DIY Life

A newspaper is a great way to pass the time when on a bus or a subway, or sitting in the coffee shop. The problem is, a broadsheet-style newspaper (which is to say, most of them), is awkward. You don't want to be the obnoxious guy (or gal) with their arms spread wide, blocking the view and crowding the fellow sitting beside you.

There is a way for you to catch up on the news without catching your neighbor in the eye with the paper. Check out the four easy steps on Real Simple. A matter of a few simple folds, and you'll be able to scan, flip through, read, and store your paper within a minimum of space, and without annoying the people around you.

Going to the nursery to buy starter plants is super easy, but doesn't really fulfill our quest to "go green". After all, someone else did the hard work of planting those seeds, so all we have to do is buy the potted plant. Being a busy person myself, I can understand why even the most avid gardener would slip into a nursery undercover and unnoticed to buy starter plants they didn't have time to start themselves.

I have the seeds, but haven't started my own pots yet. I do believe I will be planting the seeds this weekend, thanks to a tutorial on newspaper seed starter pots. The tutorial shows us through step by step pictures and wonderfully worded instructions exactly how to rip and fold a sheet of newspaper so that it becomes a beautiful little seed starter pot.

The tutorial takes my love of origami and my love of gardening and puts it together in one neat little package, er, pot. With the neat origami pot, I can conveniently save a trip to the nursery. Tell us in the comments how you start your seed pots.

[Via: TipNut]

Stacks of newspaper always seem to accumulate in my house. Newspaper always comes in handy for something, even if it is starting a bonfire on a cold winter night. I use newspaper for packing fragile items when I move, so I am starting to gather piles again, in the hopes we can soon move out of this tiny abode into a bigger one.

A Storybook Life has a tutorial on how to make beautiful paper beads using newspaper, water, glue, craft paint, varnish, and a drill. All you need to do is rip the newspaper into small pieces, put the paper in a stockpot and cover with boiling water, stir the paper after about an hour of soaking to help break it apart, drain as much of the water out of the paper as possible, and then add Elmer's glue and shape into a ball. From that large ball, make as many size beads as you can, let the small balls dry, rolling every once in a while to squeeze out more water, and then sand each bead to remove any rough edges when the paper ball is completely dry. Drill a hole, paint, and varnish.

You can make necklaces, bracelets, earrings...whatever you can imagine or would normally use store bought beads for; try using newspaper beads instead. The simply perfect DIY weekend project!

Newspapers serve as a snapshot of time, recording the world as it stood on a specific day in history. You might be saving an article about your grandfather, or your child's birth announcement. Maybe you won the science fair, or had a record time in the relay race. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long before the paper starts to look brittle, and not much longer until it's coming apart.

Makestuff.com has these instructions on how to preserve newspaper clippings. All you need it one magnesia tablet and club soda. Here's how they suggest you make the preservation solution.