The Secret Yumiverse How-Tos
How To: 8 More DIY Home Remedies for Relieving Chapped Lips
Got chapped lips? If you don't have any chapstick, you can use a variety of household or kitchen items to alleviate dry, flaky lips. Simply apply castor oil, almond oil, mango butter, beeswax, or milk cream onto lips as needed.
How To: 7 Home Remedies for Preventing & Treating SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)
Feeling the winter blues? While it is common to experience a little bit of a letdown when the daylight hours get shorter in the fall and winter months, for some people it becomes a persistent depression that lasts for days, with symptoms that include fatigue, crying spells, body aches, irritability, loss of interest in activities, and more.
How To: 11 Crafty & Practical Uses for Colorful Fall Leaves
With the abundance of colorful fall leaves in the autumn season, it would be a shame not to do something about it before it all disappears into the dead of winter.
How To: 14 Non-Cookie Uses for Cookie Cutters
In addition to turning boring sheets of cookie dough into fun and whimsical shapes, cookie cutters can be used to make fruits, vegetables, cheeses, sandwiches, and popsicles look more interesting, to name just a few.
How To: 9 Probiotic-Rich Foods You Should Be Eating
Probiotics are microorganisms in the form of bacteria or yeast that live in your gut and help your body absorb beneficial vitamins and minerals. When consumed live, they help boost your immune system and maintain your overall body health.
How To: 10 Simple Composition Tips for Taking a Good Photograph
Now that it's easier than ever to take pictures using a digital camera or smartphone, more people should brush up on basic composition tips for taking a good photograph.
How To: 8 Super Cool Ways to Wear a Scarf
Are you bored of draping a scarf around your neck in a single loop like everybody else? Tie both ends of a long scarf to form a large loop, then loop the scarf around your neck twice to create a DIY infinity scarf.
How To: 6 Tips for Eliminating & Organizing Your Paper Clutter
Are your mountains of receipts, billing statements, and junk mail getting out of control? For the sake of your own sanity, and to open up more space in your home, follow the six tips below to eliminate unnecessary paper clutter and organize important documents efficiently for easy future reference.
How To: Get Rid of Emotional Vampires & Toxic Friends from Your Life
An emotional vampire is somebody who sucks the positive energy out of your life, in turn leaving you feeling drained afterwards. They can come in the form of a family member, friend, coworker, or neighbor. Unlike real vampires who are out of sight during the daytime, emotional vampires can come into your life at any hour of the day to ruin your mood and undermine the parts of your life that make you you.
Decode Body Language, Part 2: Interpreting People's Moods & Intents
You don't have to be a body language expert to know when a person is displeased or uninterested, even if the person is smiling and nodding at everything you're saying. Subtle clues like slight downward grimaces in the lips or hunched shoulders are immediate giveaways of a person's current mood or intent.
How To: Make a Battery Out of Pennies
Using copper pennies (be sure they are older than 1983), lemon juice, paper towels and sandpaper, you can construct your own DIY battery that generates enough juice to light up an LED.
How To: 10 Clever Money Hacks to Help You Spend Less & Save More
Are you tempted to splurge over your budget on an expensive restaurant meal or cool new jacket? Before you make an impulse purchase, imagine how much that indulgence costs in terms of hours of work based on your current salary.
Better Than Starbucks: How to Make Your Own Pumpkin Spice Latte at Home
You may be surprised to know that the wildly popular and seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks actually does not contain any pumpkin in its ingredients. That, and making your own pumpkin spice latte at home is actually not very difficult at all.
How To: 8 Cool Things You Can Do with Rocks
Are your paper clips, pushpins, and other metallic objects always in a disarray on your work desk or drawer? To organize them more efficiently and in a visually cool way, paint over medium-sized rocks with magnetic paint and then use its magnetic surface to keep clips and other metallic items in place.
How To: Speedy Spaghetti, Faux Pho, & Other Ingenious Instant Ramen Hacks
Instant ramen noodles are hardly gourmet dining, but with a little extra time, effort, and ingredients, this humble staple of college dormitory dining can be elevated at least a little bit to resemble a more hearty and appetizing meal.
The Tea Cheat Sheet: Steeping Times & Temps for the Perfect Cup
While making your own cup of tea may seem as simple as adding a tea bag to a mug of boiling water, the best flavor for every tea type requires a specific temperature point for the hot water and a specific time frame for steeping the tea before removing it.
How To: 4 DIY Methods for Removing Burned-On Food from Pots & Pans
Even the most seasoned kitchen cooks experience the annoyance of accidentally burning food on their pots, pans, and casserole dishes. When dishwashing soap and water doesn't work, what is the best way to remove burned-on gunk from your cookware?
How To: 6 Cheap & Easy Ways to Clean Your Garbage Disposal
With all the kitchen sink debris that goes down the drain, it should be no surprise that your garbage disposal sometimes gets a little smelly and needs some extra cleaning. Using common household items from your kitchen or medicine cabinet, you can easily clean your garbage disposal in ten minutes or less using one of the following six DIY methods listed below.
How To: 9 Home Remedies for Treating Common Feet Problems
Feet sore after a long day? Treat your feet to a DIY massage by rolling tennis balls under the soles of your feet for about ten to twenty minutes. If your feet are still feeling beat (and smell a little bad), you can also indulge your feet in a foot soak using common household ingredients such as tea bags, Epsom salt, and apple cider vinegar.
How To: 5 More Easy Tips for Whitening Your Teeth
If your smile is looking less pearly white than usual, rub the inside of a banana peel on your teeth every morning before you brush your teeth on a daily basis to brighten them to a whiter spectrum.
How To: 9 More Common Household Items for Relieving a Sunburn
Though summer is almost over, that doesn't mean you should ever be lax when it comes to protecting your skin from sun overexposure. However, should you find yourself with red and burning skin after a last-minute weekend trip to the beach, listed below are 9 simple and cheap home remedies for relieving symptoms of sunburn.
How To: 12 Household Uses for Borax
Originally discovered in dry lake beds in Tibet, borax is a mineral and a salt of boric acid, and is usually sold in white powder form in drugstores. Like baking soda, borax has many household cleaning uses, and can also be used to get rid of insects and pests from your living space.
How To: Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up in the Middle of the Night
If you wake up in the middle of the night, avoid reaching for your laptop to check emails, or your TV remote to catch a few late-night shows. Instead, keep the light in your bedroom dim and do something relaxing like de-stressing breathing exercises, meditation, light yoga, or going to another room and solving a jigsaw puzzle or listening to relaxing music.
How To: Breathing Exercises to Help You De-Stress
While breathing is a simple and automatic physical act we take for granted every moment of our lives, consciously breathing in a particular way for five to ten minutes can greatly reduce your stress, clear your head, and bring more energy to your body. Think of it as meditation through breathing.
How To: Say "No" Without Sounding Like a Jerk
A work acquaintance you don't know very well invites you to his backyard barbecue and you don't really want to go. Do you politely decline or do you feel paranoid about hurting his feelings and say "yes"?
How To: 11 Green & Inexpensive DIY Solutions for Cleaning Your Toilet
In addition to unclogging your toilet using common household items, you can also clean and disinfect your toilet for cheap without ever having to use expensive and chemically-toxic toilet cleaners ever again.
How To: 8 Non-Cooking Uses for Turmeric
Turmeric, the vibrant yellow spice commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking, can also be used outside of the kitchen to disinfect wounds, relieve burns, add an extra golden glow to facial moisturizer, and more.
How To: 11 Awesome Uses for Hydrogen Peroxide
Commonly found in the medicine aisle in grocery stores near the bandages, hydrogen peroxide is best known for disinfecting wounds, but it's also extremely useful for a number of cleaning and health uses, such as removing sweat and blood stains from clothes, disinfecting cutting boards, removing bacteria from your produce before consumption, and more.
How To: 9 More Home Remedies That'll Get Rid of Those Dark Circles Under Your Eyes
Getting constant dark circles under your eyes? In addition to applying witch hazel or vitamin E oil to the area beneath your eyes, you can also elevate your head with two or three pillows while you sleep so that the blood doesn't pool beneath your eyes.
Stop Wasting Water: 15 Ways to Conserve More Water During a Drought
If you are living in California, you have probably already heard by now that the state is in a severe drought of unprecedented levels. Even if you don't live in a drought-affected area, it is extremely vital for everybody on this planet to conserve water as much as possible.
How To: 6 Easy Home Remedies for Treating Earaches
If you have an earache, look no further than your kitchen or medicine cabinet. For a non-intrusive remedy, simply rub a little Vicks VapoRub along the outer part of your ear (never inside the ear canal) and place a heating pad over the affected ear.
Liquid Witch Hazel: 12 Reasons Why You Should Have Some at Home
Witch hazel is a type of shrub with fragrant yellow flowers, and its bark and leaves are extracted and used for many medicinal uses.
How To: Remove Pet Hair from Anything—Anywhere
Need to quickly remove cat or dog hair from your living room couch before guests arrive? For a simple and effective technique, cover your hand with a damp rubber dishwashing glove and run your hand over the upholstery surface. The rubber glove should pick up the furs, and if you want to reuse the glove, simply rinse it off (just make sure to use a sink strainer to catch the hairs).
How To: 7 More DIY Cures for Headaches
Need an instant headache cure? Grab a pencil from your drawer of office supplies and bite down on it (but not too hard). Tension headaches commonly occur from overexerting your jaw muscles, and biting down on a pencil is a quick way to relax them.
How To: 9 Awesome Ways to Display Party Food Before the Summer Ends
Throwing a pool party before autumn arrives? Truly emphasize the festivity of summer by making a floating beer and soda cooler out of foam noodles, waterproof rope, and a large-lipped container.
How To: 9 Cool Tips for Sweating Less During the Summertime
Want to sweat less during the summertime? If you're already using antiperspirant sticks, apply them on your underarms the night before rather than the morning of. Antiperspirant works best when you're not already sweating like crazy, and by the time you take a shower in the morning, the antiperspirant will have already worked its way into your sweat ducts.
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: 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: 9 More DIY Ways to Painlessly Remove Splinters from Your Skin
Got a stubborn splinter lodged into your finger? There are a number of ways you can remove it easily using materials found around your home. Elmer's glue, banana peels, eggshells, potatoes, and baking soda are all great at painlessly extracting those tiny pieces of wood, glass, or other material.
How To: 8 Ice Cream Hacks You Need to Know Before Summer Ends
To prevent melted ice cream from leaking out of the pointy bottom of a cone, plug the hole up with a marshmallow before adding any ice cream on top. This will also give you a nice treat when you're almost finished, as the marshmallow will absorb some of the ice cream.