Don't you hate it when the ice cream in your freezer loses its soft, smooth textures and has ice crystals all over its surface? Prevent this from happening by covering the ice cream in the carton with a sheet of plastic wrap before closing the lid tightly.
There are many advantages to knowing how to speak in foreign languages, whether it's for traveling, business, or simply for the pleasure of getting to know a culture that is completely different from your own.
Using a metal or silicone muffin tin, you can bake, freeze, or whip up a wide variety of snacks, appetizers, and desserts that aren't just cupcakes and muffins.
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.
There are very few times (if any) the word poo and delicious belong in the same sentence, but any fan of South Park (or chocolate) will appreciate this awesome Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo treat, created by Degroof.
Edible decorations are the best kind of decorations—not only do they look good, they also serve a purpose. An edible centerpiece is a great way to entertain your guests and gives them something to tide them over while you're cooking if you're serving food.
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.
If you love the creamy flavor of mashed potatoes, but need a healthier option to appease your health-conscious relatives this Thanksgiving, try making mashed cauliflower, mashed celery root, or mashed carrots and parsnips using a food processor and seasonings of your choice.
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.
Other than providing a convenient vessel for your carbonated beverages so that they don't go completely flat, aluminum soda cans are also quite useful for a number of other things once they're completely empty.
If you've got a couple empty coffee cans getting ready to go out to the recycling—don't get rid of them just yet. Instead, use them to make your own homemade ice cream. It's the perfect DIY treat as the weather gets warmer in anticipation of the summer season.
They say that flowers are the way to a girl's heart, but why waste your money at the local florist when you can make your own? If you have a maple tree in the area, you can create a fanciful faux rose from maple leaves. If not, you can turn to the kitchen and make your loved one a bouquet of roses using heavy-duty plastic spoons.
Compact discs...remember those? Before you toss your old CD spindle cases away, consider upcycling them to a DIY terrarium, cable storage container, hamster toy, rainfall shower head, bird feeder, bagel sandwich lunch box, and more.
Don't add your plastic cup to the trash bin just yet. The sturdy plastic material of these ubiquitous containers makes them perfect to use as miniature DIY greenhouses for seedlings, smartphone sound amplifiers, Christmas ornament storage, and even packing material.
Film canisters, remember those? Those black containers with the grey lids that used to contain... camera film?
Whether or not you have a feline companion at home, a bag of cat litter makes for a handy household staple that can help prevent grease fires, add traction to slippery icy steps, remove grease spots, preserve your fresh flowers, and clear algae from your backyard koi pond.
Mayonnaise is not exactly the healthiest thing in the world, but it makes for a great household and self-care item, from whitening your yellowing piano keys to adding shine and luster to your dry and brittle hair.
One of our favourite movies of 2011—Manborg, which we saw at Toronto After Dark—has become one of our favourite movies of 2012 with its week-long run here in Toronto at the Royal. A gloriously funny pastiche of ultra-cheap kung-fu, horror and sci-fi, Manborg is also a perfect example of the DIY ethic: it wears its rough, hand-made edges proudly, and its intense roughness makes its devotion to ‘80s channel-100-at-3-AM crap-cinema ephemera even funnier. We had a chance to speak with director St...
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.
Paper towels are great for absorbing your kitchen spills, but did you know that they're also perfect for cooking bacon in the microwave? Simply place bacon side-by-side on a layer of two paper towels and place two more paper towels on top of the bacon. Zap in the microwave at 1-minute interval for 3-4 minutes until desired crispiness is reached. No greasy pan-cleaning to worry about afterwards.
Plain yellow mustard, most commonly used for adding an extra zing of flavor to your ballpark hot dog, also contains potent medicinal properties that is perfect for relieving your sore throat, relaxing your sore back muscles and decreasing the intensity of your headache.
Do you drink a lot of coffee? Before you toss your used coffee grounds into the trash or compost bin, see if you can use them to deodorize your freezer, cover up your wooden furniture scratches, and help clean up the grease and grime from your pots and pans.
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.
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.
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?
It seems like Apple is always releasing something new, so there must be a lot of lonely iDevices out there going unused, right? With Seedio, you can make the most of your Apple products by connecting them to make one synchronized loudspeaker. As long as all the devices have the Seedio app installed, you can connect as many iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches as you want. All you need is a wireless connection. You can play music from anywhere: your library, YouTube, or the Web. It also works as a...
These dog days of summer are the perfect window of time to make giant homemade soap bubbles outdoors.
Check this cool tutorial that show you how to make a sweet Storm Trooper helmet out of junk! It's cheap and very fun to make! Let's hope that after you make it, you actually are able to hit stuff you shoot at with your laser gun though. Milk Jug Storm Trooper Helmet.
Movie fans—it's that time again—the Oscars. You can finally see who wins for Best Actress, Best Director or Best Screenplay tomorrow night during the 83rd Academy Awards at 8 p.m. (EST) on ABC. For those of you on the west coast, that would be 5 p.m. (PST).
Ikea Hacker features a nice Ikea mod: Romain turns the Ivar side unit into a camera dolly. "A few days ago, I found out that the Ivar 'wooden ladder' was perfect to use it as rails for my cinema dolly! I can now make some nice sequence shots with this 18€ accessory from Ikea."
This past Friday, LG held their annual Mobile World Cup (re: publicity stunt), a speed-texting competition. Two Korean teenagers were named fastest and most accurate texters, raking in $100,000 in championship money. America came in second, with a $20,000 cash prize.
As Gizmodo says, "4 feet 6 inches of brickgasm". Star Wars-gasm. LEGO-gasm. Perfect combination. "The Lego version of the classic Nebulon-B Class rebel frigate Redemption is 4 feet and 6 inches long. That's 172 studs long, and I'm not talking about The Hoff. It's big enough to dock one mini-Millennium Falcon and three X-Wings."
Can't help but smile at this goofy, endearing nerd "master" (Vitalijus Rodnovas) guiding his copy-cat protege robot (coined Waldo). The rig allows Waldo to mimic Rodnovas' body movements in actual real time.
Kogoro Kurata, master ironsmith, known for his massive, impressive metalworking. His creations are awe-inspiring. Any blacksmith or engineer would agree.
The secret hideout - a thing of the past, a childhood luxury, an adult-less adventure. Those were the days. And remember the secret knock? The only way in. You either knew it or you didn't. The only way to keep the kids in and the grown-ups out.
Artist Felice Varini has been playing with the art of illusion since 1979. This piece takes on the incredible scale of an entire Swiss village.
University of Tokyo and MIT join forces to create a high speed, three fingered, robot pitcher. From Pink Tentacle:
Luxiare is at it again with another clever, beautifully shot How-To. This time Luxiare demonstrates how to make the perfect packed lunch: a bento
Pie lollipops. The perfect snack. Forget settling on one slice, with the pie pop you can sample multiple flavors. Luxirare posted a beautifully photographed (somewhat) tutorial on how to make your own. Premade fillings, jarred like jam, enable you to make a wide variety in one batch. Check out the amazing photographs below; click through to Luxirare a few DIY text tips.
Sure, unrolling toilet paper and tearing it from the roll is not difficult. But if Lego Mindstorms can do it for you, why not?
