The Secret Yumiverse How-Tos
How To: 9 Creative Ways to Reuse Glass Bottles
If you have an excess of glass bottles lying around in your home, don't throw them into the recycling bin just yet. With a little creativity and handiwork, you can make terrariums, hummingbird feeders, candle holders and fish tanks out of them.
How To: 13 Unexpected Uses for Salt
If you want to cut down on your sodium intake but don't want to get rid of all the salt in the kitchen, you're in luck. Salt has many unexpected uses, ranging from killing weeds to removing perspiration stains from garments to extending the shelf life of your new natural bristle broom.
How To: 12 Crazy Cool Ways to Reuse Twist Ties
The next time you buy bread, tortillas and other produce or baked goods items that come with twist ties, don't throw them away. These handy pieces of plastic-covered wire come to good use when you need to build a garden trellis, organize your power cords, replace your zipper pull or securely tie your Christmas ornaments to your Christmas tree.
How To: Grow a Thriving Indoor Apartment Garden
Is lack of expansive outdoor space the only factor that is preventing you from putting your green thumb to good use? Even if your tiny apartment doesn't come with a balcony or an outdoor patio, you can grow a number of green things within the limited confines of your indoor space for your visual and gustatory pleasure.
How To: Build Your Own Kaleidoscope
Are you in dire need of some visual eye candy? Dazzle your eyes by building your own kaleidoscope with a sheet of foldable plastic, common household items and whatever small and sparkly things you can get your hands on.
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: Make a Self-Irrigating Planter with Yogurt Containers
Do you have an excess of empty yogurt containers? Do you also happen to have a green thumb? Put two and two together to make a DIY self-irrigating planter for your next tomato plant, herb garden or whatever green growing thing suits your fancy.
How To: Hone Your Sixth Sense
You know that tingly spidey feeling you sometimes get urging you to make a crazy career change or warning you against trusting a smooth-talker with your money? Commonly referred to as your gut instinct, intuition or sixth sense, your ability to subconsciously know something or suspect something beyond the realm of conscious reasoning can help you in all aspects of your life, from interpersonal relationships to big life decisions.
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: 9 Unusual Uses for Your Hair Dryer
Your hair dryer can come in handy for a number of unexpected uses, from removing crayon marks on walls to helping mold your plastic store-bought glasses to fit your big head. Not surprisingly, your hair dryer can also be used to defrost things, quickly dry wet things, and speed up the cooking at your next summer BBQ by heating up your cooking charcoal quickly after lighting.
Street Art 101: How to Make a Wheatpaste Poster
Itching to make your own guerrilla-style street art on the side of buildings, freeway overpasses, and abandoned billboards? The beauty of street art is that you don't need an expensive canvas or frame to display your creative expression.
How To: Deal with Toxic and Belligerent People
Unfortunately, toxic and belligerent people are not as avoidable as we would like for them to be. They show up in our work place, schools, neighborhoods—sometimes even within our own circle of friends and family members. The best we can do is minimize our interactions with them and plan for exit strategies to cut the conversation short. If an interaction is avoidable because the person is your boss or family member, then arm yourself with a few verbal defense moves to keep yourself from getti...
How To: Fake Confidence
Do you feel like you need a confidence boost in social situations? Fake it 'til you make it—and in the meantime, try incorporating a couple of body language and posture tricks to appear confident before others. Appear verbally confident by speaking only when necessary, acting decisive, and make a point to say the other person's name.
How To: 11 Exercises to Do While Sitting at Your Computer
If you are sitting in front of a computer all day for your work, make the most of it by exercising your different muscle groups even while you are finishing a PowerPoint presentation or filling out cells in an Excel worksheet.
How To: 12 Tips for Quitting a Bad Habit
Quitting a bad habit is not as straightforward as simply quitting cold turkey and getting it right the first time. So what to do if you really want to quit doing something that isn't good for you?
How To: 10 Unusual Uses for Discarded Eggshells
Many foods do not come in natural packaging that is as useful and versatile as its content. Eggs are an exception. So, the next time you buy a carton of eggs, be sure to hold onto the eggshells after you are finished cooking with them.
Chill Out & Get Enlightened: A Newbie's Guide to Meditation
Want to increase your creativity, attention span, intuition, self-knowledge—maybe even your sense of oneness with the universe? Start meditating on a regular basis. In addition to improving your concentration, mental health, and capacity to handle stress, regular meditation practice has also been scientifically proven to have numerous physical benefits such as lowering your blood pressure, improving your immune system, and adding more life to your years.
Boost Your Brain Power: 7 Tips for Improving Your Memory
Surely, constantly forgetting what you were doing in the middle of doing something and constantly looking for your misplaced house keys is not the ideal way to spend your golden years.
How To: Effectively Play Hooky from Work
On average, about thirty percent of working Americans have called in sick at least once just to take a day off from work. If you are in the other goody-two-shoes seventy percent of the work force who've only called in sick for actual physical illness or have never actually used a sick day, consider giving yourself a mental health day if you ever feel like you really need it.
How To: 11 Ways to Make Your Living Space Look Bigger
Is your tiny city apartment or super modest house starting to feel a bit too cramped for comfort? While most of us don't have the luxury of hiring an architect to add on more kitchen space, or the money to live in a more spacious apartment, there are a number of simple things we can do with what we have to create the illusion of more indoor space within our walls.
How To: Pickpocket-Proof Yourself from Thieving Hands
When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do... avoid carrying your wallet in the back pocket of your jeans. But no matter what city or country you are in, there are several easy precautions you can take to keep yourself as pickpocket-proof as possible so that your amazing travel memories won't be sullied by the experience of having your camera or passport stolen.
How To: 9 Ways to Get People to Do What You Want
The art of persuasion (or subtle emotional manipulation, depending on how you're looking at it) does not necessarily have to be an evil thing.
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.
How To: The Best Way to Peel a Hard-Boiled Egg
So, you want to decrease your hard-boiled egg peeling time because you don't want the time- consuming task to cut into your limited lunch break. Or maybe you've somehow been burdened with the task of cooking a lot of homemade deviled eggs for a big family gathering. How do you peel a hard-boiled egg as quickly and efficiently as possible?
How To: Survive Deadly Bites and Stings from Wild Animals
As a follow-up to an earlier post on surviving deadly animal attacks in the wild and another one on relieving a jellyfish sting, listed below are things you should do (and shouldn't do) if you are ever bitten or stung by potentially poisonous wild animals.
How To: Open a Door Chain Lock or Bar Latch from the Outside
Assuming that you're not a burglar-in-training, you may one day find yourself in a situation where you have to break into a home through a door chain lock. But what to do if you have no time to wait for a locksmith?
How To: Do a Tombstone Rubbing
Tombstone rubbing is a simple and beautiful way to transfer a tombstone design onto paper using rubbing wax or black crayon. Many people do this for their own genealogy research to record tombstone designs of family members, or simply as a hobby to capture unique and interesting tombstone designs in cemeteries all over the world.
How To: 9 Crafty Ways to Pimp Your Bike
If your bicycle's feeling a little dull these days, then give it some personality! Using the crafty ideas below, you can transform your two-wheeler in a unique work of mobile art that will have everyone jealous.
How To: Increase Your Alcohol Tolerance
Whether you're embarking on an epic wine tour with friends or simply want to last an entire night of socializing and drinking with important people, there are times when good alcohol tolerance comes in handy. If you're a lightweight who would probably be labeled as a "cheap date" when it comes to drinking, you can actually increase your alcohol tolerance gradually by drinking more on a regular basis. Who would have thought?
How To: 9 Tips for Overcoming Jet Lag
Jet lag is inevitable when you're traveling long distances by plane, and it can leave you feeling completely wrecked for several days to a week after you arrive at your destination.
How To: Read Your Own Palm Lines
Palmistry is the art of characterizing or foretelling the future through the reading of palm lines. Though there are certainly many variations and techniques when it comes to interpreting the meaning of palm lines, you can brush up on Palmistry 101 by getting acquainted with your four major palm lines: the heart line, head line, life line, and fate line.
How To: 9 Tips for Maximizing Your Laptop's Battery Life
Whether you just got a brand new laptop or you've had an old notebook for several years, it's in your best interest to maximize your laptop battery life so you get the most out of your computer.
How To: 10 Unusual Uses for Your Microwave Oven
The microwave has an extraordinary number of uses that goes above and beyond reheating your cold leftovers from last night's dinner. For food-related uses, the microwave can also make your lemons more squeezable for maximum juice output, roast garlic heads, decrystallize hardened honey, dry up fresh herbs, and more.
How To: Decode Body Language
Your boss is pursing her lips and drumming her fingers on the table during your presentation. Your best friend is gazing downwards and crossing his arms when you ask him why the car you lent him for the weekend has a big dent. What could these body language signals all mean?
How To: 9 Ways to Increase Your Focus for Getting Things Done
What would happen to your productivity if you had a way to block Internet access to your favorite time-wasting websites like Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and trashy celebrity gossip blogs? If you are like most people, you would probably get a lot more work done.
How To: 4 Crafty Ways to DIY an Emergency Oil Lamp
If you're ever in a survival situation where you have no electricity and you're fresh out of flashlight batteries, fear not. By using commonplace items such as glass containers, old T-shirts, and cheap vegetable oil, you can very easily put together your own DIY oil lamp that will brighten up that darkness for hours. And no matter how fancy those store-bought scented candles can smell, none of them will smell as good as a DIY lard candle made with your leftover bacon grease.
How To: Induce Lucid Dreaming
Lucid dreaming refers to the mental state when you are conscious of the fact that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. Though lucid dreaming is a rare occurrence for most people when they are sleeping, you can actually mentally train yourself during the waking hours and incorporate a number of techniques to increase your chances of achieving a lucid dreaming state.
How To: 9 Cheap & Practical Ways to Burglar-Proof Your Home
Want to protect your home from unlawful entry? You may not have the means to invest in an expensive alarm system, but you can definitely use cheap and practical methods around your home to deter burglars from breaking in when you're not home.
How To: Survive a Zombie Apocalypse
What should you do in case of a major zombie outbreak? Many of the best survival techniques follow the same logic as to how you should prepare for major natural disasters; stock up on food and medical supplies, have an escape route, and form a community of people you can work with. When you're dealing with the flesh-eating undead, it also helps to invest beforehand in full body armor, weapons, and basic parkour lessons so that you know how to scale walls and jump across buildings when a horde...
How To: Make a Super Secret Book Safe
Need to stash a couple small valuables and your super secret Moleskin journal in a place where no one will ever find them? Get yourself some glue, a few cutting tools and a fairly thick book, and you'll have all of the utensils you need to make yourself a nifty book safe that can be discreetly tucked away in your bookshelf when you're finished making it.