A Cheap and Easy DIY Sewing Cutting Table

...would be better but there’s not enough room in Kelly’s 10 by 12-foot shed. Making a cheap and easy work table When I built my workshop I discovered a formula for creating work surfaces. I used a similar process to make the cutting table. Step one: go to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore or ReUse People of America and find two or more matching kitchen or bathroom cabinets. Step two: get a sheet of melamine at the big orange store. Step three: cut th...

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Josey Baker whole / wild / wet / slow / bold

...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9pAObqHzXI The bread nerd club I co-founded, the Los Angeles Bread Bakers, brought Josey Baker down to LA to teach a class. Now you can watch a version that very same class via Youtube for freeeeeee. I’m a huge fan of his method and his book Josey Baker Bread. If you’re interested in making your own bread skip the Netflix tonight and get whole, wild, wet, slow and bold....

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Tolkien and Trees

...abashed partisan of trees. A couple of quotes from him regarding trees are making the rounds on the internet, but I’ve learned to distrust popular quotations. They are often misattributed or downright made up. So I searched his edited letters for references to trees. There are many–he always mentions trees when he describes places, has funny things to say about artists who can’t draw trees, and has many trees of significance in his books, which he...

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How to Build Walls with Pallets

...by Ron S. But pallets can be tough to work with. The wood splinters easily making disassembly a tricky proposition (watch the Garden Fork TV pallet breaker video if you want to go down that route). Famed internet pallet guru Michael Janzen, of Tiny Pallet House, proposes leaving your pallets whole and adding a 2×4 to the end to make them into a kind of building block. The 2x4s can be new or salvaged from broken pallets. With the added 2×4 you can...

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Help! I’ve got Paper Wasps

...beneficial insect. They eat beetle larvae, caterpillars, flies and nectar (making them pollinators). They are your friends in the garden. Right now I have a large colony living in the eave of our front porch right over my favorite chair. I’ve sat in that chair, with my head a mere four feet from my paper wasp buddies, for many hours and have never once been bothered. Biology Like honeybees, paper wasp are social insects. A mated queen lays eggs. B...

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