DIY Life

Whenever I travel I spend hours watching HGTV in my hotel room. It is a guilty pleasure because I don't have television service at home. In case you're like me and don't always spend hours watching home improvement networks you might not know about the Troy-Bilt Love-Your-Yard sweepstakes.

The winner receives $3,000 in cash to implement Justin Cave's personal plan for your yard. The winner will also receive a riding mower, push mower, tiller, and string trimmer that converts to an edger, leaf blower, and hedge trimmer.

You can enter once per day and the contest closes on May 25, 2008.

I spent many hours playing carroms as a kid. Carroms is a game similar to billiards. Rules vary considerably from country to country and even from town to town. A few years ago I bought a board at a thrift store while visiting my parents. When my father saw it he became excited and a family game of carroms followed.

Since that purchase I've bought two other carroms boards. Each has been slightly different but the size of the playing surface works great for a table top.

I have found that the corner pockets make great drink holders. Friends that see the table want to play or want to know about the game if they never have played before.

Suggestions on how to build a table out of a carroms board after the jump.

An old bicycle or automotive inner tube has a lot of life left in it after it no longer holds air.

A punctured wheelbarrow inner tube was one of the best dog toys for my black lab. She would drop it at my feet. All I had to do was kick it and it would fly through the air, roll along the ground, or skim along the wet grass. She would race to it, shake it, and drop it at my feet again. Her teeth were never damaged, I never had to bend over and pick up a slobbery toy, and it was easily hosed off.

Here's a list of 24 more reasons to keep a flat tube around.

• Make rubber bands.
• Wrap around a hose tightly, jam into the opening of a clogged pipe and turn on the water. The pressure should clear the blockage.
• Make a belt with a bike sprocket.
• Make adjustable and flexible clamps for holding glued projects together while drying.
• Make a ball that won't become soaked with dog slobber and will be easy on your pet's teeth.
• Use as a funnel or hose.
• Temporary gaskets.

17 more ideas after the jump.

One of our four cats seems to love to play with the toilet paper. I've had this problem before but they usually grow out of it. I have been throwing away shredded toilet paper or re-rolling half of a roll more frequently lately so it was time to figure out a way to stop it.

I know that one solution is to not put the toilet paper on the dispenser. But that simply is not an option for me. I'm even compulsive about which way the roll is put on the spindle.

Just use a long rubber band and wrap it around the ends of the holder. A few weeks of that and most cats should lose interest and move on to play with other things that they shouldn't. (Perhaps you'll need a tip on keeping your cat out of houseplant dirt.)

Continuing to recraft finds from the game closet (last week was Monopoly wine charms) here is another easy project that uses old dominoes to make a bracelet.

A single domino could be used as a pendant on a necklace as a gift for someone with a favorite number or a birthday present by using the numbers to represent their age. Wooden dominoes like the ones that I used would also make great coasters by gluing them together (like the Scrabble tile coasters).

After the jump is the list of supplies and suggestions for making a few of your own domino bracelets.

Every Wednesday I will be bringing you a project that has been recrafted from something else. I dabble in everything from paper crafts and sewing to construction and electronics so there will be a broad range of projects. The focus being the reuse of items -- often items available for little money or even free.

This month I raided the game closet for inspiration. For years I have stocked those shelves with thrift store purchases. By keeping an eye out for odd games and even the standby classics I have more games than I will ever likely play. A few duplicates give me the raw materials for some nostalgic projects.

We entertain often enough to have the occasion to need to distinguish one glass of wine from another. For some reason people congregate in the kitchen and by milling around, glasses of wine end up misplaced and the ownership of fuller glasses disputed. Putting a unique ring on each glass stem will help people remember which glass is their own -- but there may be arguments over who gets the shoe!

I'm a sucker for contests. RentalHQ.com is running a $1,000 Do-It-Yourself with Rental Equipment Sweepstakes until June 30, 2008. Part of the entry is explaining what your next DIY project will be and since the official rules state "The winner will be determined at the discretion of ARA" it is a good bet that they are looking for some good answers. If you had $1,000 in extra money what project would you put it toward?

You can enter once a day and the contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada. Read the full rules on the contest entry page for more details.

My girlfriend seems to set the creativity bar quite high during Valentine's Day gift giving. the past two years she has combined her sweet nature with a sweet tooth to make creative and inexpensive personalized gifts for me.

You don't need to buy custom candy hearts to give a personalized message. Two years ago my girlfriend glued conversation hearts onto a piece of card stock with a carefully scripted message for me that used candy hearts right out of a bag.

Last year she gave me 365 gum balls. Each one was wrapped in aluminum foil with a tiny slip of paper listing something she loved about me, liked doing with me, or will always remember from our past. The idea came from doing the same with Hershey's Kisses but since I'm not a huge chocolate fan she picked a candy I do like.

After the jump, a list of other ideas of how to make this sweet day even sweeter with a little time, a bit of sugar and a little love.