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How To: 9 Mind Hacks for Avoiding Procrastination
Are you dreading a big, tedious task on your to-do list? Commit to only doing 10 minutes of it or only the very first minimal step. By lowering the hurdle for getting the task started, it is very likely that once you start doing it, you won't feel so bad about getting the rest of the task completed.
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: 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.
Upgrade Your Social Skills: 9 Ways to Be More Likable in Life
If you're in a social situation where you're meeting a lot of new people and you want to make the other person feel at ease, subtly mirror the other person's body language and make a point to say the other person's name.
How To: Make Your Own Sweetened Condensed Milk at Home
To make your own sweetened condensed milk at home, all you need are milk, sugar, butter, and about two hours of your time.
How To: 12 Crafty & Cool Uses for Empty Cereal Boxes
Here is more reason to eat cereal for breakfast. Once you have an empty cereal box on hand, you can use it as a DIY magazine organizer, emergency cupcake transport, cutting mat for arts and crafts, DIY holiday gift box and more.
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: 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: 16 Uses for Wire Coat Hangers That Have Nothing to Do with Hanging Clothes
Do you have an excess of wire clothes hangers from multiple trips to the dry cleaners? Rather than letting them take up space in your closet, you can use them for any number of things, from holding your necklaces and magazines to unclogging your sink and fishing dropped objects behind furniture.
How To: Make Your Own Temporary Tattoo
Whether you need very temporary skin art for a costume or simply want to test-run a potential tattoo design before it gets permanent, making your own temporary tattoo only requires wax paper, a printout or drawing of your desired design, black eyeliner, rubbing alcohol, baby powder, liquid bandage, and a lot of patience.
How To: 10 Non-Cooking Uses for Onions
Want to reduce the overwhelming smell of paint from a newly painted room? Slice up some raw onions, place them in a bowl of water, and leave them in the room overnight.
How To: Make DIY Rock Candy at Home
Not to be confused with Pop Rocks, rock candy, which is large chunks of crystallized sugar, is a wonderfully simple snack in and of itself, and can be used to dissolve in tea or coffee as well as on top of other desserts.
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.
How To: 8 Home Remedies That'll Get Rid of Those Dark Circles Under Your Eyes
If people are constantly asking you why you look so tired, then maybe it's time to get rid of the puffy dark circles under your eyes.
How To: Make Invisible Ink
Need to pass along an important message on paper without having it accidentally discovered by your archenemy? Using very common household products, you can easily whip up an invisible ink recipe and write out your secret message with the solution. All the recipient needs to do is heat up the paper using a stovetop of light bulb, or brush the surface of the paper with a simple iodine mixture to read the message.
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 Ways to Cut an Onion Without Shedding Tears
Is it possible to cut or chop onions in the kitchen without stinging eyes and looking as if you just watched the saddest movie ever? Before we get to that answer, it's important to know why we tear up when cutting raw onions in the first place. What is this irritant? Are you reacting to the odor? The answer to the latter question is "no," and the irritant responsible is amino acid sulfoxides.
How To: Make a Smoke Bomb with Sugar and Potassium Nitrate
Surprisingly, making your very own smoke grenade is pretty easy—and cheap. All you need is a saucepan or skillet, piezoelectric lighter, sugar and some potassium nitrate (easily available online and in most gardening stores).
How To: 8 Sneaky Tips for Lying Effectively
Last week, we explored nine signs to watch out for if you suspect that somebody is lying to you. In this week's slightly more evil edition, we present the flip side: eight sneaky tips for lying effectively.
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: 10 Alternative Uses for Your Old Oatmeal
Oatmeal may not be the most exciting breakfast option in the world, but in uncooked form the oats can be used to neutralize odors in your refrigerator, relieve your dog's itchy skin, soak up kitchen oil spills and treat your poison ivy or chicken pox itch.
Street Art 101: How to Make Moss Graffiti
Feeling the need to creatively express yourself in a public space? Make an artistic statement with some DIY moss graffiti using moss, buttermilk, beer, a paintbrush, and some imagination.
How To: 11 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism
Metabolism is the process by which your physical body converts what you eat and drink into energy that your body needs to function.
How To: 9 Nifty Ways to Use Washi Tape
If the letters on your laptop keyboard are faded or dirty, cover them with strips of washi tape. A high-quality, decorative tape made of rice paper based in Japan, washi tape is an extremely versatile craft tape known for its eye-pleasing decorative patterns and low-adhesive quality that makes it easy to unstick, reposition, and reuse again and again.
How To: 7 DIY Ways to Remove Oil Stains from Your Asphalt Driveway
If you have an oil stain on your asphalt driveway, wipe up the excess oil with an absorbent cloth or mop it up, then act quickly using the common household items below to make sure that it doesn't become a permanent eyesore or a headache to clean up later.
How To: 7 Quick Fixes for Squeaky Door Hinges & Creaky Floorboards
If squeaky wooden floorboards and creaky door hinges are preventing you from raiding your refrigerator after midnight in secret, you might already have everything you need in your kitchen to fix that problem.
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: DIY Ways to Clean Your Computer Screen, Keyboard, and Mouse
Got a dirty desktop computer or laptop screen? Mix together a solution of equal parts white vinegar and purified water and place solution in a spray bottle. Spray a clean cotton rag with the solution and gently wipe the screen for simple, streak-free cleaning. For a quick clean-up of dust particles that won't scratch the glass, use clean coffee filters or a dryer sheet.
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: Send a Secret Message Inside an Egg
Whether it's for Valentine's Day or you simply want to send a note to someone in a unique way, a secret message inside of a seemingly untouched raw egg is the perfect way to go.
How To: 7 Easy Ways to Remove Water Ring Marks from Wood Furniture
Summertime is officially here, which means that the likelihood of someone leaving a glass of cold water on your wooden furniture without a coaster and leaving behind an annoying water ring mark on the surface has increased tenfold. What can you do to get rid of that annoying mark?
How To: 13 Unexpected Uses for Vinegar You've Probably Never Heard Of
We all know that distilled white vinegar is great as a general non-toxic cleaning solution and for deodorizing funky smelling rooms, but did you know that vinegar is also great for curing hiccups, deterring ants from invading your home, relieving jellyfish stings, and testing the alkalinity of your garden soil?
How To: Collect Safe Drinking Water from the Wilderness
Without water, human beings can only survive for a few days. When you are out in the wilderness, knowing how to collect safe drinking water can be a matter of life or death. Large plastic bags are extremely handy for collecting condensation from grass and tree leaves, as well as creating a solar still. Dew water can be collected very easily with a clean towel and a small bowl. Large waterproof vinyl sheets are especially good for keeping your belongings from getting wet—and for collecting cle...
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: 8 Unexpected Uses for Elmer's Glue
If you miss the weirdly satisfying sensation of peeling dried Elmer's glue from the surface of your skin, you can relive this childhood tactile memory by using it to remove splinters from your skin. Simply apply a thin layer of glue to the affected area, wait for it to dry, then peel it off, which will also pull the splinter out.
How To: Make a Non-Toxic, Reusable Air Freshener to Keep Your Car Smelling Awesome
If you want to keep the inside of your car smelling awesome, don't buy commercial air fresheners. They contain toxic synthetic chemicals which can be harmful to your health.
How To: Make Your Own Non-Toxic Sunscreen at Home
Getting sunburned sucks, and according to the Environmental Working Group's 2012 survey of over 800 sunscreen brands, 75% of them contained potentially harmful ingredients linked to hormone disruption and even cell damage that may lead you to skin cancer. Yikes.
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: 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: 7 Medicinal and Household Uses for Cayenne Pepper
Cayenne peppers are great for spicing up your bland cooking, but did you know that they can also prevent frostbite? If you ever need to keep your feet warm during a long snow hike or skiing adventure, add a little bit of cayenne pepper powder to the bottom of your socks.