Hot MacGyverisms Posts
How To: The Trick to Keeping Your Home Warm During Winter for Cheap
When temperatures drop and hit new lows during the cold, winter months, it's hard not to crank the heat up. That means increased energy bills each month, no matter if you rely on gas, electric, or another fuel for heating.
How To: Make an Impossible-to-Find Doortop Safe to Hide Secrets, Cash, & Other Valuables
Thanks to the internet and its increasingly lack of privacy, secrets don't even seem safe in our own homes anymore. So how do you hide your secrets, stash your cash, or keep your valuable jewelry out of sight where no one can find it? Well, the answer might be right above you... if you're standing under the threshold of a door, that is.
How To: Use Extra Shower Curtain Rods to Increase Bathroom Storage & More
If you're anything like me, clutter scattered across the bathroom counter, on the shower floor, or on any other available space is maddening. Who enjoys a mess of shampoos, scrubs, and sponges strewn around their feet or just out of reach in the shower? What can you do when space is limited?
How To: Recycle an Empty Wipes Canister into a Neat & Tidy Plastic Bag Dispenser
Plastic bags may be banned from retail stores in some cities, like Santa Monica, Seattle, and San Fransisco, and will be banned in Los Angeles shortly, but we still use billions of them every year. What else are we going to use for throwing away cat litter or picking up dog poop?
How To: Replace Worn Off Lettering on Home Appliances with Sugru
Whether you've had them for years or bought them used off Craigslist, old appliances can always benefit from a facelift. One of the first things to go is usually the lettering on the knobs, buttons, and other surfaces that are frequently touched, leaving them faded and difficult to read.
How To: Make a Super Simple Toothbrush Holder and Declutter Your Bathroom Sink
If you don't have a lot of counter space in your bathroom, even something as small as a toothbrush can seem like it takes up a lot of room. Hanging a toothbrush holder on the wall helps to declutter your counter, or you can hang it inside the cabinet to hide them from sight. Photographer and Instructables user Andrea Biffi used one mini-pack of Sugru to make a really simple wall-mounted toothbrush holder. All you have to do is roll the Sugru into a cylinder, then press the toothbrushes into i...
How To: Silence Your Obnoxiously Squeaky Bed with 4 Easy MacGyver Style Fixes
Any living creature will die if deprived of sleep for long enough. The longest documented occurrence of a person not fully sleeping and surviving is only 11 days. There is a rare disease where deep sleep is never achieved, affecting roughly 100 people worldwide. Patients usually only survive between 6 to 18 months after the onset of chronic insomnia, and only 3 to 9 months in a parasomnia state without any real REM sleep.
How To: Turn Leftover Cardboard Boxes into Sturdy Chairs and Stylish Nightstands
Contrary to popular belief, IKEA can get pretty expensive. You find something that comes pretty cheap, but then, you decide that your GORF will look good with the BLERGH, and you really need the SPLOOF to tie it all together. Pretty soon, your living room looks like an IKEA magazine ad, and your bank account has seen better days. Instead of spending so much money at IKEA, why not build your own pieces of furniture?
How To: Turn an Old Fan Grille into a Decorative Plant Hanger
Everybody should have plants in their home. Not only do they give off oxygen, but they add a whole new level of decor and awesomeness to an otherwise drab room. So naturally, if you want to improve a room, just display a few plants.
News: How to Make a Table Out of an Old Snowboard
Check out this sweet project where a table is made from an old snowboard. An old skateboard could be used to make an end table as well maybe! Shredder Style - ReadyMade.
Summer Cooling Tip: How to Upgrade a Handheld Fan into a Mister
If you're anything like me, the heat of the summer can often be unbearable. Where I live, it often gets as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit, so anything that cools off is a welcome and amazing thing. Mister fans are especially amazing for cooling off, but they are usually very big and attached to buildings (which currently is way out of the picture for me.)
How To: Make an Ovitrap Mosquito Trap
Do you have a major mosquito problem? Well, here's a solution used by the military to drastically cut down their numbers.
How To: Make a Mini Grill Out of a Wire Hanger & Foil Pans
It is a beautiful, yet scorching day here in Los Angeles, and the only reason I would ever step outside from my air-conditioned castle would be to grill out by the pool. There's just one problem: backyards are few and far between here in The City of Angels.
How To: Use Ice Cubes to Get Furniture Indents Out of Carpets & Rugs
Once your furniture is finally moved in, settled upon a spot, and used for comfort or leisure, chances are it won't move very often. We tend to leave—and use—our furniture in the same spot for years, which can leave signs of great wear beneath, deeply indenting our carpeted floors and fancy rugs.
How To: Use a Seam Ripper to Remove Hair & String More Easily from Your Vacuum's Brush Roll
Vacuuming is an easy, almost effortless task. With a few pushes of the vacuum, we can pick up pet hair, loose fluff, and other dirt and debris tracked across our floors. Yet there's one culprit that's harder to beat than all others—long strands of human hair.
How To: Use Those 'Useless' Leftover Toilet Paper Tubes to Clean in Tight Spots
How many times have you thrown out the remaining cardboard tube from an empty roll of toilet paper? Most of the time, they don't even make it to the recycling bin, and with the average American using over 20 rolls each per year, that's over 6.4 trillion tubes being wasted each year. Yet these small tubes are particularly valuable helpers around the home, especially when it comes to cleaning, so why toss them out?
How To: Make an Elegant No-Gas, No-Electricity Heater for the Winter
The weather outside might be frightful, but heating bills are downright scary this time of year. Heat is absolutely essential during the winter season, but it's also really expensive. If you aren't blessed with a fireplace or unlimited disposable income, fear not, because you can still heat your home on the cheap using flower pots and tea lights—even if the power goes out.
How To: The Simple No-Prop Method for Fixing a Wobbly Table Super Fast
As sure as death and taxes, sitting at a wobbly table at one time or another is inescapable. With your weight on it, the table shifts from one end to the other, lifting one leg in the air and then the other; a parade of seesaws, especially if you have someone sitting on the other end.
How To: Make a Smartphone Projector for Less Than $5
There's nothing better than gathering up all the cushions, pillows, and blankets in your home and having a good ol' fashion movie night. But if you're still rocking the old 19-inch TV your parents gave you in college, you may want to upgrade to something bigger.
How To: Rock Your Next Summer Party (10 Insane Tricks for the Perfect Backyard Bash)
Parties are a great way to celebrate and have fun with your good friends, so to make sure your next party rocks, I've assembled some of the biggest life-hackers on YouTube to bring you 10 outrageous party tricks your guests will not forget.
How To: Ceiling Fan Not Cooling? It Might Be Spinning Backwards
Sometimes, ceiling fans just don't cut it. They spin meekly, barely generating any air flow to cool down your sweltering room. Or, when turned up high, they can wobble wildly, shaking and vibrating as if the ceiling is about to come crashing down. If this sounds like your ceiling fan, chances are the solution is a simple as flipping a switch.
DIY Survival: How to Filter Dirty Water with a Stick
There's no shortage of ways to filter water, but it doesn't get much simpler than this. Researchers at MIT have found that you can turn dirty water into drinking water with nothing more than a stick.
How To: 10 Reasons Why Everyone (Even Men) Should Have Nail Polish in Their Homes
When you think of nail polish, it's probably almost always in the context of a manicure. I mean, that's what it's made for, right? But there are plenty of other things you can use clear or colored nail polish for besides painting your nails.
How To: Make a Phone or Tablet Stand
How to make a simple yet effective stand for your phone or tablet / iPad. Great for watching films or reading recipes whilst you cook.
How To: Dry Your Soaking Wet Shoes Faster — Without Shrinking Them in the Dryer
Wet shoes are uncomfortable, no one can deny that. Just think about walking around with soaking wet footwear ... and each squishy step you take. Makes you cringe, doesn't it? It can happen in heavy rain, at the beach, or from an unforeseen puddle on the street. And while you can't always avoid soggy shoes, you can rest easy knowing that the next time this happens to you, you know the secret trick to drying your shoes faster without damaging them with excessive heat.
How To: Turn Corn or Potato Chips into a MacGyver-Style Emergency Candle
Not having power sucks. It can be fun for the first few hours, but if it lasts any longer than that, most people run out of things to do pretty quickly (i.e. the batteries in all their devices die).
How To: Stop Squashing Bananas—Make Your Fruit Indestructible with This DIY Banana Case!
I've had a thing against bananas ever since Mario Kart; not only do I believe it's the worst weapon in the game, but it's also a very funny-looking food. Nevertheless, bananas are a great source of potassium, and I can't overlook that.
How To: Turn a Cardboard Box into a Cheap DIY Smartphone Projector
Smartphones and tablets are great for watching movies and videos while you're out, but at home, the screen is just too tiny. There are quite a few projectors on the market that work with mobile devices, but they can get pricey.
How To: Make DIY Decorative Shell Dresser Knobs
A quick way to revamp an old dresser is to change out the knobs for some new decorative ones. Here’s an easy and budget-friendly way to make your very own DIY dresser knobs using shells – perfect if you’re looking to add a little bit of the beach to your decor: What you’ll need: shells (I got mine from the Dollar Store), nuts & washers, bolts (about 1 to 1.5 inches longer than the thickness of the shell), scrap rigid cardboard, rubber bands and epoxy glue.
How To: Build a Simple Flat Screen TV Ceiling Mount from Unistrut and Pipe
So you bought a new flat screen, and now you have to tackle the next issue—you have to mount it somewhere. Most people go for the wall, which is the most obvious place, but if you want to go for something a little different, the ceiling is always an option, too.
How To: Extend Your Wi-Fi Signal with This Super Cheap and Easy-to-Make Directional Biquad Antenna
There are plenty of ways to speed up your wireless network at home, some as simple as changing the placement of your router. While you can always buy equipment to boost your signal, there are plenty of cheap or free DIY solutions you can try as well.
How To: Make a Foldable, Wallet-Sized Paper Amplifier for Your Smartphone
Are your smartphone's built-in speakers not loud enough? Don't want to fork out the cash for some additional speakers? Instructables user urant's got you covered. He created the Whirlwind—a portable paper stand and speaker that folds up to fit in your pocket or wallet so you can take it with you on the go. The best part about this amplifier is that it's free to make. You can use regular old printer paper, but urant suggests using something a little sturdier for the stand.
How To: Turn Dried Out Markers into DIY Alcohol Ink That Works on Glass, Metal, and Plastic
Dried out markers are the worst. They take up space, and for some reason, even though they're totally useless, most of us have at least a few lying around just for the sake of not throwing them out. Luckily, Julie Finn over at Crafting a Green World has come up with a way to repurpose them into alcohol ink, a versatile type of ink that can be used on non-porous materials like plastic, glass, and metal. This is truly a tutorial for the pack rat in all of us. First, a little primer on what you ...
How To: DIY Impossible Light Bulb, Plus 6 More Ways to Repurpose Burned Out Bulbs
The next time a light bulb burns out in your house, don't throw it out. Believe it or not, burned out light bulbs aren't entirely useless. Besides creating an extra task on your to-do list, they can be hollowed out and used for a variety of different things from home decorations to miniature indoor gardens.
How To: Hack Your Spray Bottles to Spray at Any Angle—Even Upside Down!
There's nothing more annoying than that last little bit of Windex that won't come. Most spray bottles are horribly designed, with the suction tube usually the culprit, but you can replace it and have a spray bottle that works in any position in about five minutes.
How To: This Simple DIY Rain Cover Will Keep Your Camera Dry During Stormy Shoots
Rain can make for an amazing photograph, but it can do disastrous things to your equipment. This super simple DIY cover from Purple Summit Photography will keep out the rain so you can capture beautiful shots no matter the weather, and it's made using things you probably have lying around. Photo by Jon Shave
How To: Miniature TP Tube Dioramas, Plus 4 Other Ideas for Reusing Toilet Paper Tubes
It may be surprising, but those cardboard toilet paper tubes are dead useful for so many things besides just keeping the circular shape of your TP roll. As shown before, you can make car dash mounts for your mobile phone, but that's just one of the many beneficial uses from a seemingly junk cardboard tube. You probably go through quite a bit of bathroom tissue over the course of a year, especially if you're using it for facial tissues, too. So, the next time you throw away that lonely little ...
How To: 5 Cool DIY Projects for Reusing Your Old Computer Keyboards
With how quickly technology evolves in this day and age, it's only natural that people replace their computers every couple years—even sooner. It seems that right when you get a new desktop, there's always a faster model with more features released the following week.
News: How to Build a DIY Iron Man Repulsor Beam
Check out this awesome tutorial that shows you how to make a light up Iron Man repulsor beam in the comfort of your home! Iron Man Inspired Repulsor Beam Blaster V1.0.
How To: Turn Your Spare Pocket Change into DIY Batteries with This Penny Power Hack
What's a penny worth these days? Not much. But could there be some free energy hidden inside your spare pennies? You'd be surprised! See how I hack together stacks of pennies into makeshift batteries that can drive small-current devices like LEDs and calculators.