DIY Life

So, you know you're supposed to pitch that mascara after three months, but what about your body souffle that's been hiding in the back of your cabinet for... oh, a few years. Check the label. Many products have a PAO label, which stands for "period after opening." You can spot the PAO by looking for a number followed by the letter "M", which stands for months (i.e. 36M).

Cool, right? Now if you can only remember when you purchased that souffle in the first place...

Actually, we have a solution for that, too! Simply place a sticker dot with the date of any beauty supply product you've purchased. Keep a few sticker dots in your bathroom to remind you, and you'll never forget another expiration date again.

Try the same trick in your kitchen to combat your son's yogurt-turned-scientific-experiment! Your entire family will consider you a genius, and the food poisoning hotline will happily agree.

Sure, you see the logo for Marine Stewardship's Council on your local market's salmon filet, but what does it all mean? Here, we'll walk you through four popular organic food labels, why they're great for you, and what they truly mean.

CERTIFIED VEGAN:
These products contain no animal ingredients or byproducts in its manufacturing, as well as contain no ingredients that have been tested on animals.

AMERICAN HUMANE CERTIFIED:
This label contains ingredients from farm animals that engage in normal behaviors, are not caged and are raised by employed trainers.

FOOD ALLIANCE CERTIFIED:
The Food Alliance certification ensures that food producers involved in the making of the product experienced safe and fair working conditions, reduced pesticide use and conserved energy and water.

FAIR TRADE CERTIFIED:
This label is most often found on coffees and/or teas and signifies that the growers received a fair, above-market price for their goods.

Next time you're in the grocery store, look for these important labels and make a difference --- the DIY way.

We all know people who can no longer fit their car into their garage. Perhaps we are even among them. (Hey, I just moved, okay? And we downsized dramatically! And there are no basements! And, and, and... I'll take my own advice soon, I swear!) The garage has become a repository for all the stuff that they have nowhere to store. Look around your neighborhood, I am willing to bet that most people are using at least one of their garages for storage.

Did you know that Americans are renting storage units to store all of the stuff that won't fit into their houses? According to this article "self-storage units cover 72 square miles, the area of Manhattan and San Francisco combined." That's a whole lot of people storing a whole lot of stuff, that frankly they probably do not need.

My take on the self storage phenomenon for the average suburban American? Get rid of it. Make decisions about what you really use and need, then get rid of the rest. If it isn't useful or making your life better in some way, then you do not need it. The problem that most people have is that they do not organize their stuff and therefore they cannot find it when they need it.

Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

I'm sure you have had it happen to you. You buy a new baking pan, mug, vase or some other item that doesn't come in a package and had that darn price tag refuse to let go.

You can try many things to get it off but sometimes, even once the paper part of the tag comes off, you are left with a sticky spot where the tag was. What can you do? You may think that there isn't much you can do but tipnut has changed that for us.