DIY Life

With the swine flu in full swing and some sort of horrid cold roaming around my household, cleanliness is on the forefront of my mind this week. And after reading this article re: the transmission of bacteria on your shower head, I'd hope it's on the forefront of yours, as well. Luckily, our friends at ShelterPop have the scoop on how to get the cleanest showers in town.

A quick tip from the article? You can make a fantastic homemade shower cleaner with 1 cup of vinegar, 1/2 cup baking soda, 1 cup ammonia and 1.5 gallons of hot water. Be sure to use rubber gloves, scrub well (use an old toothbrush for those tough tiles!) and rinse with hot water. Wipe dry. Also, tackle your glass shower door with white vinegar to prevent streaks and mildew at the same time. Bonus!

After all, cleanliness is next to awesomeness, right?

I'm already brainstorming holiday gifts, and it's not even Halloween. Am I brainwashed or what? Regardless, trinket soaps are both fun and affordable, and I'd love to try my hand at creating a few gifts for family members this year. Luckily, this video gives step-by-step instructions for adorable trinket soaps that I can't wait to try!



A few important tips to keep in mind?:

1. Use a clear glycerin base if you want your object to be visible inside the soap, and a milky, opaque base if you want it to be a hidden surprise.
2. Avoid using a loaf-shaped soap mold-you'll have to slice up the finished soap, and may end up cutting through the objects inside.

And, of course, a bit of soapy food for thought:

I'm planning a baby shower for a friend at the moment, and she's not your average mother-to-be. I've been instructed not to include storks, diapers or baby bottles, as the occasion should be feminine, but not exaggerated. As I brainstormed color schemes and DIY favors, my mind instantly thought of these adorable DIY wedding favors and invitations, which are perfect for my friend.

My favorite invitations idea is to send a notebook with the occasion details and RSVP info, including a note asking the guest to fill out their predictions for the happy couple. I'd love to use this as a baby shower idea and ask guests to include their best advice for parenting, fun baby names and predictions for the birth.

Best part? You can turn the notebooks into one heck of a scrapbook and gift it to the bride-to-be or mother-to-be when the shower is completed. A DIY from start to finish, and the guest of honor will be floored at the personal touch.

For more great shower planning ideas, check out our friends at Holidash!

I've been planning my cousin's feminine baby shower for a few months now, and I've been tossing around centerpiece ideas in my head. I stumbled upon this cutesy DIY centerpiece yesterday and am quite sure it will make the perfect girly statement for the event!

The tutorial is pretty self-explanatory and seems easy as baby-shower-pie. Simply thrift an old candelabra, gather a few teacups and purchase plenty of craft glue (my favorite is Elmer's). I think it'd be fun to spray-paint the entire centerpiece a bright teal or yellow lacquer so the look really pops.

If you can't find any candelabras or teacups at the local thrift shops, eBay is always a tremendous resource. Just be sure to bid on inexpensive designs if you plan to spray-paint it.

When you've finished your project, fill the teacups with nuts, chocolate-covered strawberries, mints, or even candles. Your guests will love your ingenuity, and the best part? You've finally found a use for all of your mismatched china!

How green is your bathroom? I thought I was doing pretty good, since I abandoned my chemical rich cleaners for baking soda and vinegar the way Anna recommends. This change is important, but only one small step towards an eco-friendly bathroom.

The video above explains how to go green in the bathroom by conserving water, minimizing energy usage, adding plants, and choosing natural products. Here's what you'll need:

1. Fluorescent light bulbs
2. Plants
3. Food coloring
4. Natural hair and body care products
5. Vinegar
6. Baking soda
7. Low flow shower-head
8. Low flow toilet

Replacing your light bulbs and bringing in a plant are cheap, quick, and effective changes. Making the change-over to a low-flow shower head and toilet can be a bit more costly. If you're contemplating a low-flow shower head, first consider Ryan's pros and cons list. He suggests an alternative to the costly purchase by opening the valve partially, allowing less water to pass through.

The low-flow toilet is another source of water conservation and financial savings. Some municipalities even offer partial rebates on their purchase. If you're not sure where to start looking for the right low-flow toilet, this article, The best low-flow toilets will point you in the right direction.

If you're still not convinced that you want to buy a new one, and this eco-friendly bathroom hasn't quite scratched your DIY itch, then Gary has a project for you. He points us to a toilet hack that allows you to pre-use the water that fills your toilet tank after flushing.

What changes have you made towards a greener bathroom?

Recently I had occasion, courtesy of my spouse, to change out the trim on the shower valve in our kids' bathroom. The project went very smoothly until I pulled the trim plate from around the single handle valve control. For some reason it had been caulked into place. Usually the trim plate is help in place by screws that attach to the valve body. I removed the old plate, old caulking, and re-installed the new plate. After finishing the whole assembly I discovered the reason for all the caulking on the old one.

Apparently the one-armed, special-ed, blind contractor (no offense) who had originally installed the valve assembly did not secure the pipes to a stud as required. Whenever I pulled on the handle to open the flow of water, the whole valve body (trim plate included) would pull out and create a gap between the plate and the shower wall. AAAUUUGGHHH!!!! Why do plumbing projects always turn into these kinds of nightmares? Is it just me?

So now I was faced with either using 18 gallons of caulk to hold the plate in place, or cut a huge hole in the wall to be able to reach and secure the pipes to a stud mechanically, or figuring out a different way to secure the pipes.

Is it difficult to find enthusiasm about cleaning the bathroom? Are you living in a place that someone else rented or owned before you? If you said yes to both, try not to think about what may have happened in your bathroom before you moved in. Let's just get to making that place feel like you and your family or friends are the only contaminants.

Here are five inexpensive things you can do to make your bathroom truly feel like it is yours. Doing these will not make the room look new but it will make it feel much more new to you. You'll probably want to wear gloves for most of these. Absent from this list are the obvious cleaning chores that you should be doing regularly -- you know, things like scrubbing the toilet and washing the shower curtain every now and then.

Last spring I installed two on-demand electric hot water heaters in parallel. They worked wonderfully until this winter's cold temperatures pushed the ground water temperature lower than the rest of the year. We had no problem with hot water from our taps at about 1.5 gallons per minute but the shower just never got hot. The standard for new shower heads is 2.5 gallons per minute. We needed to reduce our GPM consumption by about 1 gallon in order to have hot showers.

I did a bit of research and found Bricor manufactures a number of sub 2.5 GPM shower heads. I contacted them about making a purchase and they replied with their pricing and told me to measure the pressure of the water at the shower head. I dutifully removed my shower head and threaded on $12 worth of parts from the hardware store to measure the water pressure. With that information and a model picked out I sent them payment via Paypal. They made my shower head specifically for me and my home's water pressure to achieve the desired PSI. A few weeks later I received it and put the new head in place.

The pros of the low flow shower head are that my water consumption is down. The on-demand hot water heater can easily keep up with the lower flow so I'm probably using less electricity as well. Reducing your water and electricity consumption is definitely nice! The pressure of the water coming out of the head is not noticeably less than my shower head off the hardware store shelf.

The cons of the low flow shower head are the expensive price up front (I'll admit, I probably chose their most expensive model), and a major lag in response from a change in temperature at the knob to the time the desired temperature comes out of the head. It also takes a long time for the hot water to reach the shower head from the heaters but I understand that the water used during that longer period of time is the same as before changing to the lower flow.

A less expensive but equally effective way to reduce water consumption and reduce the GPM rate to allow a heater to keep up with demand is to simply regulate the amount of water coming our of the shower head by not opening the valve the whole way.

Last week when I was cleaning my shower, I spilled some cleaning chemicals on my bath mat. I washed the mat right away, but now there is a balled up hard spot that I always seem to step on. I have had the mat for years with no other accidents, and it still looks great but I guess it is actually time to buy a new one, because every time I step on it, I feel like my cats hid a present for me under the mat.

If you need or want a new bath mat too, forget about buying one! Check out the knitted rag bath pattern I found on Coco Knits. The sample shown is 18" wide and 36"long. Julie used two pre-washed twin bedsheets that she had cut into 1 1/2 inch strips. She tells you how to connect the pieces with her rag knitting tutorial.

I so want to make one right now, because I have fallen in love with the cable knit pattern. I think it is just so classy. I love the fact that you can use any fabric, whether it be old t-shirts or old bedsheets.You choose your fabric so you can make your rag bath mat to match your decor.

For those that require a home shower that is 1) easily accessible without some kind of 'bump,' 2) treats your feet like a warm pair of houseshoes, and 3) can be done over time if you have an alternative shower to use, you might be interested in this project. I had a neighbor recently that had to move his mother in due to health reasons, but grew tired of lifting his mom and her shower chair into position every single day.

The solution was a shower remodel complete with grippy-material entry ramp and heated floors. Yes, there are such things as heated shower floors. Basically, these are heated mats that heat the ceramic tiles up on the floor of your shower (if it's tile and not polycarbonate or something). Prefab units are easy to find at specialty plumbing stores or contractor supply locations. Want to heat other ceramic tile areas? Go for it.

If you're about to remodel your guest or master bathroom, installing heated floors may be an investment you'd like to make -- I know I would. According to instructables.com, heating kits can be had for $600 or so, although I'm not sure eBay would be a preferred transaction venue for this type of material -- your mileage may vary.

People ask me about ideas for things that they can make themselves to sell on Internet sites like Etsy.com. I tell them the trick is to come up with things that can be produced rather quickly with quality results and it helps if it's something they can make uniquely their own. It's also beneficial if the items are practical as well as decorative. A healthy dose of whimsy always helps to capture the attention of curious shoppers.

To see a fine example of what I'm suggesting, take a look at the home sewn washcloth puppets on Sewing.org. These home made little cuties would be relatively cheap to make because they're sewn using basic washcloths and some other common sewing supplies. Sewing.org gives you the full instructions for making them and even includes printable patterns for you.

Who could dispute that one of the best gifts you can give or receive is the gift with a practical use and that saves money for the recipient? Everybody likes to save money, and the parent of a new baby is certainly no exception. That is why I have always liked the hand made diaper wreath project. It's a gift that you can make by yourself. It's nearly 100% usable, and it will save that new parent a few precious dollars at a financially stressful time.

Romance is about stepping beyond the cold hard world for a while and making time to put special focus upon that bond you share with another person. A romantic dinner at a favorite restaurant, a walk on a favorite nature path, soft music with dim lights and a bottle of fine wine, these are all excellent directions to take for a romantic interlude, but what about when money is in short supply and you're stuck at home together looking for romance? Baby, let me wash your hair.

Yes, it may seem like a mundane chore any other time but the opportunity to wash the hair of the one you love can be the basis for a very deep expression of love and caring that many people miss out on. When you wash the hair of your partner with love and care, you are serving them in a very special fashion and you are telling them that you are willing to focus yourself on their needs. For most people, their hair is an extension of their personality. When you care for their hair, you are sending a very potent message about how you feel towards them.