Hot The Secret Yumiverse How-Tos
How To: 11 Ways to Reuse Used Computer Paper
If you are like most people, you probably have a lot of used computer paper lying around at your home or in your office. Before you toss them directly into the recycling bin (which you should at least be doing if you're going to be getting rid of them), what are some crafty and practical things you can do with used computer paper?
How To: 10 Super-Practical Uses for Dishwashing Soap
Bored of using your bottle of dishwashing soap for just washing dishes? You're in luck. Not surprisingly, the soapy liquid commonly used for removing stubborn food build-up from your eating utensils can also be used as a general cleaner for washing windows, removing clothing and carpet stains, and cleaning your blender without taking it apart. For more unusual uses, dishwashing liquid is surprisingly useful for prepping your nails before a manicure and can even be used to kill fleas.
How To: 10 Weirdly Useful Things You Can Do with Banana Peels
Other than something you can place on the floor as an ironic reference to a bygone era when a banana peel fall was considered to be the height of comedic gold, banana peels have many weirdly useful applications for your beauty regimen, the maintenance of your leather couch, the health of your backyard garden, and more.
How To: 7 Great Uses for Egg Cartons
What can you do with your egg cartons after you are done using up all the eggs? The compartmentalized spaces used for storing eggs are also perfect to use as seed starters, DIY candle makers, paint palettes, and for storing similarly fragile or round objects like Christmas ornaments and golf balls. The sturdy, lightweight material of styrofoam egg cartons are also ideal to use as cheap packing material and an alternative to packing peanuts.
How To: 8 Weird Tips to Help You Fall Asleep
Do you have trouble falling asleep? If the usual methods don't work for you anymore, like taking a warm bath or drinking warm milk, check out some of the more unconventional methods below, like drinking melatonin-rich cherry juice or listening to a sleep hypnosis video before bedtime.
How To: 10 Non-Baking Uses for Sugar
If you are cutting down on sugar and don't know what to do with the excess box of sweet stuff taking up space in your pantry, you are in luck—sugar is another one of those super-common household items that has many practical, non-edible uses around the home and garden.
How To: 13 Non-Edible Uses for Bread
The best thing since the creation of bread may just be... sliced bread. Soft bread slices have the perfect absorbent texture for picking up tiny pieces of broken glass, gently cleaning dust off your precious oil paintings, and even safely removing splinters from your finger when soaked with milk and taped to your skin with a bandage.
How To: 12 Non-Cooking Uses for Butter
Though it may seem like sacrilege for some to use butter for something other than to flavor your food with delicious buttery goodness, butter has many other surprisingly practical uses, like keeping your hard cheeses mold-free or helping you swallow your pills.
How To: 8 Non-Drinking Uses for Beer
Just like soda pop, beer has many strangely useful and non-drinkable uses that can be pretty handy around the house and garden, in the kitchen, and even for your beauty routine. Beer bath, anyone?
How To: 11 Cool Ways to Reuse Old Jeans
Do you have a bunch of old jeans that no longer fit you or are too outdated to wear in public? If you are handy with a sewing machine, the possibilities for upcycling your jeans into something crafty are endless. You can update your old denims into a jean tote bag, yoga mat bag, quilt, or a super-handy utility belt (or mini-apron).
How To: 9 Unconventional Tips to Help You Wake Up Early in the Morning
Whether or not you consider yourself a morning person, the consistent ability to wake up at an early hour is a personal habit worth developing.
How To: 13 Unexpected to Downright Crazy Uses for Mason Jars
Invented by Philadelphia tinsmith John L. Manson in 1858 for canning and preserving perishables, mason jars are experiencing a major resurgence in the DIY community. In addition to being a handy storage device for both food and non-food items, its old-timey, quaintly antiquated look also makes for good drinking glasses, candle holders, flower vases and eye-pleasing decorations.
How To: 15 Super-Practical Reuses for Paper Grocery Bags
Just as how plastic grocery bags have many amazing reuses if you have a whole bunch of them stocked up in your home, the same goes for their papery counterparts as well.
How To: 12 Nifty Ways to Reuse Plastic Grocery Bags
If you are like most people, you have a lot of plastic grocery bags lying around the house. Most of us end up reusing them as trash bags for small trash cans, doggy-doo pickup, kitty litter box liners, or plastic versions of a paper lunch sack.
How To: Live with Only 100 Things or Less
So is it possible to live with only 100 things or less? Blogger David Bruno has created sort of an online meme dare called "100 thing challenge" for people to live on 100 things or less. If you Google "100 thing challenge," you can see how other people who have taken on the challenge have whittled down their personal belongings to just 100 things.
How To: 10 Fabulously Practical Uses for Scotch Tape
Scotch tape may not be as versatile as duct tape when it comes to mending things, but it still has a number of weirdly practical uses that goes beyond taping down wrapping paper and sealing envelopes.
Trash Treasure Hunt: An Illustrated Guide to Dumpster Diving for Newbies
There is no discount like free. And if you are not afraid to get your hands and clothes dirty foraging through dumpster bins, trash cans and the back alleys of department stores or restaurants to score perfectly usable items and perfectly edible food without paying a single cent, then dumpster diving might be right up your alley.
How To: Minimize Sitting Time During Your Day
Are you sitting down as you read this? You might want to stand up for a little bit. In case you haven't heard, sitting for prolonged periods of time is really bad for your long-term health—so bad that chronic sitters are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack, even if they are non-smokers or regular exercisers.
How To: 11 Slick Uses for WD-40 Spray
Originally invented in the 1950s to develop a rust-preventing solvent and degreaser for the aerospace industry, WD-40 spray has at least 2,000 practical uses for house-cleaning, gardening, furniture maintenance, farming, and more. Commonly used to repel water and prevent corrosion, WD-40 can also be used to help lubricate stuck objects (like zippers and LEGO parts), make shovels slippier for more efficient use, and even keep pigeons from pooping on your balcony.
How To: 12 Fabulous Uses for Duct Tape
Duct tape can be used for a variety of minor to major emergencies, from baby-proofing your power outlets to temporarily repairing the hole in your canoe. In a pinch, duct tape can serve as a handy band-aid, DIY clothesline and a not-too-shabby robot costume if you are in dire need of a last-minute Halloween costume.
How To: Make Giant Homemade Soap Bubbles
These dog days of summer are the perfect window of time to make giant homemade soap bubbles outdoors.
How To: Live Without a Refrigerator
Believe it or not, it is absolutely possible to get by without a big refrigerator in your kitchen. After all, before refrigerators became a household staple in the last century, people somehow managed to store their perishable fruits, vegetables, legumes and meats for an extended period of time with ice boxes, root cellars, evaporative cooling pots, preserving, canning and more.
How To: 16 Excellent Uses for Toothpicks
A small, pointy wooden stick normally used for picking at your teeth after a meal can do many other things. Use the humble toothpick to aid you in microwaving your potatoes, marking the end of clear packing tape, applying glue onto sequins and plugging the hole in your garden hose.
How To: 18 Awesome Ways to Reuse Old Pantyhose
The annoying thing about pantyhose? They snag and tear very easily. The amazing thing about pantyhose? They have about a gazillion practical uses even if you can no longer wear them.
How To: 14 Amazing Reuses for Sandwich and Freezer Bags
Sandwich bags are great and all—but what should you do with them after you are done eating your sandwich? Thankfully, these waterproof and durable bags do not need to add to the landfill right away; you can reuse sandwich bags for a variety of uses ranging from DIY gloves for messy projects to an instant pastry bag for frosting your cupcakes.
How To: Brew Your Own Sun Tea
Assuming that you are living north of the equator, ‘tis the summer season for brewing your own sun tea. Unlike the conventional method of dunking tea bags in boiling hot water for several minutes, sun tea is brewed over the course of several hours through the natural heat of direct sunlight.
How To: 13 Cool Ways to Use Rubber Bands
Other than holding together bundles of pens or creating a miniature catapult for a science project, rubber bands have many other surprisingly practical uses in the kitchen, office, for DIY home projects and more.
How To: 11 Extraordinarily Practical Uses for Nail Polish
Even if you plan on never giving yourself a manicure or a pedicure for the rest of your life, it doesn't hurt to have a bottle of clear nail polish in your home. You can use this clear adhesive stuff to seal envelopes, make your handwritten labels smudge-proof, keep your bathroom screws from getting rusty, fix small tears in your window screen and more.
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: 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: 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.
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.