When faced with old, damaged plaster walls, one technique to dress up the room is to install drywall over the existing plaster. A drywall overlay gives the walls a smooth, fresh surface that's ready for new paint, paper or trim. This is a common technique used among professional contractors hired to renovate houses bought under foreclosure. For example, real estate companies that invest in foreclosures often deal with houses that are more than 50 years old and exhibit serious signs of aging. ...
It's fun to be out in warm weather cutting big timbers and doing a project that sees quick, upward progress. In this video, you'll find instructions for building a post and plank-style retaining wall. This post-and-plank retaining system is based on the way seawalls (or bulkheads) work. You set posts into the ground, vertically, then plank behind them. This creates a wall with texture and shadow lines with nice hollows between the posts for plantings or grass. And, because there's so much pos...
Decks and patios are a major source of America's entertainment and relaxing enjoyment, but they can be hot in the summer sun. They can actually be dangerous if they reflect the sun's ultraviolet rays. And running your grill during a rainstorm that arrives the same time as your guests can be a real frustration. One answer is a sunroof over your patio or deck. If designed properly, a sunroof can cut the summer sun, but still allow winter sun rays to warm the house. The sunroof shown is a typica...
Butcher-block kitchen countertops have traditionally been very popular and these days are often used as companion tops with other materials, such as solid-surface tops. In addition to their aesthetic appearance, they can receive hot pans without damage. You can make up your own butcher-block countertop, or the same technique can be used to create cutting boards, or a top for a roll-around cart. The steps in creating the top are fairly easy, but the project does require some special tools, esp...
Jason Voorhees might be one of the scariest horror villains, and that's why he would make for a great Halloween costume. For this project, you will need a hockey mask, white spray paint, black spray paint, clear spray paint, an artist's brush, red, black, and brown acrylic paint, sand paper, an X-acto or utility knife, a drill bit, and a black barker. Watch this video special effects tutorial and learn how to make a Jason Voorhees hockey mask for a Halloween costume or movie spoof.
Super cheap eyeballs without breaking the bank! While grapes are the safe standard to spook out trick or treaters, they don't look very realistic. For this project, you will need clear spray paint, white spray paint, black spray paint, blue acrylic paint, black acrylic paint, red acrylic paint, coat hanger or wire, tweezers, an artist's brush, a foam ear plug, a rag, sanding block or sanding paper, and bouncy balls. Watch this video prop-making tutorial and learn how to make cheap prop eyebal...
In this four-part tutorial series from the Scrollsaw Workshop, Steve Good prevents an introduction to the fundamentals of using a scrollsaw and takes you through a very basic project to get you started. As always, the pattern is available, free of charge, through Steve's blog, scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com.
In this tutorial from the Scrollsaw Workshop, Steve Good demonstrates how to cut a tall clock using a pattern available at Steve's blog, scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com. For this project, you'll need a clock face, wood of your choice (two 5" by 10" pieces and two 3" by 10" pieces) and a piece of contrasting wood for use around the border. Make time for this time-making tutorial; you'll be glad you did.
This is a video tutorial on how to make a USB aquarium powered by a under-gravel LED bulb that is powered by a USB port. With a bit of simple engineering, build a circuit to provide elegant lighting to your aquarium. Connect the wiring to the air pump for a cool lighted bubble effect. Plus, it's powered by your computer! Don't use expensive fish, or those which are sensitive to DC Currents. Don't do this project in a saline water tank, because salt conducts more electricity.
Are you a scientist in need of a method distinguishing bacterial species into groups based on the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls? Well, that's where a Gram staining procedure comes into play.
MP3 provides great quality compression for about a 10th the file size of uncompressed audio. And most people can’t hear the difference between the MP3 and uncompressed audio. Any computer or portable player can play an MP3 file, so it’s a universal file format that makes it perfect for podcasting.
A ceramic lantern is a great project for beginning potters. Learn how to make a lantern with tips from a master potter in this free ceramics video series.
Great unique and interesting glassware gifts. Learn how to etch glasses, jars and and other glass items in this homes crafts series from a glass project expert.
This video shows how to construct baby booties, knitted with straight knitting needles. No need to know how to "knit in the round" in order to make this pattern; it's an excellent project for beginner knitters. To make this pattern, knitting needles, yarn, a yarn needle and/or crochet needle are needed.
This gardening tutorial teaches you how to create a successful terrarium for kids of any age. This how to video covers the major points of making a terrarium and I give you lots of alternative methods. Learn how to select a kid-friendly container, select plants, make the terrarium, care and maintain the terrarium. You can use the terrarium as an eco system learning tool for children. This is a great project to do with your children with this how to video.
Watch this ceramics tutorial video to learn how to make your own butter dish. If you don't use butter, you can follow the same process to make a slightly bigger dish for cheese. This project is easy enough for beginners. The tips in this helpful how-to video will have you making your own butter dish in no time.
Learn how to produce Roy Lichenstein style Pop Art from your photographs using GIMP image editing software.
The Carmen Sprung Icosahedron is an example of a modular origami project that can be a little difficult putting together. Time, patience, and a lot of origami paper is everything needed to fold the icosahedron. Learn how to use the Japanese art of modular origami to make a Carmen Sprung Icosahedron. Start watching and start folding.
Make a two drop peyote bracelet, just like in the latest beading magazines, and learn how to read a peyote pattern, all by watching this video jewelry-making tutorial. Learn how to read a color wheel as well, and how to use it to improve beading technique. For this project you will need a needle, nylon line, and beads. Watch this how-to video and make a two drop peyote bracelet of your own!
This video jewelry-making tutorial shows how to make a Swarovski crystal spacer bar bracelet. For this craft project you will need crystals, space bars, silver rounds beads, crimp beads, and a three string clasp. Learn how to make a Swarovski crystal spacer bar bracelet by watching this how-to video.
How do you make a water based finish look more like oil-based finish. Its a common problem since water-based finishes are "water-white", which means they don't impart any color to the wood. This can be great in certain situations, but not so great when you want your project to have that warm glow to it. In this woodworking tutorial, you will learn how to use dye, shellac, and boiled linseed oil to try to spice up our water-based finish.
Do you need some extra cash? Is your clutter piling up on you? The perfect summer solution is a how-to on throwing and attending a yard sale. This week we show you how to prep and carry-out a successful yard sale, and show you how to spot a score. A few key points will help you spot the key piece for your wardrobe or next DIY project, whether it involves a yard sale or garage sale or what.
In Bermuda, people celebrate holidays and special occasions by creating and flying colorful kites! Now you can join in the fun and learn how to build this traditional kite.
This how to video shows us how to fix a scratched cd or dvd using toothpaste. Don't throw out that scratched cd or dvd, just fix it with this DIY home project.
This video is to get you started with the initial setup of the Doom 3 to Maya workflow. Topics covered (in order) are set up, export your first character ingame, texturing, animations on character cycles, load game models into Maya. Part 4 is a WMP video.
Watch this video to learn how to make a beautiful jewelry box. This project requires fairly advanced woodworking skills.
Watch this video to learn how to make a candlestick. This is a tough project for advanced woodwork. Part 1 of 5 - How to Hollow Spiral Candlestick.
You want to get your hands on the notorious Hang drum, but you can't because it's too expensive. Well, try your hands at the Hank drum, a Hang drum alternative that's cheap and easy to make. It was first invented by Dennis Havlena to imitate the Hang drum, and was made from old propane tanks. This video will show you the process of constructing your own Hank drum instrument from an empty propane tank, drill, electric saw, hacksaw blade, wrench, file and tuner. This project could cost you unde...
Don't know how to decorate your tree? Watch this video and learn how to make a beautiful Christmas village to put under the tree. Its sure to be the talk of your Christmas party.
We'll base the project around a digital clock radio and a light gun for gaming; huge selections of both of these are available inexpensively second-hand, with many beautiful and well-designed examples. To enable our FPSI (First Person Shooter Interface), we'll outfit the gun with five tilt sensors, arranged at different angles on a small circuit board. A cable tethers the gun to the clock and carries your tilt and trigger signals to the clock's time and alarm control button contacts.
In this ShowMeDo John Montgomery demonstrates how to create a project in Eclipse, then write and run a simple "Hello World" Java application. He also demonstrates the code-completion features of Eclipse, how to use the find and replace functioning and use the CVS version control system.
This three-part tutorial goes over how easy it is to incorporate and apply shaders within your 3D project in CINEMA 4D (release 9). The first part goes over material properties, the second goes over using Deepshade, and the last goes over manipulating default lighting to get a quick preview of the specular attributes of your textures.
Tim Carter demonstrates how to use recycled cobblestones. Cobblestone can be used to edge gardens, driveways and walkways. These paving stones make a great border.
If you've contemplated what's possible with augmented reality on mobile devices, and your interest has been piqued enough to start building your own Android-based AR app, then this is a great place to to acquire the basic beginner skills to complete it. Once we get everything installed, we'll create a simple project that allows us to detect surfaces and place custom objects on those surfaces.
The release of Unity 5.6 brought with it several great enhancements. One of those enhancements is the new Video Player component. This addition allows for adding videos to your scenes quickly and with plenty of flexibility. Whether you are looking to simply add a video to a plane, or get creative and build a world layered with videos on 3D objects, Unity 5.6 has your back.
At one point in the '90s, about fifty percent of the CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo. About fifty percent of the CDs in my home still have that AOL promise of 500 free hours on them. Though they never got me to join their internet service, I did get a lifetime supply of coasters. Thanks to the rise of high-speed internet access and bigger and better hard drives, there's no reason for companies to snail mail any more of those obnoxious plastic discs.
Hello, budding augmented reality developers! My name is Ambuj, and I'll be introducing all of you Next Reality readers to the world ARKit, as I'm developing an ARKit 101 series on using ARKit to create augmented reality apps for iPad and iPhone. My background is in software engineering, and I've been working on iOS apps for the past three years.
In this video from XcodeMod we learn how to make an iPhone app with Xcode. Open up XCode and go to File...New Project. Pick what kind of app you'd like to save it as and come up with a name to save it as and save it to your desktop. Open the Classes folder and go into the AppDelegate.H. In the space above @end, type - (IBAction) buttonTapped to create a button. Save that, copy that line and paste it where you want the button in your appdelegate.M. Now in Resources folder open the Mainwindow.x...
Children like to have fun things in their rooms. A pompom curtain is perfect for a little girl to have and pretend it is the entrance to her castle. A young boy might like a plain colored pompom curtain to pretend it is the entrance to the dungeon where he keeps his monsters!
If you want to add a little something to your yard for a good price, why not a stone walkway? This is perfect for areas that are used to experiencing rain and don't have a proper walkway from one area to another. This is perfect for the side of a home that may be covered in grass and has no sidewalk at all.
