without Using Dryer Sheets

If you ever need to get rid of static cling quickly while on the go, simply run the article of clothing through a metal hanger to dispel the static. You could also place lotion on your skin underneath the clothes you are wearing to get rid of the dryness that is causing the static cling.

How To: 15 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Throw Out Your Old Socks

Need to give yourself a super-cheap back massage? Place a few tennis balls inside a long sock, tie the end, and place the sock on the floor. Then, lie down and roll your back against the sock to relieve your sore back muscles.

How To: 10 DIY Ways to Repair Nicks & Scratches on Wooden Furniture

If you've had wooden furniture in your living space for a while, chances are that you've accumulated at least a couple of nicks and scratches on the surface. Before you spend money on a professional wood refinisher to restore the surface, try out some of the DIY techniques below using common household items to minimize the visibility of the scratch.

How To: 9 Ways to Cool Down Your Burning Hot Mouth After Eating Really Spicy Foods

Mouth burning with pain from eating too much hot sauce or some seriously "spicy" food? Well, ignore your first instinct and steer clear of that cup of cold water — it won't help. Instead, reach for a glass of milk, a lemon slice, a spoonful of sugar, or some starchy bread to dilute the painful heat on your tongue.

How To: Make Your Own Temporary Tattoo

Whether you need very temporary skin art for a costume or simply want to test-run a potential tattoo design before it gets permanent, making your own temporary tattoo only requires wax paper, a printout or drawing of your desired design, black eyeliner, rubbing alcohol, baby powder, liquid bandage, and a lot of patience.

How To: 9 DIY Ways to Painlessly Remove Splinters from Your Skin

Removing a stubborn splinter from your finger or foot is never fun, especially if it involves digging into your skin with a needle or tweezers. But if you use common household or food items around the house, you can remove splinters from your skin very easily and quite painlessly.

How To: 9 Common Household Items That Can Unstick Your Stuck Zipper

Sooner or later you're going to have to deal with a stuck zipper, whether it's on your favorite jacket, backpack, or pair of pants. Simply tugging hard on the zipper tab hardly ever works, but a few things lying around your house might do the trick.

How To: 11 Weird & Wonderful Uses for Magnets

Other than sticking your crayon drawings onto your refrigerator door, magnets have a variety of unexpected and sometimes surprisingly practical uses, ranging from keeping your chip bags sealed to creating weird patterns on your nail beds using magnetic nail polish.

How To: Chill a Lukewarm Can of Soda in Less Than 5 Minutes

A lukewarm can of soda placed in a refrigerator can take about 45 minutes to chill. On the other hand, a lukewarm can of soda placed in a bowl of ice, water, and table salt can take less than 5 minutes.

How To: 7 Great Things Black Pepper Can Be Used for Besides Cooking

Like table salt, black pepper has its unexpectedly handy uses that goes beyond seasoning your meals at the dining table. You can use black pepper to keep ants from invading your home, drive away bugs from eating your delicious garden vegetables, temporarily fix a radiator leak, and even stop bleeding on a minor wound.

How To: 6 Ways to Remove Ghastly Scuff Marks from Shoes Using Common Household Items

It'd be a financial burden to have to buy new shoes every time a current pair gets scuffed up, but thankfully there are some easy DIY tricks for saving us that trip to the shoe store. Scuff marks can easily be remove from shoes and sneakers using common household items found in your medicine cabinet or in your desk.

How To: Remove Wrinkles from Clothing Without Ironing

Need to remove wrinkles from your shirt but don't want to bust out the iron and ironing board (or don't even have one)? Well, with a little bit of do-it-yourself ingenuity, you can "iron out" that wrinkly top in no time.

How To: Make the Perfect Cup of Hot Chocolate Using Real Chocolate Bars

Though making hot chocolate out of instant mix is pretty easy, there is no comparison when it comes to making your own homemade hot chocolate out of quality dark chocolate bars, whole milk, brown sugar, and your own favorite fresh spices.

How To: 8 Ways to Cry on the Spot

Are you an aspiring actor with a crying scene in a play? Or are you a shameless manipulator who will need some cheap sympathy from the jury during a court case? You never know when the ability to shed fake tears will come in handy.

How To: 11 Easy DIY Techniques for Opening a Super-Tight Jar

Have a hard-to-open jar? If it's never been opened, the air pressure inside the jar is making it harder to break the seal. If it's been in the fridge, it's possible that the lid shrunk slightly—just enough to be extremely frustrating.

How To: Effectively Disguise Yourself and Keep Your Identity Secret

The art of disguise is a very important skill to master, no matter if you're a hounded celebrity trying to ditch the paparazzi or just someone who'd like to step out of the house without being recognized. If you think simply throwing on sunglasses and a hat is a good disguise, you are so wrong.

How To: 7 Unexpected Uses for Epsom Salt

If you've never had a reason to keep some Epsom salt in your home, I'm about to give you seven good ones, some that will surely surprise you.

Acupressure 101: Relieve Mental & Physical Stress Using These Acupoints

The next time you're feeling tired and stressed out, pull down on your earlobes firmly for a few seconds, or apply firm pressure to the indentation on your nose bridge between your eyebrows using your thumb for several minutes while breathing deeply. Sometimes a little acupressure is all you need to give an extra lift to your mental and physical health.

How To: 9 Poppin' Uses for Bubble Wrap

If you're like me, you have a secret dream of living in a house completely covered wall-to-wall and carpet-to-carpet in bubble wrap. Until you have enough of that pliable transparent plastic with air-filled bubbles, there are some truly practical things you can do with the little you do have—besides packing fragile objects.

How To: 11 Extraordinary Uses for Alka-Seltzer Effervescent Tablets

Got a clogged kitchen sink? Before you reach for the plunger, see if you can fix the problem using Alka-Seltzer tablets and white vinegar.

How To: Make Your Own Homemade Tea

The next time you are in the mood for a hot drink, make your own tea bags to brew at home. Grab your favorite herbs and spices from your garden or your local supermarket. Mix and match your favorite combination, add to an empty tea bag, and steep in hot water. Voilà—instant one-of-a-kind tea and instant brownie points for your DIY street cred.

How To: Your DIY Bug Repellent Guide to Common Household Pests

Contrary to popular belief, eliminating household pests from your home can be accomplished without completely bombing your living space with a mess of toxic fumes. Whether you have annoying fruit flies in the kitchen, fleas on your beloved pet or silverfish lurking around your bathroom, it is very likely that a DIY, non-toxic and super inexpensive solution exists for your household bug problem.

How To: 5 DIY Methods for Unclogging a Clogged Toilet Without a Plunger

Got a clogged toilet on your hands? Before you call the plumber or bust out the plunger, try one of the five DIY methods listed below, all of them incorporating common tools or ingredients easily found in your closet, kitchen or medicine cabinet.

How To: 14 Practical Uses for Nail Polish Remover That Have Nothing to Do with Removing Nail Polish

Acetone-based nail polish remover is great for removing nail polish, and it's also great for some DIY uses around the home. From eliminating scratches to fixing the consistency of correction fluid, its uses are varied but all effective. With nail polish remover, you can also clean your computer keyboard, get rid of ink stains, and even remove leeches from your skin. Talk about versatile!

How To: Remove Permanent Marker Stains from Any Surface

Contrary to its name, a permanent marker is not completely permanent if you really need to get it off a non-paper surface.

How To: 13 Non-Lip Uses for Chapstick

Now that the weather is colder and drier than usual, you may be using Chapstick more frequently to moisturize your dry lips. Did you know that you can also use Chapstick on dry elbows, dry cuticles, dry knuckles, and even the ends of your hair?

How To: Make a Smoke Bomb with Sugar and Potassium Nitrate

Surprisingly, making your very own smoke grenade is pretty easy—and cheap. All you need is a saucepan or skillet, piezoelectric lighter, sugar and some potassium nitrate (easily available online and in most gardening stores).

How To: 8 Home Remedies That'll Get Rid of Those Dark Circles Under Your Eyes

If people are constantly asking you why you look so tired, then maybe it's time to get rid of the puffy dark circles under your eyes.

How To: 16 Tips for Staying Awake When You're Tired

While there's an art to surviving the all-nighter, there's also an art to staying awake throughout the day when you're operating on little to no sleep. In 1964, the record for sleep deprivation was set by 17-year-old Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for an incredible 264 hours and 12 minutes. Now while we're not out to challenge Randy for his title, we can certainly look to him for inspiration in beating back our own fatigue.

DIY Eye Makeup Remover: 11 Natural Substitutes You Probably Already Have at Home

Makeup can get expensive, but removing it from your eyes shouldn't have to be. Thankfully, some DIY eye makeup remover probably already exists in your refrigerator, kitchen pantry, or medicine cabinet.

How To: 8 Unexpected Uses for Elmer's Glue

If you miss the weirdly satisfying sensation of peeling dried Elmer's glue from the surface of your skin, you can relive this childhood tactile memory by using it to remove splinters from your skin. Simply apply a thin layer of glue to the affected area, wait for it to dry, then peel it off, which will also pull the splinter out.

How To: 6 DIY Ideas for Keeping Your Earbuds Tangle-Free

If you always carry earbuds with you in your purse or backpack, you can use simple household objects to prevent the cords from tangling up into knots.

How To: 12 Helpful Uses for Those Annoying Bread Clips

Plastic bread clips, which are primarily used to keep bread bags closed, can also be used to add new life to your old flip-flops, scrape gunk off your nonstick pans, keep matching socks together before laundering, label your cable cords, and more.

How To: 13 Unexpected Uses for Baking Soda You've Probably Never Heard Of

When it comes to common household items with a million practical uses, baking soda reigns supreme. We all know that baking soda is great for deodorizing stinky things, whitening your teeth, and helping with clean-up around the house, but did you know about the other weirdly unexpected and esoteric uses for baking soda?