DIY Life

With school officially in session all over the country, organization and paper filing are in full swing. There are permission slips, school reports, classroom artwork... so much to file! How do you keep track of it all? Here's what I'd do:

Upon the start of school, each child gets an expanding organizer, complete with tabs to organize the paperwork they'll be bringing home. It will give (a) your child a sense of responsibility and ownership, and (b) you some time away from filing endless paperwork! Why not make it into a fun craft night by following Katherine's fun fabric file folder tutorial (whew! Say that three times fast!).

Need more filing tips? Check out 8 Systems to Organize Your Mail and beat the clutter this fall. Paperwork is no longer a headache with the right filing system, and DIY makes filing fun and affordable!

This water bottle wall divider is the perfect addition to any green home or office. The genius combination of recycled plastic bottles and modern office design, makes this project one you won't want to pass up.

Designed by Klein Dytham Architecture, this semi transparent wall is perfect for dividing open work spaces. While Curbly doesn't reveal the full instructions on how to recreate this original idea, they do give some guidance.

You'll need lots of clean, empty water bottles, with the labels peeled off. The bottles are strung on wires hanging from floor to ceiling. It looks like the track would be the same as any other industrial wall divider.

You don't have to duplicate their design entirely. Play around with your own space and modify it to best meet your own style and functional needs.

Lots of April Fool's pranks take weeks in preparation, devising complicated plots, gathering obscure materials, and finally getting that long awaited reaction when you pull it off. That doesn't mean that the fun is reserved for those of you who are willing to stage fake bank foreclosures or fudge positive pregnancy tests. The rest of us, who just want to have a little fun, can get in on the games too.

If you're looking for a way to prank your office mate, this booby trapped chair is simple and harmless. The scheming, weaselly guy in the video pulls this prank on his unsuspecting co-worker. Choose your victim wisely, and you'll both be left laughing.

All you need is a few minutes, some clear fishing line, and your office mates desk and chair. Wait until he slips away, and tie fishing line to various desk items, then to the leg of his chair. When he comes back and pulls his chair out, his other office supplies will come flying out along with it. Make sure you don't attach it to anything that could be dangerous, or could get damaged.

This is a great way to break up the work day, and bring a little light-hearted April 1 spirit into the office.

My fabulous new laptop is all set up and running beautifully. My old laptop has been consigned to its temporary new home: the garage. There it shall stay until I get an opportunity to take it to an electronics collection event, which my city periodically holds. (It's the green way, people.)

Anyway, I may have been a bit hasty taking it straight to the garage. According to stuff I've been reading online, you should always retire your old computer. That is, before you toss it, recycle it, sell it, give it away, donate it to charity--whatever--it's recommended you carry out some basic steps first.

The following computer retirement tips come courtesy of everyone's favorite software behemoth, Microsoft:

Four or five years ago, one of my art-major college friends decided to make over her desk chair. While she'd bought it new, it was an inexpensive standard task chair, the kind you see at any number of student desks, and she'd had it for years. She put tropical fabric on the seat and gave it a grass skirt. Instant luau!

Similar in spirit is Goodwill Hunting, a thrift-store chair makeover from Curbly's ModHomeEcTeacher. The chair itself cost less than $10, and was covered with about a yard of fabric. All you have to do is disassemble any seat pads, trace a pattern for the new coverings, attach the new fabric (and a scrap fabric for areas that aren't visible), and reassemble the chair. Grass skirts are optional.

Although there are a wealth of cool prints out there, this will probably be more durable if you do it with upholstery fabric or canvas or something equally heavy (a lot of online fabric shops currently have really cute Japanese canvas prints that sell for about $16-20 per yard). The procedure requires some tool savvy and common sense, so I'm happy to see that the author of the tutorial did not skimp on safety warnings.

[Thanks, Ryan!]

Some people love giving Secret Santa gifts, mainly the overly friendly HR lady who is in a constant state of cheer. For the rest of us, it can be a royal pain. The sentiment is good: getting to know each other and celebrating the holidays with your workmates. The idea is that you pull somebody's name and you'll be their "Secret Santa", giving them a special gift. The problem is that you might not know much about the person who's name you drew and you might not have a clue where to start.

First, consider the guidelines that have been set out (probably by the same cheerful HR lady). You'll want to make sure that you stick within the guidelines for price and type of gift. Some offices love crude gag gifts while others have strict rules against it. Make sure you know what you're working with before you set out to find that perfect present. Once you know what you're working with, it's time research your giftee. Wired.com has some great suggestions for choosing the perfect gift, starting with getting to know them. They suggest a number of questions you can ask about this person to give you a pretty clear indication of what sort of thing they would like. Once you've decided on what you want to give, they have some ideas for where to get it. Remember that presentation matters and the gift giver is supposed to be a surprise, so don't wrap it in that old gift bag that's been sitting on your desk for a month!

Don't dread this part of your Christmas party. You're going to participate anyway, so have a little fun with it.

[via: Lifehacker]

Design*Sponge is usually a great source for eye candy and DIY inspiration. Recently, they've been adding a weekly DIY feature with tutorials and the like. This week, we got a twofer as they've posted a fabulous project submitted by one of their readers.

Inspired by a corkboard (scroll to the very bottom to see it) created by a featured designer on the blog, the reader created her own tutorial for a baroque-style corkboard. The tutorial provides both directions and a template for creating this on your own. All you need is cork and a cutting tool.

This is a clever alternative to typical rectangular corkboards and is a great way to add visual interest by using different silhouettes in your space.

Coming into this blog post, number four in my series about building your own computer, I finally have had some of the components delivered. I have included some pictures and information to keep you up to date, but we're not nearly ready to begin assembling parts. I'm hoping that my editors aren't getting too annoyed that I haven't started actually screwing parts together yet. Perhaps I should have told them that I didn't have $900 dollars to plunk down to buy all the parts at one time. Oh well, my intention was to walk you through this slowly any way. You can see my first three lead -in posts via this link!


This week I went through the process of choosing my hard drives. Yes, I mean drive(S), as in more than one. After getting various opinions on the subject I have decided that my new computer shall be set up with two hard drives. One will serve for daily use and the second one will be a fully updated backup kept on hand as an instant replacement just in case the first one fails. It was suggested that I could run the two hard drives in tandem, using one for the operating system and one for image storage which is a fine idea also but I have determined that I do not need that volume of data storage capacity yet and that option would still leave me needing a back up solution. I can always throw another drive in there. That's one of the advantages of building a computer from scratch.

Messy desks plague most home office - for those of you who are able to confine office type mess to the office. People with no time to tidy up, who end up spending more time looking for things then actually being productive. I think this is a particular problem for DIY types because we see potential in everything. My desk is full of interesting paper scraps that I'm sure I'll find a use for later. I have old magazines and shoe boxes just waiting to be re-purposed. In all of this chaos, my important papers remain unfilled and the backs of them scribbled with little notes, random phone numbers and endless 'to do' items.

When you consider that all this mess is affecting productivity it is time to make a change. This article encourages you to think about what you want from your space. Contemplating the characteristics of your ideal workspace will go a long way in helping you get there. Walking you trough this work space check-up you'll think about the relevance of various things you're keeping around and evaluate the most appropriate place for them.

I feel fresher and more motivated when I am happy with my workspace. I'll share some of my own suggestions after the jump.

We use our smallest room as an office. My husband and I each have a computer and so do each of our boys. This little space quickly becomes the hottest room in our house and is almost unbearable to be in. To top it all off, our clothes dryer is right outside the door, so the heat from that probably adds to the problem. I think you get the picture, but this is a very hot room. While there isn't a whole lot that can be done, there are a few good tips on keeping computers from putting out too much heat. Overclock.net answers this common question How can I cool my room down from my computer heat? This short article talks about lowering the amount of heat certain parts generate by lowering their voltage or frequency, which although technically possible is probably pretty extreme for most people.

In a room like ours, it helps to make sure that any computer that isn't in use is powered down, by setting the power management settings appropriately. It helps, a bit..

I would rather work on a laptop under a shaded tree in some quiet park, but for now, this is my workspace and it sure needs cooling down. If your office heat is getting to you, try some of these tips, but don't forget the obvious; leave the door open, and add window and desk fans, they go a long way too.

Working from home can provide a rewarding and flexible lifestyle. In fact, to most it sounds ideal - no daily commute, no boss to report to, no cubicles filled with annoying co-workers, and you can eat lunch when you want, for as long as you like. You can even take a nap if you want to!

Unfortunately the biggest complaint from people who work at home ... they don't actually get any work done. According to one study, only 14 percent of people who work at home put in a full eight hours ... the rest put in three hours or less.

If you're reading this and you're currently working from home .. well, 'er odds are you probably fall into the three hours or less percentile. If so, here are some suggestions from WIRED on how to change that and successfully get your job done.

1. Switch into work mode.
It's hard to feel like a productive professional with flannel jammies, fuzzy slippers, and bed head. Get up, take a shower, and dress like you're actually going to work (because, hey -- you are). I vouch for this one ... I've done the pj thing and it doesn't work. I now get up everyday at 6am, shower and get dressed immediately.