The Secret Yumiverse Features
How To: 13 Non-Lip Uses for Chapstick
Now that the weather is colder and drier than usual, you may be using Chapstick more frequently to moisturize your dry lips. Did you know that you can also use Chapstick on dry elbows, dry cuticles, dry knuckles, and even the ends of your hair?
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: 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: 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: 11 Sizzling Uses for Charcoal Briquettes Besides Grilling
However much you love your summer barbecue parties, you probably won't be going through your entire bag of charcoal briquettes anytime soon. So, take advantage of your charcoal excess by putting them to good use in other ways!
Cleaning Frequency Chart: How Often Should You Clean Certain Items in Your Home?
How often should you clean things in your home? Washing dishes and doing the laundry are no-brainers because they have their own self-imposed cleaning schedule, but what about the other items in your home that don't have such an obvious indicator of when it is time to clean them again?
Guerrilla Gardening 101: How to Make a Seed Bomb
Build up your arm strength and beautify your local community in a single stroke by dropping homemade seed bombs in and around your neighborhood. A guerrilla gardening technique anyone can participate in, seed bombing is a fun and effective way to add tiny oases of wildflowers and healthy green plants in vacant lots and other overlooked and neglected parcels of land.
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: 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: 9 Useful Things You Can Do with a Turkey Baster Besides the Obvious
Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but it's definitely not too early to pull out that turkey baster hiding in your kitchen drawer. There are many things you can do with it besides baste a roasting turkey.
How To: Your Illustrated Extreme Winter Survival Guide
If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate predicament of being stranded outdoors in the snow, don't eat snow off the ground. Eating solid snow will sap your body of precious internal heat (since the heat will be used to melt the consumed ice), so it is best to melt the snow completely before drinking to stay hydrated.
How To: 11 Awesome Uses for Paint Chips
Paint chips, small cards that show different colors from paint manufacturers, can be picked up for free at your local hardware store to help you decide what color you want to paint your living space. They can also be used for a number of crafty DIY projects, such as making your own drink coasters, gift tags, bookmarks, and more.
How To: 9 DIY Ways to Remove Sweat Stains from Clothes
Got a bad sweat stain on the underarms of your light-colored clothing? You probably have something in your kitchen or medicine cabinet that will help get rid of the stain immediately. Aspirin, table salt, lemon juice, white vinegar, baking soda, and even meat tenderizer (make sure it is unseasoned!) are some of the many common household ingredients you can use to make your sweaty clothes look brand new again.
How To: 16 Home Remedies for Treating Poison Ivy, Oak & Sumac Rashes
Poison ivy, poison oak, and the lesser known skin irritator, poison sumac, can all cause a conundrum in the search of itch relief: to scratch or not to scratch. Fortunately, there are a number of home remedies one can try to help alleviate the itch(ing), with many like coffee, a banana, baking soda, or mouthwash likely already in-house for most.
How To: Yumi's Vegetable Cooking Cheat Sheet
To some, vegetables are even more flavorful than meat, but they're also more sensitive—overcook them and they go from extremely delicious to extremely icky real quick. They generally require very little prep, and the best recipes are the simplest. A little salt, olive oil, and garlic—just watch them close, and make sure you time it right. Print out this handy drawing, set your timer, and you'll never have soggy, ill-cooked veggies again.
How To: 6 DIY Ideas for Keeping Your Earbuds Tangle-Free
If you always carry earbuds with you in your purse or backpack, you can use simple household objects to prevent the cords from tangling up into knots.
How To: 7 Ways to Cook a Campfire Meal, No Pots or Pans Required
To make yourself a tasty meal during a camping trip, all you need are chopped up raw meats and vegetables, glowing embers, and a roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Simply place ingredients in a tightly wrapped aluminum foil packet, place on hot embers, and wait until everything inside is fully cooked.
How To: 8 Awesome Uses for Chalk That You've Probably Never Heard Of
Commonly associated with classroom blackboards and sidewalk art, chalk can also be used to repel ants from invading your home, lift grease stains from clothes, prevent your tools from rusting, and hide your wall scrapes and nicks in a pinch.
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: Cut Glass Bottles in Half Using Fire and Glass Cutters or Acetone-Soaked String
Want to make your own glass drinking cups? You don't need to be a glassworker to get creative. Just recycle some of your old beer, soda, or wine bottles into stylish toothbrush holders or glass cups.
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.
How To: 5 Cool Things to Do with Origami Paper Cranes
Origami paper cranes make for lovely eye candy and, once you know how to fold them, become wonderfully meditative when you compulsively make a bunch of them in one long sitting.
How To: 8 Ways to Get Started as a Guerrilla Street Artist
Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a gallery space or expensive art education to share your art with the rest of the world. Take a cue from today's innovative artists who share their creative experiments directly out on the streets and in public spaces for the everyday pedestrian in unique and quirky ways. And no, you don't have to be a skilled graffiti tagger, either. Just some yarn, random knick-knacks, photos, and Post-it notes as well as other basic office supplies.
Survival 101: 6 Ways to Purify Water in the Wild
Whether you are camping for the first time or you find yourself stranded somewhere due to a natural disaster or zombie apocalypse, it is important to know how to purify water in the wild if you don't have immediate access to store-bought water bottles.
How To: Make an Upside-Down Tomato Planter Using an Empty Soda Bottle
Combine your passion for drinking soda and growing your own vegetables by making an upside-down tomato planter! This gardening project is especially great for people who have limited space for growing their own green things. To make this, you'll be using an empty soda bottle, aluminum foil, masking tape, twine, potting soil, and other simple materials.
Recipe for Horror: How to Make Fake Blood Capsules for Halloween
Want to go the extra mile with your scary costume this Halloween? Use fake blood capsules. At an opportune moment, fake blood can slowly dribble out of your vampiric mouth like you've just finished sucking blood out of an innocent bystander's neck. Or, if you're a zombie, it'll look like you've just finished feasting on the flesh of some poor non-zombie sap.
How To: 6 Clever Ways to Hide Your Spare Keys Outdoors
If you're ever paranoid about locking yourself out of your house, the worst thing you can do is to hide your spare key in an obvious spot, like under the doormat, under a planter, or anywhere near the front door.
How To: 12 NASA-Approved Houseplants for Improving Indoor Air Quality
Back in the '80s, NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America did a study where they discovered which houseplants were the most effective in purifying the air in space facilities. Though you may not be living in a rocket ship, you can definitely benefit from having one or more of these plants in your home.
How To: 7 Tips for Staying Warm in Your Bed During a Cold Winter
Just like it's hard to fall asleep when it's too hot in bed, it's difficult for some to fall asleep when it's really cold. Avoid this unpleasant scenario by investing in a heated mattress pad so that by the time you are ready to check out for bedtime, your bed and blankets are already toasty.
How To: 10 Ways to Make a DIY Bird Feeder Out of Random Household Objects
Want to attract more birds into your backyard for your viewing pleasure? With a simple household objects and bird seeds, you can easily turn your backyard or outdoor balcony into a bustling destination for your neighborhood birds.
How To: 8 Crafty Ways to Reuse Old Christmas Ornaments & Decorations
Broken glass Christmas ornaments? Evergreen wreath falling apart? Before you throw away or donate Christmas decorations you no longer need, see if you can reuse or recycle them for better use year-round or for next year's holiday season.
How To: 15 Clever Uses for All Those Extra Bobby Pins in Your Bathroom
Bobby pins are great for pinning down flyaway bangs, but they're also great for pushing up the unused gel in a tube of toothpaste, marking the end of a transparent tape roll, opening the plastic seal in food jars, and even removing the pits from ripe cherries or olives.
How To: Throw the Perfect Punch
Marital arts master Bruce Lee had his famous one-inch punch technique. He knew that putting all of your weight and energy into one inch of movement had far more power than moving your arm one foot.
Increase Your Willpower: 9 Mind Hacks for Better Self-Control
Have you already abandoned your New Year's resolutions? Maybe you need a refresher on how to stick to your goals and avoid succumbing to your worst temptations and unproductive habits. No matter where you are in life right now, all of us can benefit from increasing our sense of willpower.
How To: Survive a Deadly Animal Attack in the Wild
Whether it's a shark in the ocean, a crocodile in the swamp or a swarm of angry bees, trekking through the wilderness always comes with its fair share of perils. To prepare for the worst case scenario, equip yourself with the right knowledge—then the worst that can happen to you is an awesome bar story when you tell your friends about your close encounter.
How To: Turn an Old Hardback Book into an Awesome Kindle Cover
If you love the digital convenience of ebooks but miss the analog tangibility of physical books, then this DIY cover is for you. It will work with pretty much any Kindle, Nook, tablet, or e-reader, and only requires a hardcover book, an elastic band, and some simple craft supplies.
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: 11 Non-Dental Uses for Your Old Toothbrush
We all know to should swap out our toothbrushes one every three to four months, but did you know your used Toothbrush still has a number of handy uses once its time in your bathroom is done? You can use an old toothbrush indefinitely to remove silk from corn, exfoliate your lips, tame your unruly eyebrows or clean your cheese grater before sticking it in the dishwasher.
How To: 12 Cold Weather Hacks to Get You Through the Rest of the Winter Season
Turn on the ceiling fan indoors during the cold winter season. Though it may seem counterintuitive, spinning the blades clockwise on a low setting actually recirculates warmer air trapped near the ceiling towards the floor.
How To: 11 Surprising Things You Should Never Throw into the Recycle Bin
While it is common sense to toss empty water bottles into the recycle bin, most people do not know that it is also important to remove the plastic bottle cap before recycling. Plastic bottle caps and plastic bottles are made up of different plastics, and the plastic found in bottle caps are not as useful for recycling centers as the plastic found in bottles.