DIY No Bag Microwaveable Popcorn

Upon my last inspection of store bought microwaveable popcorn, I noticed that there was a lot of ingredients of which I had no clue what they were. I kept thinking, why do they make the simplest things so complicated... I mean, it's just corn that's popped, or at least it should just be corn that's popped.

Anyway, I did a google search on diy microwaveable popcorn and found that many people has had success in making popcorn using paper bags with kernels in it. This was great, and I thought to myself, once I get a paper bag that I can use, I'm gonna try it. Well, I did finally get a paper bag and I tried it, and it worked, but I had a lot of unpopped kernels -- must have taken it out too soon. I didn't attempt stapling the bag because I just don't believe it's a good thing to do. (Even if Alton Brown's staples didn't spark -- not a chance I'm willing to take), but it worked with a couple of folds on top. Anyway, this worked well enough but I wanted a better way to make microwaveable popcorn without having to wait for a paper bag to come my way (sure, I could just buy them but I just didn't want to).

So I decided to do some more google searches. And voila, amidst all the comments I read thru, someone suggested using a glass bowl with a plate on top. How simple was that... and I had both of those items... yay me! Well, I decided to give it a shot. I don't really think you need a tutorial on this, but I'll give one anyway.
(Note: all the measurements are guesses as I didn't really measure anything)

Materials:

- Glass bowl (big mixing bowl is good)
- Plate
- Popcorn kernels (1/4 cup or so)
- Olive oil (1/2 tsp or so, optional)
- Salt (a pinch or two, optional)

1. Place the popcorn kernels, olive oil and salt in a bowl. I mix it a bit but I don't think it's necessary to do so.

2. Place the plate on top of the bowl, and place the whole thing in the microwave.

3. Microwave til you hear 3 sec before pops.

4. Remove bowl from microwave... be careful as the bowl and plate will be hot. (use oven mitts). You may actually want to put the popcorn in a different container before eating so you don't accidentally touch the glass and burn yourself.

5. Eat. Enjoy. Make more and start the movie. :-)
Variations:
- Try adding garlic powder, parmesan cheese, cayenne pepper as possible toppings... these can be added after the popcorn is popped.

DIY TV or Monitor Stand

I saw this on a post a good while ago, I think via IkeaHacker. Anyway, I needed a solution to place my monitor on and still have a place to put my keyboard when I'm not using it. My computer desk = my sewing table. I wanted a quick solution that also looked cool, so this solution turned out to be perfect and super easy, and did I mention cheap, way to do it. Here's how I did it.


Materials:
- pine wood (any wood should work as long as it's about 3/4 inch thick -- shelf wood works well)
- 4 door stoppers (the non coily types).



1. Cut the pine wood to whatever size you need. I wouldn't recommend making these shelves too long, as the middle area will not be adequately supported.

2. Sand down the edges and corners of the wood, it's just nicer that way.

3. Measure an inch in on both sides of each corner of the wood and mark it with a pen, or in my case, a crayon.

4. Screw on the door stopper onto the mark on each corner of the wood.



That's it. I told you it was simple. To fancy it up, you can easily have painted or stained the wood before screwing on the door stopper "legs." The best part is, it's just the right height for the keyboard to slip under and, as you see in the picture, for my dvd player to fit under. Another good thing about it is that the whole contraption is also quite cheap to make. each door stopper was only $1.50 and the whole piece of pine was about $5 of which I used the one piece for both the tv stand and the monitor stand. Woohoo!

The above picture shows my monitor stand, and the below pictures show my TV stand. :-)

DIY Aquarium Tunnel

I found the idea for this tunnel at a pretty cool diy aquarium site. My goldfish tank has been without decor for way too long, so I decided to give this a shot and give them some place to hide in. Because I used a connector, I didn't want to try cutting it, so my tunnel is a bit different from the plans on the aquariumlife.net


Here's how I made it:

Materials
- PVC Y connector for a 4 inch pipe.
- hot glue gun (or acrylic aquarium glue)
- aquarium rocks



1. Put glue on PVC pipe. Cover glue with rocks. (Be careful not to burn yourself... it hurts quite a bit.) Try to cover as much of the PVC surface as you can.

2. Let dry for an hour (or longer if using the acrylic aquarium glue).

3. Rinse, and place in the tank.



Super easy to make, but it takes a really long time to put the rocks on the glue. The next time I do this, I think I'll use a smaller pipe, and maybe I'll try aquarium glue as the hot glue was pretty painful, and took way too long to use. Oh well... it looks good... and I'm just waiting to see my fish swim through it.

DIY Aquarium Plant Rock Base

Those little plastic trays that come with aquarium plants never seem to work great. I was thinking about this the other day, and decided that it would be a good time to try out a DIY aquarium project. It also seemed to be a good time to keep a promise to a friend to try doing a craft project for the fishies. :-) The idea came to me when I was walking around PetSmart and saw how simple the whole thing looked to be and the price difference it seemed between the rock base plants and the non-rock base plants, for the small plant with a rock base was nearly twice as much. So, here's how I did it.



Materials:
1. Plastic Aquarium Plant
2. Hot Glue Gun (or aquarium acrylic glue - these should be aquarium safe)
3. Aquarium Rocks



How To:
1. First remove the bottom plastic tray

2. Tape up the "roots" so it doesn't get in the way and doesn't get glued down.

3. Start by gluing the bottom tip of the plant and then drop into the rocks. You'll want to repeat this til you reach the desired base size. I added rocks to the base til I reached about 1.5" in diameter. While the glue is drying you should be able to sorta squeeze the rocks together for a tighter clump. Please be extra careful tho as the glue is quite hot.

4. Let it dry for about an hour before actually putting it in the aquarium (longer if you used the acrylic glue). It should be ready to go. I dropped it into the corner of my aquarium and it worked great. It would have matched the gravel of my aquarium much better if I had just grabbed a handful from my aquarium, but I didn't feel like it.



Anyway, hope you enjoy this simple DIY for an Aquarium plant rock base. [LadyAero - I hope this might be a project that would work for Stripey.]

DIY Screen Printing Attempt

I finally got a chance to try an attempt to do diy screenprinting. I attempted to do this project with stuff I had at home, so maybe it could have gone better. Whatever, here are my results and they weren't half bad. I found this idea here...

Materials:
- sheer curtain fabric
- embroidery ring
- glue I used fabric glue that was washable so that the fabric with the pattern could be washed and reused.
- fabric paint
- small cardboard (to move the paint thru the design)

Here's the basic technique:

1. First, cut a small piece of the curtain fabric and fit it into the embroidery ring

2. Place the embroidery ring and fabric flat on the pattern that you want to screen print. Then draw the design onto the curtain fabric with a pen. I used a fine point sharpie.

3. Put the glue on all the reverse areas (whereever you don't want the ink to go). This can take a long time if you have a good amount of detail. I'm surprised how long it took me to do the small design I did have. Also, don't put it on cardboard when you're going to glue it. As you noticed, I made this mistake. It stuck to the cardboard, grrr. I found that it was easy enough to just hold it up while I used the paint brush to paint the glue on.

4. Let the glue dry. This can take a while. The one I used said to let dry for 24 hours. I let it dry for 48 because after 24 it still felt a little sticky. (it actually still felt a little sticky after the 48 hours, but I was anxious.)

5. Place the embroidery ring on top of the fabric or whatever you want to screenprint. The design should be against the fabric or paper.

6. Place some fabric paint on one side of the design. Use the cardboard to squeegie the paint thru the design.



7. Slowly peel the embroidery ring from the fabric or paper, and it's done.



It's pretty simple, but the edges didn't work out too well. Next time I'm going to use the Mod Podge glue and the screenprinting ink that craftgrrl suggested.