HowTo: Make Soap With Bacon
"Fruity hand soaps, moisturizers, emulsifying lotions, pumice stones, and Loofahs don't cut it. We want to cleanse ourselves with the fat of the sweet, dead pig."
"Fruity hand soaps, moisturizers, emulsifying lotions, pumice stones, and Loofahs don't cut it. We want to cleanse ourselves with the fat of the sweet, dead pig."
Hongkiat has compiled a collection of beautiful examples of "Bokeh" photography (1, 2):
If you want Star Wars, look to the games and not the movies to satisfy your hunger. The original Force Unleashed was a great game and a surprise hit. Later next year another Star Wars MMO will debut from Bioware. Maybe the Star Wars novels are also a good source for Star Wars material, but that's a realm I know nothing about.
On July 24th, producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald will open their inboxes to the YouTube filmmakers for their groundbreaking, or at least rule-breaking documentary "Life in a Day".
African children have been fashioning soccer balls from condoms since condoms became widely distributed by large health education campaigns promoting AIDS awareness. But it is the anticipation of the hype related to the 2010 South African World Cup that inspired this elegant short to be produced.
Check out this article from the LA Times that picks through how awesome Red Dead Redemption is for its creators Take Two.
Photo: Carolyn Cope Serious Eats has some great tips for shopping at the farmers' market. Some of the best ones:
Royal College of the Arts student Merel Karhof has come up with an innovative way to harness natural resources: a wind knitting factory. Merel's device is a mechanical wind-powered knitting machine that sustainably produces long tubes of knitted material. Nice. I'd let the wind knit my scarves.
Check out the winner from Beyond the Still's Chapter Two: Job Security. "Job Security" written & directed by Josh Thacker.
Food & Flowers Freedom Act in Los Angeles
Horticulture mad-science offers a slew of marketing possibilities. How is it that our grocery stores aren't filled with Mickey Mouse shaped melons or, as in the case of Chinese farmer Hao Xianzhang, baby shaped pears? Xianzhang isn't the first to come up with the idea of young produce grown into a specifically shaped mold; the Japanese have been growing square shaped watermelons for the purpose of refrigerator space efficiency. And (as pictured below), decades ago an Ohio farmer grew a real-l...
And the best part? No glasses required. Avatar has unleashed utter 3D mania, and Nintendo plans to jump in sometime this coming year. Not much information has been provided, but here is what has been explicitly stated, via Nintendo's press release:
Spring is coming around the corner, and what better to welcome it through the door than houseplants? Design Sponge posts a simple tutorial on plant propagation, the natural process of using plant cuttings to produce more plants. Surprisingly easy (and cheap).
Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University have teamed up to to create an armband that projects a touchscreen interface directly on to your skin. The best part? Skinput knows which part of the body you've tapped, based on the sound that's matched against skin, muscle or skeleton.
In this two part lesson we'll discuss the differences between open chords and barre chords, then introduce the 4 main primary barre chords. I'll give a few tips on how you might position your hand to play the barre chords cleanly, and explain how each barre chord pattern relates to the guitar neck to produce a chord in all 12 keys. With these 4 patterns and some practice you should be able to play 48 chords. I'll suggest a couple of practice routines and give you a quick demo using "Light My ...
Fitness trainer Sonny Wang shows you how to lift a heavy cooler properly so you don't hurt your back. Then, he gives a couple of exercises you can do at the beach or park to strengthen your back and abs. One of the exercises uses the cooler. Sonny is a fitness trainer and guest host of "Fitness on the Beach" which is produced by Santa Barbara Internet TV. Lift a heavy cooler without hurting your back.
Illustrator allows symbols to be placed on a graphic with a convenient spray-paint icon. The longer the mouse button is held while the spray can is in use, the more copies of the Symbol are produced. In this Illustrator CS2 video tutorial you will learn create and use vector shapes in the spray can. Make sure to hit "play tutorial" in the top left corner of the video to start the video. There is no sound, so you'll need to watch the pop-up directions. Create custom spray can symbols in Illust...
If you have a great idea for a TikTok, you probably need to take your time to execute it perfectly. But what if something crazy and unexpected is happening in front of you, perfect for an impromptu video? You don't want to miss the action, but getting all the way to TikTok's camera might take too long — that is, if you don't know this trick.
Beeswax is a natural wax produced by honeybees and can also be used for your home. Commonly associated with making your own DIY candles, beeswax is the perfect DIY product for making your own lip balm, non-toxic crayons, mustache wax, and more.
While it is convenient to buy avocados from the local supermarket, you can also start investing in the long-term goal of having free avocados coming from your own backyard by growing an avocado tree straight from the pit.
Castile soap is named for Castile, Spain, and is traditionally made from locally produced olive oil from the region. In current times, Castile soap refers to a category of soap that is made from 100 percent plant-based oils and does not include chemical detergents, making it a completely natural, biodegradable, and environmental-friendly product.
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.
Commonly used for washing and scrubbing dirty dishes, the ubiquitous kitchen sponge can also be used to sprout seeds, loosen wallpaper, remove oil leaks, deodorize your fridge, and more.
Plastic bread clips, which are primarily used to keep bread bags closed, can also be used to add new life to your old flip-flops, scrape gunk off your nonstick pans, keep matching socks together before laundering, label your cable cords, and more.
If you have a bunch of spare toilet paper tubes lying around, you're in luck this holiday season. With wrapping paper, a couple trinkets, and a pack of cracker snaps, you can make your very own Christmas crackers.
Everyone has taken a photo that didn't turn out quite right because of bad lighting or a flash that produced too much or too little light. A flash can make your subject look washed out, or even downright creepy with bright white skin and red eyes. But with a bounce wall, you can redirect the light to make it less harsh and reduce the shadows. It also means less demonic-looking cats. Bounce walls can be expensive, but David Hobby of Strobist made this DIY version that uses a wire hanger, some ...
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.
Go to them Live among them
Conceptual artist Michel de Broin has created the biggest disco ball the world has ever seen, which he suspended over Paris for one night.
A brand new Japanese prototype offers users the ability to manipulate real 3D forms, employing a touch interface with a squeezy, rubbery feel.
What would drive Michelle Wibowo to create such a hyper realistic baby cake? An outsider to the cake decorating world might consider the subject matter a bit odd. However, elaborate baby shower cakes are a popular fad, and Michelle's award winning baby cake is the creme of the crop.
NK5 is a genuine wizard with an old monitor. He's hacked together everything from an electric kitty fence to a Halloween hologram using the guts of an old CRT.
Be your own billboard! Color your quadrant portrait just like Warhol. Screenprinting is a staple of DIY culture as are our videos producers Bre Pettis and Etsy.com's Matt Stinchcomb.
Here's a DIY dream. Solar-power, recycled bottles, snap'n'go toy car! Simple. How easy to transform trash into toys.
Smoking fingers is a basic magic trick, but it still gets a wow up-close, especially if your audience is barside and slightly inebriated.
This technique was popularized on Japanese television and has since been widely imitated and posted everywhere. The original concept was shown on a primetime Japanese variety show. Many others produced (plagiarized) their own tutorials for the web. Even Martha made one.
Properly produced, a pointless bar trick is as much a how-to as a Mario Batali cooking instructional. We are non-discriminatory in that regard. While curating, we focus primarily on the INTENT of the video.
Carnival is upon us. Pre-Lenten festivals are being celebrated across the globe. From New Orleans to Brazil, the parties share many similarities: float parades, extravagant dance, bead tossing and of course, the consumption of spirits.
Congratulations to Brian Brushwood and Scam School for winning the 2008 WonderHowTo Magic Award! We're huge fans of the Scam School and with the votes, clearly you are too. Scam School and the Superhero Trick are the brainchild of spiky-haired magician Brian Brushwood. Brian is the only WonderHowTo Award winner with a self-produced action figure!
Like Michaelangelo and Carerra had marble, this anonymous artist du jour had a plastic stirrer and spare flame. This beautifully intricate design was created by burning plastic. What you see artfully illustrates the chemical process known as thermosetting.