Fairy garden Spark: Upgrade your lights with Wi-Fi and apps by Spark Devices TechCrunch: "The project aims to turn every lamp in your home into a web-based juggernaut." WIRED Gadget Lab: "It's not hard to imagine using lights to display other types of data..." Fast Co Design: "It’s all pretty neat for everyday consumers, but it could be revolutionary for the deaf or hard of hearing." Forbes: "A light bulb socket that lets you manage one light bulb (or more) from the internet is groundbreaking." Apartment Therapy: "Perfect for renters and upgrading over time, you can start with one sconce or one room and add Sparks as you go." Silicon Republic: "Turn on and off the lights and potentially other devices in your home with the power of a tweet..." The Spark Socket screws into any standard lightbulb socket, and connects to the internet over the Wi-Fi connection in your home, so that you can control your lights from a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Here are some of the great things that Spark can do: Using Spark is just as easy as installing it. Back our campaign!
Planter DIY Water Reservoir (Dabbletree) Keep your container garden happy and thriving on long hot days by installing a hidden water reservoir. All you need is an empty plastic bottle around the same height as your planter. It will be easier to start with a new planting than an established container. Cut. Using a craft knife, cut the bottom off a plastic bottle. The cut bottle should be no taller than the distance from the bottom of the pot to the top of the soil line. Place. Plant. Water. As the plants grow, the bottle will become harder and harder to see, but you should still be able to easily fill it up as needed. If you're worried about mosquitos, just be careful not to over-water and you shouldn't have any problems. dwarf morning glories, crystal palace lobelias and yellow marigolds put on a spectacular show in mid summer DIY seed propagation heating mat A simple way to create a warm environment for seeds to sprout. Drying Herbs Turns out "making our own spices!"
Top 10 Things You Can Upgrade with a Little Electronics Hacking it is a skill to do a good solder joint, it comes with LOTS of practice. so most people who rarely do it will ever get good at it. Bingo. Of course, part of the issue is having a soldering iron at the right temp with a properly tinned tip. I don't expect to ever master tricky stuff like smts or even multilayer pcbs so I'm not much better then a newbie, anyway - and I totally suck at sweating pipe joints. Ah, well... SMT is actually a bit better than through-hole once you get the hang of it.
Build Your Own $20 Outdoor Cob Oven | Outdoor Pizza Oven | Cob Ovens (The following entry is all about making a cob oven, a lovely and inexpensive outdoor pizza oven. The construction details have been trimmed back a bit, but this article should still give you a full idea of necessary materials and the building process for making your own oven!) I must admit, I’m a bit of a breadhead. Few things are as exciting to me as freshly baked bread with a dab of butter, or hot and greasy scallion pancakes, or fluffy and airy naan, or a pizza fresh from the hearth of a wood-fired oven. (That last one trumps all the others.) Earlier in the year, the idea of baking in the outdoors in a wood fired oven became something of a romanticized (in every positive sense of the word) notion to me. So I picked up a copy of Kiko Denzer’s Build Your Own Earth Oven, a little gem of a book covering the construction of cob ovens from the ground up. The Foundation The Fire Brick Oven Hearth (Laying out the beer bottles, and later, filling in with sawdust/clay mortar) Sizing the Cob Oven
Another great invention, the Exhaust Air Jack at One More Gadget This invention is pretty sweet. It basically uses the air from your exhaust to inflate a big bubble that is strong enough to hold up your car. Once it’s to the right height, just turn off your engine and change your tire. The bubble will stay inflated for hours (if you are really bad at changing a tire). And did I mention it comes in orange? Get your Exhaust Air Car Jack here Jonny Anvil's Chicken Coop ~Jonny Anvil~ Well it's done, and I managed to get the tenants moved in and they are happy! With my latest additions of a quad of Black Orpingtons and my New Silver Laced Wyandottes I had decided to make them a brand new Coop all their own. Working with a very small budget but going new on all materials I decided to make a 4x8 coop tall enough that I can stand up in it if need be allowing more than enough room for the 6 new occupants, and a possible two more down the road. Total Cost of materials $320.00 (Can) Now I guess I should mention that I live in the cold northern climate of Canada in the wonderful province of Alberta. Google Sketchup makes things easier when it comes to putting everything into perspective and trying to get an idea on materials needed. Click on this Link to Get the 3D Download with all the Specifications Materials List : 30 2x4's @8ft 7 sheets of 3/8 OSB 5 1x3's for corner trim and pop door 2 1x6 @ 10ft 4 1x6 @ 8ft (facia)
How to clean and secure your browser like a pro The Internet runs on ads, but when you see them in your browser, your first instinct should be to run the other way—fast. The lion’s share of the Internet is wallpapered with tacky ads that invite you to “Lose 15 lbs. with this 1 weird tip” and load your browser with spyware in the process. In other corners of the Web, you might download a free game or a piece of music from an untrustworthy site, ending up with malicious adware that hitched a ride along with it. Legitimate sites do a decent job of screening their advertisers, weeding out those that spread viruses, malware, or scams. Wikipedia That’s how an adware infection starts. Run virus and malware scans Obviously, the very first thing you should do when you think your PC has a malware infection is to run a complete scan with an updated antimalware utlity. Disable browser toolbars If your browser is still acting up, you need to remove every toolbar you don’t use. Double-check every extension and add-on Hit the Reset button
Easy to make concrete bowls and planters... What you will need: CONCRETE - QUIKRETE® Concrete Mix (No. 1101) is the original 4000 psi average compressive strength blend of Portland cement, sand, and gravel or stone. Just add water. Use for any general concrete work. (Ver batum as posted on the Quikrete site) Resist the urge to use heavy duty concrete, as it is very chunky. Though many home improvement stores carry ready-to-mix concrete in 80 pound bags, it is also available in other sizes, depending on your preference as well as ability to lug it around. COLORING - Not a necessary item at all, though coloring concrete is quite fun, and easy! MOLDS - An endless supply of molds, containers and other ideas are available everywhere. Just about any container can be utilized as a mold for concrete, provided you are able to get the finished product out of it. WATER - Necessary to mix with the concrete. RUBBER GLOVES - Nothing fancy needed, but you should wear them.
Our Rocket Stove Editor’s note: we have a new design for a portable rocket stove here. Low-tech is the new high-tech, and the best example of the low-tech revolution is the miraculous rocket stove–a stove that makes it possible to cook with small twigs–no logs needed! Best of all rocket stoves are easy to build. We liked the idea so much that we decided to build a permanent one just off our back deck for entertaining and as a backup to our gas stove should an emergency take out our utilities. The rocket stove was developed for use in poor nations where wood used for cooking has led to the vast, wholesale, deforestation of large swaths of the earth’s surface. Before we built the rocket stove we considered making a cob oven, a mud domed wood fired oven in which you can cook bread and pizza. Staring at the bricks we had scavenged to build the base of cob oven, we realized that we could re-purpose them for a permanent backyard rocket stove that we would actually use. Here’s the materials we used:
Day 25: Homemade Sprinkler with She Wears Flowers Hello, HomeSpun Threads Readers! I am so thrilled to be with you today sharing a bit of summer fun. I am Tammy and I blog at She Wears Flowers. I am a mom to sweet twin 10-year-old girls and a sassy three-year-old girl, too. It's all about girls in our home, with the occasional concession for the one boy--my great husband. We have a lot of fun during the summer spending long days together, but the all-time favorite activity is anything that involves W-A-T-E-R! MYO {awesome} Sprinkler Materials 2 10 foot pieces of 1/2 inch PVC pipe 1 PVC t-joint 1 PVC hose to pipe connector 4 PVC elbow joints PVC cement PVC pipe cutting tool (optional, but super nice!) drill with 1/16 inch drill bit Instructions Cut 10 foot pipes into 4 four feet pieces. You will not need the excess amount, but be sure to save it in case you need to make repairs later. (I don’t think it is a given, but why waste anything you may need?) The PVC pipe cutting tool is about $10 and well worth it. Cut one 4 foot section of pipe in half.
7 Nutrient-Rich Brews Your Plants Will Love Sure you can buy fertilizers and soil additives to help boost your garden’s production, but did you know you can also take advantage of waste from Mother Nature and household scraps that you’d normally toss? These too can promote blooms and plant growth and they’re so simple to make! Here are a few recipes to try, basically all you need is one or two items, a bucket, some water and a bit of time. Allow to brew outside and voila! You have your own secret garden food that your plants will thank you for ;). Seaweed/Kelp: If you live near the ocean, lucky you! Boiled Vegetable Water: (always unsalted) After boiling vegetables, allow the water to cool then pour it on soil around your plants. Kitchen Scrap Infusion: Save vegetable peelings in a small bucket, cover with boiling water and allow to steep overnight (up to 2 days). *Tip: Feel free to combine both the kitchen scraps and yard refuse items into one big brew pail, it’s all good!
9 Different Military Poncho Survival Shelter Configurations | An essential item for ANY outdoor outing and certainly in every Survival Kit and Bug Out Bag is a good quality Poncho. If you don’t have one and need one go to the NOT IF BUT WHEN STORE HERE. There is nothing more miserable (and dangerous) than getting soaked by rain. There are 100′s of different ponchos to choose from. I like for items in my pack to be multi-use items – meaning they can be used for more than 1 purpose. Below I have detailed 9 Different Military Poncho Set-Ups that can be used for multiple scenarios. Below is a Basic Lean-To Set-Up that I use quite often in fair weather. POST UPDATE: Below is a 10th Poncho Shelter Option I call the DIAGONAL. If you are using any of these shelters and are expecting rain you will want to tie a knot with paracord around the hood to prevent water from leaking inside. If you don’t have a good grommeted poncho – you can pick one up for under $25 at the NOT IF BUT WHEN STORE. As always I would love to get your thoughts on these. Similar Posts: