Upcycle Living

My steel oil burner has an open space for tea lights, which looks really pretty. But we live in the hot tropics and need to have the fan on all the time; this means it will keep blowing out the candle flame, which is rather annoying. I reused to buy a specific lantern shade because 1: it's unnecessary to spend extra money, and 2: it will only add on to our clutter. I then remember that we frosted the bathroom windows with some stickers and there is a little leftover which we had no idea what to do with it. So I cut the leftover sticker into a long rectangle (diagram A), then fold the rectangle down the middle so that both flaps are equal size (this has to be done before the protective waxy sheet is removed). Remove the protective sheet and stick both sides together so now we have a thicker frosted sheet. Roll the sheet by the length to make a cylinder, and stick the edges together with double-sided tape (diagram C). And now we have a frosted shade that protects the candle flame fro

Remember those good old days of videotapes? We were all fond of them once, but when the manufacturers stopped making video players, we are left with a whole collection of useless tapes. So what can we do with them besides chucking them in the bin and sending them off to landfill? I refused to just throw my small collection away and insisted on keeping them in the drawers, gathering dust for years. I do that a lot with most of my stuff: used envelops, boxes, bubblewrap, extra cloth material; you name it. But until I come across a useful task for them, they remain a clutter in the the corner. However, we recently moved into our windy new place on the hill, and I realised that we need some doorstops due to the strong wind. The previous tenant has left behind one rubber doorstop but it only fits under one door, because every single door in the house has a different gap from the floor. That means it is quite impossible to find any doorstop in the shops that would fit them all. Then I