DIY Life

DIY fans already know and love Instructables. But in the tradition of two-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together, the how-to site has paired up with active wear company Horny Toad in an invent a sport contest. Whether you're an inventor with a flair for athletics, or an athlete who loves to be creative, this contest is for you.

Simply come up with the rules for your original sport, make a list of necessary equipment, and if you're really enthusiastic, make a video. Send the information about your invented activity to Horny Toad and they'll post it on their website. The winner will receive a $350 gift card to spend on Horny Toad active wear.

If you need a little inspiration, or if you just want to try some of these newly invented sports yourself, check out some of the recent entries, including Crazy Croquet, WiFi Hunting, or this cool and inexpensive DIY skating or snowboarding sail. If you're the more visual type, check out their slide show of invented sports, some of which definitely belong in our Don't It Yourself category!

Here at DIY Life, Earth-friendly ideas are always a popular topic. So, when we heard that our sister site Green Daily is running a fantastic giveaway from Gardener's Supply Company, we couldn't wait to tell our readers about it!

One lucky reader will win a complete composting kit, featuring more than US $300 in supplies. The centerpiece of the prize is the Earthmaker Composter (a $225 value), but there are also plenty of accessories in the package, including a nifty odor-busting crock in which you can collect your kitchen scraps before putting them in the compost bin.

To learn more, and enter, please visit the giveaway post at Green Daily and follow the instructions: all you have to do is leave a comment telling them what you would compost if you were the winner. If you've never commented before, the system will require you to confirm the comment with a legitimate email address. Good luck!

If you don't win, a few great DIY composting ideas may come in handy. Check out the following posts:

• Bethany's Start your own worm composting bin
• Create a compost pile in your back yard, also by Bethany
• Francesca's Make a compost bin from shipping pallets
• Anna's 163 items to add to your compost

Not only is exhibiting your work an economical way to show it off, it's also an opportunity to see what other people who enjoy your craft are doing. And since the people who will be judging your work will be "experts" in your area, you'll also get some great pointers on how to develop your skill. I'll tell you more about Jenna's recommendations after the break.

It used to be that writers needed the deep wallets and promotional resources of big publishing houses to get noticed. Those days are long gone: DIY publishing is a way for writers to reach their audience without sacrificing the integrity of their work, or selling to the big companies.

Even with new technologies making it possible to reach potential readers, sales of self-published books still fall far behind those of traditional ones. The DIY Book Festival is designed to spotlight exceptional books in the self-published area. They are now accepting entries for the 2008 contest, which will take place in February 2009 at the DIY Convention in LA.

With 18 categories in all, there is surely a place where your work will fit. While the grand prize of $1500 is something, I'm sure the publicity and recognition of your book will pay off in even greater numbers. Along with winners for each category, they will choose a book design of the year, author of the year, and publisher of the year. Look through the full contest details for all your entry guidelines and award specifications, then download your entry form here.

Competitive eating has always baffled me. I must be missing something, because it sure is a popular sport.

The winners are never who I'd imagine them to be. A slight girl like Sonya Thomas can often out-eat some of the biggest guys, ones you'd imagine have stomachs 5 times her size.

So what's the trick? How does she manage to put these big burly men in their place, over and over again? Technique.

These four steps will help you win a hot-dog-eating contest. Step 1 involves preparing your stomach by stretching it out. In step 2 you will develop an eating method and refine the tricks that best work for you. I can barely read these training instructions without feeling my gag reflex kick into action, but step 3 explains why you would want to learn (with supervision) how to control this important survival reflex. Finally, like training for any other competition, you'll want to time all your practices. Continually set new records, and work towards breaking them with each attempt.

Intimidated by the competitive hot-dog-eating techniques? Why not train for a pie-eating contest instead? Now that's something I could get into!

Do you have the ultimate April Fool's day prank planned for tomorrow? Are you just itching to catch your unsuspecting victim's reaction on camera?

Well, now you can get a little extra credit for your hard work and planning. Get out your camera early, and document the whole thing, from conception, set-up, and finally the seamless execution on your brilliant plan.

If you're game, enter the Instructables April Fools Speed Contest. They only want pranks that are in good taste; nothing harmful, malicious or nasty. Entry deadline is April 13, so document your final preparations and capture the reactions you get this April 1.

Each prize package includes a robot t-shirt, and a mystery prize package. Considering the theme of this contest, I'm curious to see what these surprise packages include. Some of the current top votes include the toilet prank, and the jelly donut surprise. Enter your own gag, or vote for your favorites today.

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'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.

Inhabitant and Core77 are hosting a greener electronics design competition. The event will take place on February 1, 2008 at the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York city. They are looking for products that reduce the environmental impact of consumer electronics. Your design can target any stage of the product life-cycle. They suggest you consider these three areas of sustainability:

1. Energy
2. Materials / Life-cycle / Recycling
3. Social and educational development
   

If you have a cool gadget idea that considers our carbon footprint, uses less energy, employs green technology or recycling, then this might just be the way to showcase your innovation. You can win a little green too, so get those solar powered wheels turning and submit your ideas to the Greener Gadgets competition.

Entry information, event schedule, and prizes can all be found here. Entry deadline is January 28. I'm excited to see all the new ideas that will come out of this competition.

Yes, folks, it's that time of year: the latest roughly-seasonal issue of The AntiCraft is up. The current issue is the Samhain (Winter) 2007 issue, full of cold-weather weirdness. As always, we have to start with a warning: the projects on the site are not "adult" in the naughty sense, but the language is, so if you're easily offended, The AntiCraft is probably not for you.

The newest issue is spider-obsessed, there have been changes to the site in the form of forums, and the ladies of The AntiCraft are also starting to peel back the covers on their new book, which will be released in a few weeks. In relation to the book, there's a shiny new extremely odd contest for you to try your hand at.

See what I mean after the break.

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Vote for your favorite DIY lighting project or just take inspiration from them and make your own. We've brought you the silverwear chandelier, and the wine glass chandelier, and we're back with more. These inventive lighting projects use everything from latex gloves to measuring tape to the infamous Slinky.

My vote goes to the globe lamp (pictured here). I think this would look great in a home office. Picture this one over a child's desk. I'd like to try it out with an antiqued globe for a bit of a different effect. The current leader is the latex glove lamp. It looks great too. You'll have some trouble keeping them inflated, but if you have an event in mind they would make great decorations.

There are 19 projects in total, go vote for the one that you like best.

In honor of all the kids going back to school this month, Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops are hosting an Oreo Ice Cream Lick-A-Thon in participating stores on September 20th to benefit schools, clubs, and libraries across the country. The object is to see who can eat their ice cream come the fastest -- licking only, please! Winners will become official Lick Champions and, I assume will be called upon to seal envelopes and affix stamps for at least the next six months.

Baskin-Robbins apparently realizes that ice cream cone-licking is a learned art and has thoughtfully provided a few tips on how to be the best licker in your neighborhood:

Are you in the process of creating the next great Halloween project? It's time to show off your skills, get some exposure and win cool prizes.

Instructables, MAKE and PopSci have teamed up to create a huge Halloween contest. It's all about DIY and it is sure to bring out some wild and creative ideas. Here is a list of the contest categories:

• Hack-O-Lantern Contest
• Costume Contest
• Decorations, Gadgets and More Contest
• Food Contest

Share your haunted house props, robotic Jack-O-Lanterns and disgusting eyeball recipes. The prizes are yet to be announced, but are guaranteed to be awesome. The top projects will even be featured in MAKE and PopSci.

More details should be coming out in the next week or two, and we'll keep you posted as they do.
You can enter your photos, videos or full Instructable submissions. Check out this page for some more information.

Today we're kicking off the 2nd phase of our Toolstravaganza giveaway. In this round (and with just 13 more days to go) we'll be giving away more artsy-craftsy stuff. To get started we've got not one but four Xacto products! Today's prizes are: Xacto precision soldering iron and hot knife tip, a 9x12" Xacto self-healing mat, the handy Xacto X-tra hands with magnifier and the Xacto deluxe hobby tool set. The set includes a bunch of blades and knives, a jeweler's screwdriver, block plane, sander, balsa stripper, gouges, pin vise drill bits and a coping saw with blade. The set comes in a nice wooden chest as well.

To enter, leave a comment on this post and validate the comment (check your email and click to verify so the comment appears on the blog). Entry period is 5AM-11:59PM EST on August 2. Full rules on our Toolstravaganza page and after the jump. Good luck and thanks for reading!

To cap off the first phase of Toolstravaganza we're giving away our biggest prize yet: six Lithium-Ion cordless tools from Makita in one kit, complete with cargo carrying bag. So what tools are included? A 1/2-inch hammer drill driver, a 6-1/2 inch circular saw, a reciprocating saw, an impact driver, a grinder/cutoff tool and a work light. The kit includes 2 batteries and a 45-minute charger along with a few accessories and blades for the tools.

Enter by leaving a comment on this post, and don't forget to validate your post so it appears. Entry period is 5AM-11:59PM EST on August 1. Full rules after the jump or on our Toolstravaganza page.