The Secret Yumiverse How-Tos
How To: 6 DIY Tips for Watering Your Houseplants While Away on Vacation
What can you do if you're about to leave for a big trip and can't find a plant-sitter to regularly water your indoor plants? Just like pets, your indoor ferns and marigolds need attention, too!
How To: Hack a Blender with a Mason Jar
Gina Kometani posted such a cool tip to the community corkboard, I had to illustrate it!
How To: Your Guide to Lazy Baking, Part 5: How to Bake Cookies Using Cake Mix
What do you do with that unused box of cake mix collecting dust in your pantry? Grab two eggs, some butter and a cup full of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and you are all ready to bake yourself a batch super quick and easy cake mix cookies.
How To: Your Guide to Lazy Baking, Part 4: How to Make Cupcakes for Two Using One Bowl
The most dangerous thing about having a bunch of baked goods in your home is the possibility that you will gorge on all of them. If you are in a cupcake-y mood, but want to keep your sugar-happy gluttonous side in check, just make enough batter for two cupcakes in a single mixing bowl. Sharing is optional.
How To: Your Guide to Lazy Baking, Part 3: How to Bake Bread in a Flower Pot
Sick of the standard bread baked in a loaf pan? Impress your family and friends by baking bread in a plain terracotta flower pot. Baking bread in a terracotta pot makes for crispy bread with a tender and moist interior. Make sure the terra cotta pot is unglazed and unpainted before using it.
How To: Your Guide to Lazy Baking, Part 2: How to Make Mini-Pizzas in Muffin Tins
Continuing the theme of using a muffin pan to quickly whip up super-simple and super-delicious baked things (see Part 1: how to make mini-pies in muffin tins), how about making yourself a savory snack in the form of a pizza cupcake?
How To: Your Guide to Lazy Baking, Part 1: How to Make Mini-Pies in Muffin Tins
Craving pie? Muffin-sized mini-pies are perfect for when you just want a couple bites for yourself. They are ridiculously easy to make, and take very little time. Using a muffin tin also gives you the luxury of creating multiple mini-pies with different fillings, which means you don't have to settle on one pie flavor.
How To: Three More Ways To Open A Wine Without A Corkscrew
Don't let a missing corkscrew deter you from uncorking your bottle of wine at your next party, picnic or romantic dinner at home. Following up on a previous post on how to open a bottle of wine using just a towel and a flat, vertical surface (a wall or a wide tree trunk), listed below are three more handy ways you can open a bottle of wine using common household objects or tools. And what better way to impress your date than taking off your shoe, placing a wine bottle between your knees, and ...
How To: Open a Wine Bottle Without Using a Corkscrew
What do you do when you have a bottle of wine ready to uncork, but no corkscrew on hand?
How To: 9 Tasty Tips for Repurposing Leftover Food
Waste not with your excess food. With a little bit of imagination and extra ingredients, your boring leftovers and extra ingredients idling in your fridge can be transformed into tasty meals, side dishes and desserts.
How To: 8 Weird, Non-Food Uses for Your Freezer
Other than keeping your popsicles and frozen veggies frosty, who would have thought that your everyday freezer had so many uses? Just like your dishwasher can be used for many non-cookware items, the freezer can be used in a variety of useful ways that don't involve perishable food.
How To: DIY Tips For Restoring Your Old, Beat Up Furniture
Are the furniture pieces in your living space starting to look faded, old and beat up? Gather some milk, vaseline, pecan nuts, lemon juice, olive oil and toothpaste, and you already have a fine assortment of tools to help you restore your wooden, leather, vinyl and glass furniture to some of its former glory.
How To: 7 Double-Duty Kitchen Tools
Contrary to what the infomercials may tell you, you don't have to own a gajillion kitchen gadgets and utensils to function properly in the kitchen when you're preparing a meal or dessert at home. To save money and space, get acquainted with the unexpected multiple functions that are possible with your everyday kitchen tools.
How To: Make Brownies in a Mug
For the next time you have a severe chocolate craving but a) don't want to go through the trouble of going through an elaborate recipe and b) don't want to go through the trouble of going to the supermarket, make yourself a microwave brownie in a mug. All you need to do is six very simple ingredients plus water, mix them up in a microwave-safe mug, nuke everything for one minute, and enjoy.
How To: 13 Handy Cooking and Baking Substitutions for Missing Ingredients
What do you do when you're right in the middle of your cooking or baking groove and realize that you're missing an extremely vital ingredient? Rather than delaying your next meal or one-person cake-eating party with a last minute trip to the supermarket, get around your missing ingredient by substituting another common ingredient. Below are 13 handy cooking and baking substitutions that just might save you time or money for your next cooking and baking adventure.
How To: Build Your Own Terrarium
Do you have a green thumb but an extremely limited living space? Try building your own DIY terrarium. All you need is a clear glass or plastic container, a few of your favorite plants, and some cheap gardening supplies to start your own self-contained, self-sustained miniature garden.
How To: 10 DIY Remedies for Common Cooking Disasters
So many things can go wrong when you cook or bake for yourself. Mushy veggies, overcooked pasta, dry meat, crumbly cakes—not to mention too spicy, too acidic, and the ever-dreaded too salty.
How To: 8 Jury-Rigged Fitness Tools for Cheap At-Home Workouts
Work it without breaking the bank—with a couple of household items and a little ingenuity, you can transform your old junk into effective gym equipment for both cardiovascular workouts and strength training within the comforts of your own home.
Natural First Aid Box: 9 Household Items for Minor Medical Needs
Itchy bee stings, sore throats, swelling muscles, minor scraps, splinters... all of these common ailments can easily be fixed with things you've probably got lying around at home in your kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Honey, ginger, castor oil, garlic, baking soda, aloe vera, white vinegar, and chamomile tea are all great natural remedies for your next minor medical need. No drugstore trips required (except for maybe some Elmer's glue).
How To: Display Photos in Your Home Without Any Frames
You can take a bajillion photos on your smartphone or digital camera, but they'll eventually end up lost on your computer hiding within folders within folders within folders... you get the picture. To bring them to the physical world, you've got to print them, but you don't have to settle on a boring ol' picture frame.
Dress to the Nines: 7 DIY Tricks for Keeping Your Wardrobe Looking Shiny and New
Refresh your wardrobe without buying a single new article of clothing. Yep, it can be done. Because who really has the money these days to splurge on new clothes? And no, you don't have to be a DIY sewing genius to work with what you already have. Sometimes it's a matter of simple improvements, like making your dingy white tank top look super white again, or fixing those embarrassing scratches on your formerly spotless leather shoes.
How To: 9 Things You Can Throw in Your Dishwasher Besides Dishes
Not only does a dishwasher save you the manual labor of physically washing your dirty kitchenware, it can sterilize your make-up brushes, launder your favorite baseball cap, and even cook up your next dinner.
How To: 7 DIY Cures for Headaches
What can you do when you're suffering from a pounding headache and you're in too much pain to drive to the nearest drugstore? Fill a large plastic bowl with hot water, add one tablespoon of dry mustard powder, and soak your feet for twenty minutes.
How To: 8 Weird Ways to Cool Down for Summer
Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to cool down during the hot summer heat without blasting the A/C in your house and opening the refrigerator every few minutes to feel the cold, machine-made air blow against your overheated face.
How To: 9 DIY Cooking Staples You Never Need to Buy Again
Never buy pasta sauce from the supermarket again. Or salad dressing. Or pie crusts, chicken stock, hummus, bread crumbs and other common cooking staples that can be easily replicated within the comfort of your own kitchen.
How To: 5 Secret Tricks for Alleviating an Achy Back
Got an achy back that won't go away? Not all of us have the money to splurge on a massage therapist, but there are several DIY techniques that may help alleviate your back pain and muscle discomfort without completely breaking the bank. Thank goodness for those spare socks with missing pairs and old tennis balls.
How To: 5 DIY Treatments for Your Bad Hair Days
Who would have thought that dryer sheets can be a quick remedy for super-staticky flyaway hair? But it's true. It's all about the positive charges in the sheets and their ability to neutralize electron buildup. And that's not the only surprising quick fix for hair problems that you can easily find in your home.
How To: 8 DIY Beauty Tips for Exterminating Zits
Acne medication can get expensive, but there are many common household items lying around your kitchen and bathroom that are perfect to use as a facial, face wash, or on-the-spot zit treatment to decrease the redness of acne and, more importantly, prevent future pimples from cropping up on your beautiful face.
How To: 10 Amazing Uses for Dental Floss
Sturdier than sewing thread and far less cumbersome than metal wire, dental floss has an amazing multitude of practical uses that can be used for baking, cooking, interior decorating, and more.
How To: Normally Trashed Items That Are Actually Garden Gold
If you've got a knack for gardening and an inclination for recycling, then you need to know about these six garden hacks. Some of the trash inside your bathroom and kitchen is actually garden gold, so get your recycling hats on.
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: 6 Easy Recipes for Removing Nasty Stains
What do you do when you accidentally stain your favorite article of clothing with coffee, red wine, or pasta sauce? If you aren't within immediate reach of laundry detergent or commercial stain removers, you can use many common household staples such as baking soda and white vinegar to remove the offending stains right away—sometimes even better than their commercial counterparts.
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.
How To: 9 Common Household Items for Relieving a Sunburn
Too much partying and lounging under the mid-day sun? If your attempt at a toasty caramel tan has instead resulted in a bright red sunburn, you fortunately have many common household items at your disposal to relieve the discomfort and speed up the recovery of your burnt skin.
How To: 7 Extraordinary Uses for Aluminum Foil
It turns out that the silver crinkly material traditionally used for wrapping leftovers and making funny hats to block out messages from extraterrestrial beings is pretty darn useful for a number of other random but handy tasks, such as sharpening your scissors and keeping bugs away from your vegetable garden. What can aluminum foil not do? Seriously.
How To: 9 DIY Home Remedies for Relieving Itchy Mosquito Bites
There are few things peskier in the summer than an unexpected mosquito bite swelling up on your arms and legs. Fortunately, there are many ways to heal your body of its annoying itch, ranging from fruit (lemon slices and banana peels) to common household items (baking soda and apple cider vinegar).
How To: 5 DIY Mosquito Repellent Secrets
Want to avoid getting your blood sucked by annoying little insects without breathing in toxic bug spray? Below are 5 DIY ways to create mosquito repellents with 100 percent all natural ingredients to avoid that annoying summertime itch.
How To: 4 Nifty DIY Toolbox Tricks
Rusty screw that won't go loose? Tiny nails fallen behind work bench? Get acquainted with nifty DIY toolbox tricks to make your home maintenance projects as smooth-sailing as possible when you are dealing with nails, nuts and bolts, and other possibly sharp metal objects.
How To: 5 DIY Ways To Deodorize Stinky Things
Something in your life getting a little stinky? No worries--it happens to the best of us. Whether it is your musty bedroom, stuffy car or four-legged friend, unpleasant odors have a way of infiltrating our daily lives. Below are 5 DIY ways to deodorize bad smells no matter where they are coming from.
How To: Avoid the Negative Energy of Other People
Nothing like one bad apple in human form to put a damper on the rest of your day. Thankfully, you have the power to implement a number of strategies to keep the Negative Nancys and Debbie Downers of the world from completely ruining your good mood and high spirits.