How To: Turn a beer can into the only camping stove you'll ever need

Out in the wilderness, settling into camp, you unpack your gear ready to make a hot meal..... Only to discover that you forgot the damn stove! Fear not, I KNOW you didn't forget the beer, and as long as you've got your pocketknife (which should be in your pocket at all times) you've got everything you need to make the only stove you'll need.

Now the only thing you'll have to remember is fuel, which is cheap as it comes: rubbing alcohol. You should already have some in your first aid kit, which means you've got a nice emergency/backup supply.

After watching the video and learning an invaluable survival skill, be sure to check out Tom's Bike Trip for other cool stuff like this.



How To Turn A Beer Can Into The Only Camping Stove You'll Ever Need from Tom Allen on Vimeo.

Wastecog.com : Turning trash into treasure

Wastecog is neat little blog created by Tyler Howorth. It's a showcase for a variety of crafty modern living solutions, like furniture and clothing, with an environmental focus in mind. While you won't find plans for every DIY project here, his works are incredibly inspiring for turning trash and junk into something useful and creative. I highly recommend you check it out!


>>>Wastecog.com

Smartphone charger powered by fire

Smartphone Charger Powered by Fire

Here's a cool instructable from Joohansson on how to build a smartphone charger that's powered by fire. That's right. Embrace your inner caveman and combine it with your love of technology. And your addiction to your cellphone.

 Now when you're lost in the wilderness and stranded from civilization, the fire you build will keep away predators, cook your food, and keep you updated on Facebook......

Hopefully you're using your smartphone for more than just endlessly checking updates on social networks, and figuring out how the f*** you're gonna get out of the forest. But either way, this instructable is guaranteed to keep your phone powered, with fire, for whatever you need it for.


>>Smartphone charger powered by fire

How to: Rain barrel

Rain barrels are a great way to utilize water that is otherwise running rampant across your lawn. While it can be even more effective to landscape your yard and rain gutters to naturally water your garden and lawn, doing so can be much more expensive, and usually permanent.

Rain barrels are cheap, easy to make, and much more customizable with many more uses.In addition to watering, you can generally use them in place of your hose, like washing your car, rinsing off that patio furniture, or giving the dog a bath.

You can purchase rain barrels from various places, but it's monumentally cheaper and more rewarding to build your own. Here's the best way I found to make a rain barrel from instructables.com, by stylnpzzalvr

Weekly waste war: Turn Dryer Lint into waterproof fire starter

This is the first post in what I hope to be a weekly series based on combating (that's right, ass kicking!) waste in your daily life. Even the smallest and easiest things you can do to waste less can have the biggest impact, because everyone can do it, whether you're rich, poor, a moron or a rocket scientist. And it's much more important to look at what we can do and just do it instead of looking at what we can't change or thinking we can't make a difference.

After that incredibly motivating speech, you're probably ready to live 100% sustainable and never waste an ounce of anything in your life, but let's start out small, with dryer Lint. Probably the easiest and most common thing to reuse in your house. It probably has one of the smallest impacts on landfills and such, but it's not just about the waste. It's about turning something that you normally would have no use for into something useful. Whatever it is, this offsets energy and money being spent through what you've created or partially created from reusing something that you thought was useless.

$3 Emergency Solar Radio

Another DIY from Instructables by Joshua Zimmerman, a $3 emergency solar radio. This is one of a zillion altoid tin DIY projects that's easy to make yet functional. It's portable, cheap, and solar powered. Everything you want your emergency radio to be and more. Plus, you can buy the solar cells and other parts straight from Joshua Zimmerman's site, BrownDogGadgets.com for super cheap. 

>>$3 Emergency Solar Radio

How to: Turn a playing card into a solar charger

Here's another sweet little project from Instructables by sfrayne, a solar powered charger for AA batteries using a playing card. I'm guessing you have at least one device in your house that's draining your wallet from using batteries, so this is a perfect project that allows you to recharge and reuse those suckers and save some money. In addition to being one less thing you have to plug into your wall and jack up your electric bill, it's probably cheaper to make 5 of these solar powered chargers than the crappiest outlet charger.

>>Turn a playing card into a solar charger for AA batteries

How to: Emergency butter candle

This is a really cool, easy project that only requires a stick of butter, toilet paper, and a toothpick. Chances are you have all of these materials in your house, which also makes it the perfect emergency "how to." It doesn't require stocking up on random materials that can only be used in a real emergency situation, and it's super simple and easy to remember. Which isn't to say you shouldn't stock up on emergency supplies, but how cool is it to have an almost ready to go candle from the butter in your fridge? And if your completely out of toilet paper, you might have a more serious emergency than the power being out.

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.

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