MacGyverisms Features
How To: 5 Crafty and Unique Ways to Make Your Own Seed Starters
One thing that's very crucial to gardening is the seed starter. Seed starters are very important for a number of reasons, including the fact that is an excellent way to make sure your seeds survive in their own little environment until you’re ready to transfer them to your garden. Plus, it is very rewarding to grow plants from seeds (versus transplanting).
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...
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.
How To: 5 Cheap Life Hacks for Organizing Your Bathroom
There comes a time in relationships when two people decide to move in together, and when this happens, you learn two things:
How To: Turn a Pair of Pants into a Lightweight Emergency Backpack
If you're an avid camper or hiker, you've probably been in a situation where you've needed a backpack and not had one. Maybe you brought one and it got broken or lost, or maybe your day trip turned into an overnighter. Whatever the reason, if you're in a pinch and have an extra pair of pants, you can turn them into a super lightweight emergency backpack. This trick was thought up by Instructables user Ludvicka and only requires some thick string or cord (besides the pants, of course).
Camping Hack: Turn an Empty Beer Can into an Easy DIY Popcorn Popper
Most of us are used to just grabbing a bag and throwing it in the microwave when we want popcorn. It's easy, convenient, and requires little to no cleanup. But what about those times when you're away from home and don't have access to a microwave?
How To: Make Your Headphones More Comfortable with Caulk Backer Rods
There are quite a few different types of headphones, and they all have their fair share of both pros and cons. Circumaural (full-size) headphones typically have better sound quality, but the in-ear kind are much more convenient to wear on the go.
How To: Protect Your Wall from Stray Darts with This DIY Dartboard Cabinet Made of Wine Corks
The worst part about playing darts is that when you miss—it can damage not only your ego, but also the wall behind the dartboard if it's not protected. Redditor mavantix found a solution to this problem in wine corks. Over a year, he collected over 1,000 corks from family and friends to make this DIY Cork Dartboard Cabinet—that's a lot of wine!
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.
How To: Turn Any Ammo Box into an Awesome Set of Portable Speakers
Believe it or not, an ammo box can still be of use to you once its rounds are gone. You can use it for storage, as a toolbox, or possibly even as a Faraday cage. But if you want to use it as more than just a container, why not turn it into a portable set of speakers that you can take with you anywhere? The ammo can speaker pictured above was made by Instructables user Dustin White. He started with an empty .50 cal box, though you could probably even use thinner 5.56 or 7.62 mm cans. He remove...
How To: Remove Water Rings on Wood Furniture with Toothpaste
Most wood furniture is long-lasting, durable, and resistant to great wear and tear over the years. However, set a single sweaty, wet cup or bottle on the surface of your favorite wood dining table, or your prominently placed wooden coffee table, and you'll end up with a round water ring stain that is difficult to get rid of.
How To: Use Nuts to Repair Small Nicks & Scratches in Your Wood Furniture
Furniture gets beat up—it's a fact of life. Your beautiful tables will end up scratched, the legs of your chairs will grow nicked, and you'll find interesting dents and damage in other places around the house, too. Yet if most of your furniture is made of wood, you don't have to live with unsightly scratches. In fact, you can remove years of damage with a simple snack food: nuts.
How To: Easy DIY Fire Starters, Plus 9 More Ways to Reuse Old Wine Corks
Always downing a glass of red wine in the evening? Don't be ashamed. Red wine has some great health benefits when consumed in moderation, including improved memory, lower risk of heart disease, and even bone strengthening. Photo by Joe Shlabotnik
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: 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: Screw Staples—You Don't Need Any with This Stapleless Paper Trick
Staples may be an office staple when it comes to joining sheets of paper together, but they're a pain in the ass if you ask me. They're annoying to take out, you can't shred 'em, and they eventually loosen up. Plus, staplers tend to stop working right when you need them the most.
How To: Turn Your Charcoal Grill into a Tandoori Oven Using a Flowerpot
Indian food is amazing. One of the things that makes it so great and exotic is the cooking methods used. Among the best of these methods is the use of the tandoori oven, a cylindrical oven used to primarily cook skewered meat and various flatbreads with heats upwards of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Regrettably, such heat and taste is hard to replicate in the average home kitchen.
How To: Dry Your Soaking Wet "Hand Wash Only" Clothes Faster
Let’s be honest: you’ve thrown a few delicate, "hand wash only" clothes into the wash with your jeans. Maybe you’ve even ruined a sweater or two. There are so many things to look out for when doing laundry, and they’re easily ignored or forgotten, especially when it comes to drying.
How To: DIY Candle-Powered Fan Keeps You Cool at Home Using Fire
Staying cool in the summer heat sometimes feels like it takes all the energy in the world. But what about a fan using no-cost electrical energy? If you're looking to keep cool during a power outage, or if you don't want to break the bank by running your DIY air conditioner all day long, you can use candlelight to power a fan!
How To: Make a Simple No-Sew Workout Armband for Your Phone or MP3 Player (No Sock Required)
I've never been much of a runner. I've tried running alone, with a partner, on busy sidewalks, and back country roads, but I just never got it. There are a few other forms of exercise I genuinely enjoy, but have yet to experience that "natural high" that avid runners are always talking about.
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: The Easiest, Greenest Way to "Hand" Wash Your Clothes
When your washing machine is broken and the laundromat is too far away, the first thing that probably comes to mind is dumping all your dirty clothes in the tub and laboriously scrubbing with your hands. I'm too lazy to do that, but I'm not willing to go out in grimy clothes.
How To: Make Your New Apple EarPods Fit Better in Your Ear with Sugru
Along with the release of the new iPhone 5, Apple has introduced EarPods, which now replace the soon-to-be-defunct EarBuds. For three years, Apple has been testing the EarPods with users to try and find the most secure fitting, best sounding headphones for that price range. Loose Fit?
How To: 10 Creative and Unique DIY Planters to Inspire Your Home Garden
Summer is in full swing! Everywhere you look, plants are in full bloom and green is a way of life. Gardeners are clearly living up to their full potential. I cannot think of anything else that personifies summer better than gardening.
How To: Make a Personalized Home Bulletin Board for Cheap
One thing that's always important to have in your home office is a bulletin board, because they let you quickly display papers that you need to see every day, such as schedules, notes and memos.
How To: EnLIGHTening Home Hack! How to Change Hard-to-Reach Light Bulbs Without a Ladder
Unless you're living in some weird parallel universe where plug-in light bulbs are the norm for household lighting, chances are you've had to unscrew a light bulb every now and then.
How To: Beat the Heat for Cheap with These Five DIY Sprinklers
What’s better in the summer than playing around in the water? Lounging in the pool, water balloon fights, and playing in the sprinklers helps us forget how much it sucks to be outside in 100+ degree weather.
How To: Make a Tiki Torch from a Bottle of Jack Daniels
There are tons of ways to make simple DIY lamps out of things you have lying around at home. If you've got an empty container, (even an orange or tuna can), there's probably a way to upcycle it into a lamp of some sort, and they can come in handy if you ever lose power.
How To: Repair & Waterproof Leaky Winter Boots Using Sugru
For those who live in climates where winter actually feels like winter, a good pair of boots is a must. When you're trudging through the snow to chisel the ice off your windshield, the last thing you want is for your feet to be unprepared. Wet socks are bad enough when the weather's warm.
How To: 10 Beautiful DIY Ways to Declutter Your Closet
Your closet is an area that holds important things such as keys, glasses, clothes and shoes. However, for some reason, it's always messy. Why is this? I know my closet is messy because I don’t have a lot of time to sit down and organize every little thing in there. I have never really even given much thought into organizing it.
How To: Slope Your Dish Rack Pan for Perfect Draining
Let's face it, pretty much everyone has an automatic dishwasher. They are super convenient and are becoming cheaper to allow the general public better access to them. With that being said, though, dishwashers are also becoming a lot smaller.
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: Make Your Own Makeup Remover Wipes Using Oil, Water, & Paper Towels
For me, the worst thing about makeup has always been taking it off. It's always that one last thing you have to do before you go to bed, and if you don't, you instantly regret it when you wake up. When you're tired, makeup removing wipes are a godsend because they're so quick.
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: Extend the Life of Your Disposable Razors & Keep Them Sharp
Early in the morning, there's almost nothing worse than discovering your razor is dull midway through your pre-work routine. No matter how hard you try to preserve those precious blades, it can seem like they're dull every time you reach for the razor. With one, seconds-long step after each use, you can save your razor blades and make them last longer.
How To: Keep Your Car Windows Fog-Free Using This Creative Hack
Whether you live in foggy California or icy Massachusetts, you've more than likely struggled with a cloudy, vision-impairing window that makes even the shortest commute impossible.
How To: Make a Cheap, Stylized Paper Cup Dispenser for Your Bathroom
If you're anything like me, you probably rinse your mouth out after you brush your teeth. I know technically you're supposed to not rinse your mouth out after brushing, but I just can't stand the feel of the excess toothpaste in my mouth. It's a surefire way to dry it out.
How To: 10 Creative Ways to Upcycle Your Junk into Usable DIY Chairs
With the upcycling revolution, folks are turning their otherwise useless junk into something functional for the home. Practically anything that you would normally toss or recycle can be reused for a bigger and better purpose. Your milk jugs, chopsticks, toilet paper cardboard, glass jars, and even your old junk computer keyboards can be upcycled into something totally useful around (or away from) the home.
How To: DIY Stormtrooper Helmet, Plus 10 More Ways to Reuse Old Milk Jugs
When it comes to milk, my family consumes anywhere between two and four gallons every two weeks. That's about four to eight gallons every month. That's a lot of milk—and a lot of empty milk jugs! Instead of simply tossing them in the recycling bin, why not get creative and make something useful out of them yourself?
How To: Mod a Pill Organizer into a Camping-Size Spice Shaker
Camping is wonderful isn't it? You get to go out into the wild, build a fire, pitch a tent, and tell ghost stories. My favorite part about camping isn't any of those things, though. No, the best part about camping in my opinion is the food. Whether it be planking freshly caught fish, roasting hot dogs, melting s'mores, or cooking hobo dinners, the food is always the most memorable part of camping to me because you get to eat stuff outside of the norm.