Introduction: A Collection of Random Useful Tips

My sister and I went around the house noticing random stuff we made and decided to just post it here to help out people in the world!

Tips included in this instructable:

*Earring Hanger
*Bobby Pin Holder
*Short Halogen Lamp
*Binder Clip Hanger
*Bulletin Board
*Necklace Hanger
*Fix Your Umbrella!
*Don't Smash Your Fingers - Tool Tips Month
*Don't Lose Your Screws - Tool Tips Month
*Hot Glue Stuff Without a Hot Glue Gun - Tool Tips Month
*Be More Accurate with a Hammer - Tool Tips Month
*Keep your Dog's food bowl ant-free - Tool Tips Month (?) :-)

Step 1: Earring Hanger

Requires:
1. Thumbtacks (number depends on how long your hanger is)
2. Pipe Cleaners or a wire clothes hanger
3. Earrings

Take the pipecleaner or wire and tie them aroudn the thumbtacks as shown in the picture. Shove the thumtacks in the wall and hang earrings from the pipecleaners! Success!

Step 2: Bobby Pin Holder

Requires:
1. A magnet of some sort
2. if your magnet didnt come looking nicely like this one, then get some sort of box if you wish
3. Bobby pins

If you dont have a nice looking thing like what we had, then grab the magnet, get the box (make sure it's not a super thick box that it blocks the magnetism) and glue it either on the inside of the box or outside if you want. Then put the box on the table where you want your bobby pins to be and make sure the side with the magnet is on top. Now place your bobby pins on it. Now you won't lose them!

Step 3: Short Halogen Lamp

Requires:
1. Halogen lamp
2. Screwdriver

(I'm sort of doing this from memory, so there's probably details i'm leaving out or making up -_-)
Begin by unplugging the lamp. I can only imagine the nasty shock this thing can induce. Unscrew the base of the lamp from the rest of the lamp and pull out as many of the metal cylinders as you want. IF you have to, take apart the base of the lamp or cut the wires then solder them back togehter or something. Make sure you don't remove the part of the lamp with the power switch. Now screw the base to the bottom of the remaining cylinders.

This is good if you have no space to put the lamp or if the light doesnt spread to the other side of the room and only gives light everywhere if its in the middle, on top of a desk, and in this case, on top of a printer -_-.

(i'll try to look at the lamp one day and put in more detail about this. I think for the excess wire you can just pull it through the hole in the bottom. that also adds more slack if you want to put it on a higher desk or something)

Step 4: Binder Clip Hanger

Requires:
1. Screws (2)
2. The metal clip part from a three ring binder (or however many rings you want.)

Remove the metal part from an old messed up binder. On the ends of the binder clip thing, there should be some sort of screw-like thing that held the binder to the cardboard. Remove that. The only thing i could think of was dremeling it off, then taking a drill bit about the size of the hole and drilling it out cleanly.

Now you're left with a binder clip that has two holes near the ends.
Now find somewhere to hang it. Screw it in place by putting the screws into the holes.
Unlock it like you normally would and hang stuff! It's surprisingly strong.

Step 5: Bulletin Board

Requires:
1. Posterboard (2, or 1 posterboard, and 1 piece of cardboard the same size. same difference.)
2. Thumbtacks or screws to hang it
3. wire or string to hang it

Get two posterboard and put them together using tape, glue or some other adhesive. Make a hole in the corners of the two. Either screw in screws into those holes and hang it like that, or fasten the wires in the holes and hang it from a thumbtack or screw. My sister somehow kept that thing hanging with a thumbtack. And she's had it for quite a while now.

Now thumbtack it up!

Step 6: Necklace Hanger

Requires:
1. and old coat rack, or whatever that thing is.
2. Necklaces.

Get an old coatrack thing that no one likes that just made your room look weird. Now screw it in somewhere. Hang necklaces or whatever you want from it. Fin.

Step 7: Fix Your Umbrella!

Being the lazy fool i am and seeing how quick this project is, i decided to just add this to this instructable rather than making another one!

Requires:
1. One broken Umbrella or something similar to this with a handle(broken near the handle)
2. A vice if necessary.

Look at the pictures for more clarification if necessary.

1. Fully separate the broken handle from the rest of the umbrella at the point of breakage. For me, i just pulled it off. (picture 2 shows the damage and 3 shows the separated pieces)

2. Use a vice or pliers and grab the piece of the umbrella pole thats shoved into the handle and yank it out (pictures 4-6 show the separated pieces).

3. You can either clean up the messy part of the umbrella pole thats on the rest of the umbrella or just leave it. i left it. if your umbrella had a spring, slide that on over the remaining part of the umbrella pole now simply slide the handle onto the umbrella pole. simple! (pictures 7-9 show how the umbrella comes together and the finished product).

4. You have a camera, so model your work!

5. Make a sign so that you can rub it in when your dad gets home, just in case you're asleep.

Step 8: Don't Smash Your Fingers - Tool Tips Month

Requires:
1. Cardboard or some other thing like foam or even pliers
2. A hammer
3. A nail

This is really easy and yet i never do it. I've ended up with countless smashed fingers in this month alone trying to make stuff for instructables that failed utterly :-(.

1. Cut off a small rectangle of Cardboard and rip it in the middle of the short side. This is pretty self explanatory but look at the pictures if you really need to

2. Stick the nail into the small rip you just made (okay, i know it's not a nail, i couldn't find one! so i just used a screw).

3. Hammer your nail while avoiding purple balloon fingers!

Step 9: Don't Lose Your Screws - Tool Tips Month

Requires:
1. Screwdriver
2. Screw
3. Magnet

If you have a non-magnetic screwdriver like me, then you're probably always losing your screws after they come out. To put an end to this, get a strong magnet, probably an old harddrive magnet, and stick it on to your screwdriver. You can put it near the handle if you want it to just stick to the screwdriver, or closer to the tip if your magnet is too weak. This way, after the screw comes out, it'll just fly onto the magnet!
Losing the tiny magnets sucks the most...

Also, i lose my screws all the time when i take apart electroncis. i don't know what it is, i always manage to have on less screw than when i began.
To combat this, i made a magnetic platform to put all the screws after i take them out. it helps especially if you have super small screws. IT also lets you make cool screw trees!
Requires:
1. Magnet (stronger the better i suppose.)
2. Some sort of box or case (Plastic)
3. Glue

Glue the magnet on the inside of the plastic box. my magnet was big so it fit in the whole box and now i just put it on my magnet. It's super simple and requires no thinking
(pictures are on their way)

Step 10: Hot Glue Stuff Without a Hot Glue Gun - Tool Tips Month

Requires:
1. glue stick (for hot glue guns)
2. A candle, probably those small tea cup candles (if that's what they're called)

This one's easy and it's saved me plenty of times when i couldn't find the glue gun. This isn't exactly the neatest way, but it gets the job done. All you have to do is hold the glue stick over the flame until it turns clear. Then just smudge it onto the spot you want it.

Also, I'm thinking you can make some sort of tube slightly larger than the diameter of the glue stick out of aluminum (maybe an aluminum can) or some other metal. Make a cone out of metal with a small hole at the end and weld it or something to the end of the tube. Now just stick the glue stick in there and as it heats up, push it through the tube! I have yet to try it and am fairly certain it will work. any ideas on it?

Step 11: Be More Accurate With a Hammer - Tool Tips Month

Requires:
A hammer

This one is quite obvious, but it took me a while before i actually started doing this. in addition to holding the screw twith something like cardboard or foam, you can lower the risk of smashing yourself even more by holding the hammer closer to its head. I found i got much more accurate hits on the nail and avoided getting the nail in at an angle. It feels way more balanced, too.

**Unfortunately, i had no camera, and so i had to edit a random hand on a hammer with paint.net -_-
btw, paint.net is way way better than ms paint. if you don't want to get gimp or photoshop, google paint.net. it's a life saver.