10 DIY Projects to Revive Your Useless Junk

We love a good DIY project, but nothing beats one that lets you craft without spending a cent.And with spring cleaning in mind, why throw away useful materials when you could upcycle them instead? From unworn ties to useless floppy discs, there's a DIY to recycle nearly all of your odds and ends.

Channel your thrifty side with these DIY projects made from free items around your home.

• 1. Zipper Headband

  Remove the zipper from an old jacket and fashion it into a headband using just a bobbi pin.

  
  

• 2. Scarf Chain Necklace

  Weave strips of old scarves into old chain necklaces. 

  

  
  

• 3. Homemade Skinny Tie

  to create a fashionable skinny tie out of an old, standard-width one.  

  

  
  

• 4. Ribbon Statement Necklace

  
  
  Dig into your craft supplies for ribbons that compliment each other's color and texture. Fasten with two large beads and you're ready to go.  
  
  
  

  
  

• 5. Non-Toxic Paints

  This simple, non-toxic paint is made of ingredients you likely already have in your pantry.

  
  

   

  

  
  

• 6. Floppy Disc Pen Cup

  Recycle old floppy discs into a geek-friendly pen holder. 

  

  Recycle old floppy discs into a geek-friendly pen holder.

  
  

• 7. Two-Tone Cardigan

  Repurpose two of your older cardigans into one, trendy new item. 

  

  
  

  
  

• 8. Vinyl Record Bowl

  Before you banish those old records to the garage sale, try your hand at this simple DIY. It only requires a record, a bowl and a heat source. 

  

  
  

  
  

• 9. Multicolored Crayons

  Instead of tossing old crayon nubs, melt them down into new, multicolored ones 

  

  
  

  10. Book Shelf

  Breathe new life into dusty old books you never read but can't bear to part with. Plus, you don't need to ruin your old books for this simple DIY.  

  

  
  source:mashable.com

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Homemade Lemon Soap

Hello friends!!we  have another great idea to share with you today. This homemade lemon soap recipe smells amazing, it’s definitely one you’ll want to try. The lemon zest gives the soap a great texture and the citrus scent will leave your hands feeling rejuvenated. With only three ingredients required this soap recipe is easy to make and makes a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.

If you’ve been following along my soap making adventures this year I have to say that this is my favorite so far! For this recipe I used the goat’s milk soap base again because it makes soap making a breeze and it’s available at most craft stores. Beside the citrus scent what I like is that I didn’t need to add any colorant to the soap. The lemon zest mixed with the melted soap produced a yellow color on it’s own.

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Homemade Lemon Soap
Supplies:
1 1/2 cups Goat’s milk soap base, cubed
4-6 Lemon essential oil
Dried Lemon zest of 3-4 lemons
Step one: Cut soap into cubes and microwave in 30 second intervals (I like to use a large Pyrex measuring cup to melt the soap in). This recipe makes 3 bars of soap and I used about 15 cubes of goat’s milk soap base.
Step two: Melt soap for about a minute. Add another 15-30 seconds if it’s not completely melted.
Step three: Once soap cubes have liquified add a few drops of the lemon essential oil and the lemon zest; stir well.
Step four: Pour into soap molds and allow to harden for at least one hour. Press mold to release soap.

      
source::apumpkinandaprincess.com  
      ¶¶¶¶¶¶_thank u_forstopping_________¶¶¶¶¶

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Try This at Home: Invisible Ink

 

A letter from the Revolutionary War with lines written in invisible ink.

Last year, the US Central Intelligence Agency released documents detailing recipes for invisible ink from 1917 and 1918. Among the recipes was a favorite ink recipe of German soliders during World War I — crushed aspirin mixed with water. Though the ink is easily available, uncovering it required a complicated chemical developer.
Other recipes in the CIA documents used solutions of iron, silver or copper salts as ink and developed the writing by heating the paper. This bit of history inspired my inner scientist and spy. Without access to chemicals in a lab, I experimented with invisible ink recipes using things I found around my house.
1. Lemon juice and heat
Dip a cotton swab or thin paintbrush in lemon juice. Write your message on white paper and let it dry. Hold the paper over a lamp, radiator or candle (but don’t let it catch fire!). The heat breaks down the acid into light-brown compounds, revealing your message forever.
This is how my experiment turned out. The top part of the picture is the paper before I held it over a candle.

Using lemon juice as invisible ink, before and after developing with heat.

2. Laundry detergent and black light
White shirts glow under black lights at a haunted house because the whitening agent in laundry detergent glows under ultraviolet light. Try writing your message using liquid laundry detergent. Holding the paper to a black light reveals a glowing message without damaging the paper.
But if spies intercept a message written with one of these inks, it’s likely they could decode it. We all can find something to heat paper. And black lights, though less common than candles, are still widely available.
To solve this problem, I borrowed a trick from George Washington: using two different chemicals to write and decode the message. Washington wrote with an watery ink containing iron salts. The receiver decoded the message by painting the paper with sodium carbonate, a chemical cousin of baking soda.
Maintaining ink supplies was crucial during Washington's day. Now a trip to the grocery store will keep you well supplied.
3. Baking soda and grape juice
Make a paste of baking soda in water. Write your message with this paste on a piece of paper and let it dry. To decode the message, paint the paper with thawed grape juice concentrate. The acidic juice reacts with the basic baking soda and the purple grape juice turns gray. This worked best when I used plenty of baking soda paste and undiluted grape juice concentrate:

Writing in baking soda and developing with grape juice.

In the pictures above, you can tell that the paper has been altered because the paper buckles as the watery lemon juice or baking soda paste dries. Traditionally, writers would re-steam the paper to remove the bumps after scribbling a message with wet ink.
During the Cold War, invisible ink technology improved enough to remove the time-consuming steaming step. Soviet and East German spy agencies developed chemical-coated paper similar to carbon paper we use today. Agents sandwiched this coated paper between two blank pieces of paper. Writing on the top sheet transferred the chemicals from the middle sheet to the bottom paper.
Perhaps hacking an ink-jet printer to print lemon juice invisible ink would transfer your message without damaging the paper as well. I’d love to hear from someone who has tried this.
Have fun sending secret messages!
Post by Melissae Fellet

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