How To: Make your own Survival Bracelet

You've probably seen these survival bracelets in your local sporting goods stores, or many other places. If you haven't, they're bracelets made from 550 para cord (or at least they should be, if they're the real deal.) If you've seen the price tag on them, and your like me, you haven't bought one yet. So here's a great way to make your own and not only are they stylish, they have a million different applications in a real life survival situation. And you could probably make a dozen yourself for the cost of one from a store. This a great tutorial from Instructables by tevers94 on how to make your very own survival bracelet, or key chain, or knife sheath, etc. with many variations.

>>How to make your own survival bracelet

2 liter soda bottle self watering plant container

This has got to be the cheapest, easiest, and coolest way to build a self watering container for plants, and start your own indoor garden. There are a million different ways to do this project, the important thing is that your re-using plastic bottles and building effective containers to grow your plants. 2 liter soda bottles, milk jugs, and large juice containers can all work for this project.

Since there are so many ways to do this project (it's pretty hard to do it wrong), I'm gonna show you the three best methods I found. Try what's best for you with the materials you have on hand.


Materials

• 2 liter soda bottle
• Scissors
• Drill or sharp object to poke holes in cap and/or bottle
• Soil
• Plant or seeds

Optional materials (depending on method)

• String of some kind (shoelace, t-shirt strips, candle wick, etc. Even polyester will work.)
• Paper towels
• Straw
• Funnel

How to build an indoor (or outdoor) compost bin

Here's an easy and cheap way to start composting your household waste and turn it into black gold. I literally didn't spend a dime on this project, I found everything lying around my house. Altogether it probably would've cost around $25.00. I'm doing this project in my basement, but this can be applied to a much smaller space, or even outdoors. Whether you live in a house, apartment, RV, dungeon, YOU can compost easily and effectively. Contrary to popular belief, composting (when done correctly) should give off little to no odor, so using the excuse that you don't want your house to smell like rotting garbage goes out the window.

Large Composting bins. Can be smaller or bigger.

I could go on and on about why everyone should compost and the benefits of it (and I probably will at some point), but for now I'll just give you the How-To.

Materials for bin:

• Container with lid
• Drill or sharp object to make holes
• Tray for excess water
• Stilts or supports (nothing fancy)
• Stirring tool (must be long and sturdy)

Basic materials for composting:

• Soil to start off, layering throughout as your compost grows.
• Dry, paper-like ingredients ( newspaper, leaves, yard trimmings, sawdust, printer paper, cardboard, wood shavings, etc. Anything chemical free is generally ok.) 
• Wet materials (These are things like your kitchen scraps, veggies, fruits, eggshells, coffee grounds, etc.)

NOTE: The list above for acceptable materials is very conservative. Almost ANYTHING can be composted. Those people who say that meat, bones and oils can not be composted are FULL OF IT. However, composting these materials can complicate matters, and require a more tentative approach. For example, composting meat can attract bugs and smells, IF you don't bury it in your compost and layer your materials effectively. For this project I'm gonna focus on keeping it simple, just know that you can compost those supposed "taboo" compost items, it just requires more work and thought.

In.gredients: Americas first Zero-waste, Zero packaging grocery store.

Man, I wish I lived in Austin, Texas right about now. They have the United States first grocery store with all completely organic, completely local, bare ingredients with no crap and better yet? Zero packaging. You bring your containers in, you fill them with what you need, you weigh it all, pay for it, and your good to go with zero waste. You can also purchase their compostable containers if you don't bring your own.

In.gredients, famous for being Americas brightest idea in a long friggin' time (oh wait, that's my opinion) opened in 2011. My only question, where the hell are the other grocery stores doing the same thing?? As far as I know In.gredients has been a great success, but I have yet to hear of any other stores following their lead. Don't get me wrong, there are some good options out there, but nowhere near as good as In.gredients. Perfectly wrapped, bright and colorful, fun and silly packaging has got to be one of the dumbest things that intelligent people all over the world let corporations get away with. Bastards.

Let's all give three cheers for In.gredients. If you wanna check out their website, click here.
If you wanna read more about them from a local Austin resident and an amazing blogger,  click here.

25 gallons of water: 10 minutes, or 40 days

That's about how much water is used on average every time you take a shower with a newer shower head installed in your home, with a limit of 2.5 gallons per minute. Twenty-five gallons of water, gone in ten minutes. At 2.5 quarts of water per day (the required amount of water to live) this would sustain a person for FORTY days. And I hate to say it, but when I manage a shower in 10 minutes, I'm feeling pretty proud. Or I'm extremely late for work. But this means that taking showers that last 30 minutes or more is an incredibly stupid and wasteful practice, and I'm sure we all have those days.

But it's not easy right? Who doesn't love a nice long, hot shower to wake you up in the morning, or to sanitize your body after a long day of work?

Think of it this way: if you had to choose between clean drinking water for the day or taking a long shower, the choice would be pretty obvious right? We might be far off from reaching that point, but the fact is our supply of clean water is not sustainable (at least at the current rates of our consumption), and at some point we will all have to make hard sacrifices if want water to live. Personally, I'd rather already be accustomed to using an appropriate amount of water instead of getting forced into using an insanely low amount, but that's just me.

Checkout this article from SmartPlanet and see how the Department of Energy Regulators are cracking down on home owners that have shower heads exceeding 2.5 gallons of water per minute. It's a start, but in no way a long term solution.

Instructables: The ultimate guide to DIY

The infamous Instructable robot

Instructables is the coolest resource for everything DIY (Do It Yourself). They have projects for everything you can think of, from creative recipes to awesome furniture to really cool tech gadgets and everything in between.

The best part about Instructables (and everything DIY)? It's usually great from a sustainable standpoint, and easy on your wallet. Want an amazing entertainment center but don't have a lot of cash? Build it yourself! Not only does it cost less, but you can make it to perfectly suit your needs instead of shopping for hours trying to find an overpriced piece of crap that isn't what you want.


And speaking from personal experience, you can make a lot of cool and useful stuff from broken junk or scrap lying around your house. Reusing materials you already have, and turning worthless garbage into something cool, is not only FREE, but great for the environment. I highly recommend you checkout their site. Oh, and you know what else is free? Instructables.com

Click here to checkout instructables