The Secret Yumiverse How-Tos
How To: 18 Clever Uses for Empty Film Canisters
Film canisters, remember those? Those black containers with the grey lids that used to contain... camera film?
How To: 10 Helpful Non-Kitty Uses for Cat Litter
Whether or not you have a feline companion at home, a bag of cat litter makes for a handy household staple that can help prevent grease fires, add traction to slippery icy steps, remove grease spots, preserve your fresh flowers, and clear algae from your backyard koi pond.
How To: 13 Fascinating Uses for Club Soda
Want to make your homemade pancakes and waffles fluffier? To enjoy a restaurant-quality breakfast, simply replace liquids used in the recipe with club soda.
How To: 12 Non-Edible Uses for Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise is not exactly the healthiest thing in the world, but it makes for a great household and self-care item, from whitening your yellowing piano keys to adding shine and luster to your dry and brittle hair.
How To: 16 Cool and Unusual Uses for Ice Cubes
In addition to keeping your cold drink from turning lukewarm, ice cubes are also surprisingly useful for removing gum from your carpet, keeping your hollandaise sauce from curdling, skimming fat off your soup, and watering your hard-to-reach hanging plants.
How To: Your New Year's Eve Survival Guide
Going out on New Year's Eve is not for the faint of heart, especially if you live in a big city. Follow the New Year's Eve survival guide below to make sure you are prepared for worst-case scenarios that can range from losing your phone to figuring out how to quickly remove a vomit stain from your friend's new carpet.
How To: 19 Ways to Reuse Torn Gift Wrap Paper
Though the holiday season is just wrapping up, don't throw away your torn leftover gift wrap paper just yet. Whether for next year's holiday season or for year-round use, leftover gift wrap can be reused for a variety of creative and practical uses.
How To: 8 Crafty Ways to Reuse Old Christmas Ornaments & Decorations
Broken glass Christmas ornaments? Evergreen wreath falling apart? Before you throw away or donate Christmas decorations you no longer need, see if you can reuse or recycle them for better use year-round or for next year's holiday season.
How To: Your Guide to Last-Minute Christmas Gifts You Can Put Together on Christmas Eve
So it is Christmas Eve and you are just getting started on your Christmas gift shopping. Thankfully, even for the last-minute Christmas gift shopper, you have a good variety of options to choose from within driving distance or on the internet without worrying about shipping costs or waiting in ridiculously long lines at the mall.
How To: Your Survival Guide for Awkward Holiday Gift-Giving Situations
In an ideal world, the art of gift-exchanging is a joyous, wonderful thing that makes both parties feel equally good. But as many of us already know, gift-giving is also an emotionally charged social minefield that can leave many of us feeling... awkward.
How To: 8 Unique DIY Gift Tag Ideas for Personalizing Your Holiday Gifts
Giving a lot of gifts this year? Make your holiday presents even more unique for your recipient by adding a fun, personalized gift tag.
How To: 12 DIY Christmas Tree Ornaments You Can Make from Things Around Your Home
Decorating your Christmas tree does not have to be an expensive ordeal. You can easily make personalized, unique ornaments for your tree by using things lying around your home, like toilet paper tubes, paper towels, wine corks, old newspapers, CDs (remember those?), plastic water bottles, and even dry pasta.
How To: 9 Crafty Things You Can Do with Candy Canes
With the help of a hot glue gun and other basic craft supplies, the iconic red and white candy cane sticks can be used to make candy cane vases, candy cane wreaths, and candy cane candle holders.
How To: 13 Easy DIY Christmas Gifts That You Can Stuff in a Jar
If you happen to have a bunch of empty glass jars lying around your home, the gift-giving possibilities are endless.
How To: 10 More Thrifty DIY Christmas Gift Ideas
Last year, I wrote a post on "10 Thrifty DIY Christmas Gift Ideas" for people looking to get crafty during the gift-giving season. It seemed only right to do a followup this year with 10 more ideas!
How To: 4 Ways to Make a Christmas Wreath Out of Paper Waste
Forget those boring evergreen wreaths with the thick red ribbon and the pine cones that everyone else has hanging in their homes. Make your own DIY upcycled wreath using newspaper, paper shopping bags, cardboard coffee cup sleeves, toilet paper tubes, or even that trashy paperback novel you bought for a dime at the local thrift store that you're probably never going to read.
How To: Make a Christmas Cracker
If you have a bunch of spare toilet paper tubes lying around, you're in luck this holiday season. With wrapping paper, a couple trinkets, and a pack of cracker snaps, you can make your very own Christmas crackers.
How To: 8 Hot Holiday Alcoholic Drink Recipes to Warm Your Spirit
Get into the holiday spirit by fixing yourself a hot alcoholic drink. What better way to warm your body and spirit for the cold winter season?
How To: Preserve Maple Leaves
'Tis the season to get crafty with maple leaves. Rather than buying fake maple leaves from the craft store, save real-life maple leaves you find on the ground outdoors using one of the following preservation techniques below.
How To: 18 Useful Things You Can Do with Cardboard Tubes
Don't toss out those cardboard tubes just yet. Whenever you have one leftover from a roll of paper towels, toilet paper, or wrapping paper, hang on to it, because it's got some great DIY potential.
How To: Make a Soda Bottle Broom and Milk Jug Dustpan
Need a broom and a dust pan to clean up your living space? Look no further than your recycling bin and upcycle some of your empty drink containers to make new cleaning tools for your home.
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: Repurpose Your Thanksgiving Trash
After the turkey is carved and the leftover meat is refrigerated, don't get rid of the remaining carcass and bones just yet. You can make some delicious turkey stock with them. Just add them to a big pot of carrots, celery, onion, and water — then simmer.
How To: Stay Alive & Emerge Victorious on Black Friday
The Black Friday shopping battle is just around the corner. At the end of the day, will you emerge empty-handed or victorious with an armful of shopping bags bursting at the seams?
How To: Make a Maple Leaf Rose
Before you rake up the maple leaves on your driveway, how about grabbing a couple of the newer ones to make yourself a maple leaf rose?
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?
How To: 11 Unexpected Uses for Silica Gel Packets
Though silica gel packets clearly instruct you to throw them away (and not eat them), you can actually keep them for a variety of unexpectedly practical uses around the home. Silica gel is a desiccant, a substance that absorbs moisture, which makes these packets perfect for keeping things extremely dry and moisture-free.
How To: 9 DIY Ways to Remove Sweat Stains from Clothes
Got a bad sweat stain on the underarms of your light-colored clothing? You probably have something in your kitchen or medicine cabinet that will help get rid of the stain immediately. Aspirin, table salt, lemon juice, white vinegar, baking soda, and even meat tenderizer (make sure it is unseasoned!) are some of the many common household ingredients you can use to make your sweaty clothes look brand new again.
How To: 21 Miraculous Uses for Coconut Oil
What can't coconut oil do? This edible oil, extracted from the copra or meat of a coconut, has done what most other food, beauty, and health trends have not: demonstrated real lasting power. Indeed, the "superfood" continues to make headlines, with its many uses the subject of debate, study, and fervent support. From the obvious (cooking) to the less so (home improvement), there are likely many coconut oil uses you're not yet aware of.
How To: 9 Unconventional Uses for Paper Towels
Paper towels are great for absorbing your kitchen spills, but did you know that they're also perfect for cooking bacon in the microwave? Simply place bacon side-by-side on a layer of two paper towels and place two more paper towels on top of the bacon. Zap in the microwave at 1-minute interval for 3-4 minutes until desired crispiness is reached. No greasy pan-cleaning to worry about afterwards.
How To: 9 Non-Condiment Uses for Mustard
Plain yellow mustard, most commonly used for adding an extra zing of flavor to your ballpark hot dog, also contains potent medicinal properties that is perfect for relieving your sore throat, relaxing your sore back muscles and decreasing the intensity of your headache.
How To: 10 Truly Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas for the Cheap & Lazy
Unlike your more artistically-minded friends who've been working on their homemade, hand-stitched, conceptually-brilliant Halloween costumes since May, you need to put together a last-minute costume in a matter of hours. What can you possibly do if you're cheap, kind of lazy, and don't know how to sew to save your life?
How To: Make the Most of Your Jack-O'-Lantern Leftovers
Planning on carving a pumpkin for Halloween? After you're done scooping and scraping out the inner flesh and pulp from your pumpkin, make the most of your jack-o'-lantern leftovers by using the pumpkin meat and seeds in the kitchen and for your beauty regimen.
How To: Make a Cheap, DIY Fog Machine for Your Halloween Party
Need to add some spooky ambient fog to your super-scary Halloween party? Rather than shelling out money for a fog machine you'll probably only use once a year, make a trip to the nearest drug store and pick up a bottle of glycerin, a gallon of distilled water, a 2-liter bottle of cola, a disposable mini-pie tin, and a big candle in a jar.
How To: 7 Halloween Makeup Tricks Using Common Household Items
Need to look like a rotting, decaying zombie corpse for Halloween? Rather than bribing your special effects makeup artist friend to treat you one for the night, you can definitely DIY a couple of good Halloween makeup effects using common household items in your pantry or medicine cabinet.
How To: 12 Weirdly Practical Uses for Potatoes
Sick of using potatoes as side dishes for your dinner meal? Left in their uncooked form, raw potatoes have a variety of weirdly practical uses, from aiding you in removing a broken light bulb from its fixture to keeping your ski goggles clear in the cold weather. A raw potato can also help with your floral arrangement, add new life to your beat-up shoes, and absorb the excess salt from your overly salted soup and stews.
How To: 13 Unusual Uses for Coffee Filters
Other than helping you make your morning cup of joe, coffee filters have a number of surprisingly practical uses that have nothing to do with coffee.
How To: 8 Tips for Reducing Internet Procrastination
If you're like most people, you probably waste a lot of time on the internet. Would your life be fuller, richer, and more productive if you could spend a little less time on Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr, or whatever internet junk food you are addicted to at the moment? Probably.
How To: Remove Gum from Your Hair, Shoes, Clothes, and Carpet
While it is common knowledge that peanut butter can help ease chewed-up gum out of your hair, what happens if you don't have any peanut butter—or you have somehow gotten gum stuck on your shoes, clothes, or carpet?
How To: 11 Amazing Ways to Reuse Used Coffee Grounds
Do you drink a lot of coffee? Before you toss your used coffee grounds into the trash or compost bin, see if you can use them to deodorize your freezer, cover up your wooden furniture scratches, and help clean up the grease and grime from your pots and pans.