I commented on another topic about some financial related topic and it gave me a idea to open a topic where we could exchange knowledge to save money in our day to day life or create wonderful stuff. So if you have some ideas that you made something at home that somebody might benefit from, post it here with step by step instructions if possible. Also if you have pictures of it, post them.
Let me start with the first one.
Plastic Flowerpot:
Here in the "cracks of society"(my location), there are those little buckets that contain Turkish or Greek yogurt. When the bucket is empty, you can drills holes on the bottom for drainage. And thus make a flowerput of a plastic bucket. No money spend on a flowerpot.
At the grocery store you can buy those wooden boxes with clementines. I have a balcony and i was planning to grow my own celery and peppermint. If you use two boxes you can get a decent wooden flowerpot with more room.
Step 1: Try to at least get two wooden boxes. https://www.dropbox.com/s/naifii1bwc...-pot1.jpg?dl=0 Step 2: Keep one box as it is and with the other, take out all the staples that have been used to make the box. Be careful to take them slowly out, or else you might damage the box. Step 3: Place the long wooden pieces above the long wooden pieces of the existing box and use screws or stapler to attach them to it. Do the same with the short wooden pieces. Step 4: Use the remaining wooden blocks (triangle shapes) to put them on top of the existing ones and also use a stapler or screws to tighten it. Be care full as the wood can split and thus damage the wooden block. https://www.dropbox.com/s/tx39fb0nr0...-pot4.jpg?dl=0
Step 5: The remaining bottom try to cut it to fit within the existing box. So you will in the end have a bottom upon a bottom. Step 6: If you have some thick plastic laying around, use this plastic to cover the inner parts of the box. This way you will prevent the box from touching the soil and thus rot. I used staples to hold the plastic in place. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wk13fwny83...-pot3.jpg?dl=0
Majority of us have become sheep and follow the herd in obeying orders and propaganda. We throw away what can be re-used and buy the same thing we threw away at the store ...o_O?
Enrichment of soil (Organic fertilizer):
The ones among us that grow their own stuff probably know this already, but one can create own compost if you have the space in your garden. However others among us who do not have a garden but only a balcony (like me) can also somehow get valuable stuff without having a compost bin or something like that.
As we already know just like us human beings, plants also need the necessary minerals. Some of those are calcium, Potassium, Nitrogen, phosphorus and you can read the rest online.
- Eggshells contain A LOT of calcium
- Used tea leaves and used coffee beans powder also have a lot of nitrogen and other minerals
- Banana peels contain a lot of potassium with a lesser amount of calcium and other minerals
Besides these "treasure"-junk, you can use wood ash to enrich the soil as well (BBQ Ash, try to use as much as possible less artificial means to get those coals burning and later on turning in to ash) . As wood ash contains also a lot of these minerals, however do not use a lot of it, as this brings up the pH-value of the soil up and some plants do not like that.
So what to do with banana peels, coffee beans and eggshells?
Step 1: Dry the banana peels till they are rock hard and grind them using for example a mortar (i believed it is called) to powder. After that put them in a jar. Step 2: Dry the coffee bean powder and also put these in a jar Step 3: Dry the tea leaves and grind them in a mortar and put them in the same jar as the coffee bean powder. Do beware that sometimes within those tea bags, some ARTIFICIAL JUNK is put it to give it extra flavor, so take that junk out before proceeding. Here in the "cracks of society", little transparent artificial stones are put in to give the more intense flavor. Step 4: Boil the eggshells that have not been boiled before to kill any salmonella bacteria so you do not add this to the soil. The eggshells that have been boiled before consumption of the eggs can just be put in a grinder or a mortar. Put the eggshell power also in a jar for safe keeping. https://app.box.com/s/evrh0nvb8q1qtps3bhh852fqp6dcwc8l Step 5: Whenever you need to fertilize the plants, just add the amount of coffee bean powder, banana peel powder eggshell powder on top of the soil. work it with the soil gently and pour some water on it this will bring down the powder further down the soil. My advice is to at least do this once a month with less of all of this powder as it takes a bit longer than compost or chemical fertilizer to be used by the plant. The soil will break the powder in the process and slowly make it available for the plant to use it. This way the plant will have continuous food through out the month instead of giving it every few months but a lot of it.
Know that Allah(swt) already has given us all the means on this earth to use, without us constantly have to go to buy it at the store. How do you think a duck outside can survive? Does he also go to the store to buy some food ..o_O?
Next idea will be a very interesting one in'sha'Allah. A sadaqa jariya (ongoing charity) idea.
Last edited by Simple_Person; 02-19-2017 at 05:37 AM.
I will in'sha'Allah post my sadaqa jariya (ongoing charity) idea online soon. Before doing that, here is another cheap solution to many things.
Cheap quality Stuff:
This is a website that you can buy all sort of stuff for a very cheap price. The LOWEST price that i once payed for something was a tool to peel a orange. The price was 0.09 euro and it was shipped all the way to "cracks of the society"..for free. Delivered at my home. LED-lights as a good example. You most probably pay double or triple for those at your local store.
Remember, it can take up to two months to arrive. Or sometimes never arrive, but you get your money back. This is also a good lesson to build up patience . The fastest shipment i have ever received was within 6 days.
Last edited by Simple_Person; 02-19-2017 at 06:30 AM.
Many of us know that having a printer is a very costly thing to have. In matter of few months the color ink cartridge is empty or black ink cartridge is empty. These cartridges themselves already cost most of the time around 20-40 euro's or EVEN MORE. So your kids may want to print a paper or two for their school project, or you may want to print one or two things to teach something to your children (for example Arabic alphabet)..you name it. As i have found that having something on paper is way better for your eyes and is more comfortable than reading from a screen.
What i have noticed is that a lot of Allah(swt) blessings come from knowledge and observation that He gives you. As in my other projects in the past i would NEVER have come up with such an idea as many i have just found on the internet. I would have spent money on the SAME kind of products, while now suddenly all that money stays in my own pocket...or in other words i spent and spent on NECESSARY stuff, but it isn't decreasing but stays the same and it is even increasing. Sub'han'Allah.
Things to buy:
- CISS (Continuous Ink Supply System)
- Printer that supports a CISS.
- Ink
- Plastic gloves because it is a messy job sometimes especially when you just started doing it.
- Paper .
Step 1: Buy a printer that supports a CISS. Before buying such a printer, first look what kind of functionality you want it to have. As i myself have a Brother DCP-J4120DW, which supports scanning and printing as that is all what i need in my case. Also remember WiFi functionality or just a network cable if you would like instead of WiFi. There are printers that still have the option of USB connection. So look in to that. Btw, i would also STRONGLY RECOMMEND a printer that doesn't use up that much of electricity as the printer will be on 24/7 even in sleep mode. Why 24/7? Because it needs to clean it self or else the ink in the printer would dry up and will become useless. (Happened with my previous printer when i was moving to another apartment. I didn't turn it on for like 2-3 months. Totally forgot about that)
Step 2: If you have found the printer that supports CISS or even your current printer, go buy the CISS that is especially made for your printer. In my case with this new printer of mine, i either would have spend €60 for the CISS or look online (aliexpress.com) and found one a bit different but for €21 euro's (free shipment). REMEMBER to buy one with ARC-chip. This chip resets itself as far as i have understood it. As printers now a days have been protected against such use(clone cartridges), but this chip bypasses this protection
Step 3: Buy some gloves like the one in the picture and buy ink. This ink is very cheap compared to the ink that those companie$ charge you.
In my case:
- Black ink (120 ml) - €3.49 while broth€r would charge me €17 for 11.8ml (€172 for 120ml)
- Color ink (40 ml for each color) - €3.49 while broth€r would charge me for each color (3 colors) €10.50 for 5.9 ml. Which would be a total of €213,24 to have about 40 ml of each color.
In other words i already have saved €378,26. They CLAIM their ink is of superior quality, however for us(normal people) isn't about how lovely something needs to look, we just want something to be printed on paper that is readable right?
Step 4: Buy paper if you haven't already. Paper is cheap. It costs me about 500 paper sheets for like €2.50 - €3.
Step 5: You need to use the syringes with the needles (in my case) to suck up the ink in the small ink bottles (as the picture above) and put in in those containers that are attached to the cartridges via tubes. Do keep in mind to NOT fill it up. I would say fill it up about 50%. Also keep the containers on the SAME level as the printer. Not higher as you will flood the cartridges or lower as it will be difficult to suck up the ink to the cartridges.
Step 6: Priming of the CISS. Priming is when you get all the air out of the tubes, so you will see a continues ink line without air pockets between them. Here you see an example of somebody doing it.
Some other pictures and the CISS. As you also can see i have made a hole in the printer to let the tubes out.
About my other project with the continues reward i am still waiting for the sd-card to arrive. In'sha'Allah before the summer i will be able to post about that DIY-idea.
Last edited by Simple_Person; 03-24-2017 at 10:20 AM.
I just wanted to point out that sometimes printer cartridges are "hackable" when it comes to replacing the ink for cheaper printers. You just have to do it before it runs out/dries up. I used to do this and it would work fine. Here's a vid of it being done:
I just wanted to point out that sometimes printer cartridges are "hackable" when it comes to replacing the ink for cheaper printers. You just have to do it before it runs out/dries up. I used to do this and it would work fine. Here's a vid of it being done:
Reminder, this video is from back 2008, so everybody watching it..do your research first..as knowledge is free on the net now a days before messing with your cartridge.
Here in the "cracks of society"(my location), there are those little buckets that contain Turkish or Greek yogurt. When the bucket is empty, you can drills holes on the bottom for drainage. And thus make a flowerput of a plastic bucket. No money spend on a flowerpot.
I once made a flower pot out of sack cloth, and it was the best flowering plant in the garden. The roots would peek thru the holes in the sack cloth and then prune themselves when oxygen hit them, this forced the flower to bloom harder, and i had many more internodal spaces for the flowering to really take off.
Also, I've experimented with hydropnic. It's fiddly and you need to keep an eye on things, but - result is phenomenal.
I once made a flower pot out of sack cloth, and it was the best flowering plant in the garden. The roots would peek thru the holes in the sack cloth and then prune themselves when oxygen hit them, this forced the flower to bloom harder, and i had many more internodal spaces for the flowering to really take off.
Also, I've experimented with hydropnic. It's fiddly and you need to keep an eye on things, but - result is phenomenal.
Scimi
Yeah, but i think using hydroponics you use also a lot of that non-organic stuff. This is the first year ever for me to grow flowers, vegetables and fruits and i want to stick to organic stuff even if everything fails. I have read online that once you grow your own vegetables ..you cannot go back eating vegetables from grocery store because of color and taste.
Re the ink, if you've been using high quality ink and your cartridge dries u before you refill it, inject some isopropyl alcohol or warm clean water and use a rubber suction thingummy to drag the water/isopropyl mix out through the bottom (print head) rather than the top.
If you print loads of leaflets, you can get really high quality ink in litre bottles from OCP inks in germany (online if u wanna save the flight and taxi and hotel cost) which is formulated for specific cartidges (you type in the cartridge numbers of colour and black separately), remember some are dye based inks and others are pigment based - injecting the wrong ink will likely jam the print head quite quickly (I did that initially with the pound shop and tesco bottles).
Anyways, the ocp ink in original hp cartridges would usually allow 20-50 refills before print head wear.
I think I also bought the rubber head suctions from there.
Anyways, more than enough to print off thousands of "was 9/11 an inside job?" leaflets along with business advert leaflets.
I once made a flower pot out of sack cloth, and it was the best flowering plant in the garden. The roots would peek thru the holes in the sack cloth and then prune themselves when oxygen hit them, this forced the flower to bloom harder, and i had many more internodal spaces for the flowering to really take off.
Also, I've experimented with hydropnic. It's fiddly and you need to keep an eye on things, but - result is phenomenal.
Scimi
Assalamu alaykum,
This reminded me a little of our Japanese hanging gardens - we were inspired by something we saw on the internet. You basically wrap a plant in moss, secure it with garden twine and let it grow. We used to hang them as a type of string garden. With nasturtiums, mint and petunias they were beautiful ma'sha'Allah.
And for watering you just spray them with a mister bottle.
This reminded me a little of our Japanese hanging gardens - we were inspired by something we saw on the internet. You basically wrap a plant in moss, secure it with garden twine and let it grow. We used to hang them as a type of string garden. With nasturtiums, mint and petunias they were beautiful ma'sha'Allah.
And for watering you just spray them with a mister bottle.
what you just wrote, in turn, reminded me of this:
I've done the yogurt containers to garden pots idea!! It's a great way to save on spending money for the actual pots to start seeds in.
I like this thread, keep those tips coming.
Here's a couple of mine:
Reuse cosmetic containers. Sometimes cosmetic packaging is too good to throw away. I keep the good pots to reuse and put oil in for after the shower. Or baking soda next to my sink to get my teeth extra white.
Recycling old socks, shirts, towels for dusting furniture! You can easily slip a sock on your hand and wipe down shelves or tables
When i implemented this idea i stumbled upon a problem. Because the holes were on the bottom, it was difficult for water to get away as the plastic bucket itself was on the lid. The water stayed in the soil being all soggy certain bacteria because of this water started to make the roots rot. This i witnessed back then and solved the problem already also. What is the solution to this?
I did not know back then that roots needed air and because of it, the plant could drawn in water. I drilled holes all over the bucket, so air could get to the roots this way
In a couple of comments back, @Scimitar showed me a video a Terrarium lamp (Jazakallahu khairan). I google some more and i also wanted one. So alhamdulillah i have made one myself.
What do you need?
- A jar ( One that could seal the lid a regular one is also fine, as long as you could seal the lid, so it can function as it's own ecosystem.)
- Potting soil
- moss/grass/little wood decoration..or whatever you want to decorate it with.
Step 2: Decorate it with what you want. I used some grass, moss and some moss on some wood. I cut everything a bit so it could fit.
https://app.box.com/s/9kw9hkijyna0fpfumeb5vfbnjx1mqiyq
Step 3: give it just LITTLE bit of water. If you give it too much water it is not oke, but too less is also not good. It has to get just enough so it can gets it's own cycle of life and death. old grass/plants serve as fertilizer and evaporated water serves as irrigation. If you have given too much water, i THINK by opening up the lid so it can evaporate just enough will solve the problem.
If you have done it the right way, you NEVER have to open the lid again. It will take care of it self and you will have always something green and beautiful to watch in your living room especially during winter when there is no green to see outside.
DO KEEP IN MIND to clean it so nothing on the inside (dirt/soil) prevents you from looking in to it.
Since the idea of enrichment of the soil when you have a balcony or even just a garden i have read one or two new things about it. Egg shells just crushed are more difficult to add to the soil. So what i have done is i bought a coffee grinder and put the egg shells/banana peels in it.
I have also learned something new about the NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium)
Nitrogen is good for plants especially for sprouts as it needs more leaves and branches. while phosphorus and potassium is good for the fruit/flowers.
Eggshells have a lot of calcium but also low traces of phosphorus and potassium.
Coffee grounds NPK value: N: 2 P: 0.36 K: 0.67
Tea grounds NPK value: N: 4.15 P: 0.62 K: 0.4
Banana peels, has magnesium and the NPK value is: N: 0 P: 3 K: 42
Potato skin NPK value: N: 0 P: 5.18 K: 27.5
Lemon skin NPK value: N: 0.6 P: 33 K: 1
Orange skin NPK value: N: 0 P: 3 K: 27
Do keep in mind that orange and lemons from the store (not organic ones) have been treated with certain chemicals.
So the conclusion is at the beginning give enough coffee ground/tea grounds and later on for wanting more flowers/fruits cut back on the nitrogen and give more of those others (PK values). If you save those and grind them to powder just sprinkle it around the stem once i believe a month. Not to close tot he stem but about a few cm's around it. When watering it will automatically be drained in to the soil. It will take 1-2 months before it is completely part of the soil (enrichment of it).. TADA ..organic AND CHEAP way of doing stuff
I was working on the promise i gave to you guys about the "ongoing"-charity, however i noticed that it is TOO "tech savy". So i will give you the basic guidelines what it is about. For me it is simple as i am a Simple_Person, but i believe many people will rather struggle in the most basic actions. So that is why i still present this idea for others that are curious or want to setup such a thing to still do it. You can contact me if you need any help with it. However i do ask of you some BASIC perspective in IT.
Step 1: Buy a raspberry pi 3, with a large USB or external Harddrive (keep in mind for external power source because a harddrive needs more power to spin).
Step 2: Put Raspbian or any other Linux distribution on it.
Step 3: Configure your raspberry pi 3 OS in such a way to accept SSH & VNC (remote desktop). Make it connect to your WiFi-network or use a network cable to connect to the internet.
Step 4: Install Deluge or Transmission (torrent client software) and configure it to direct the downloads to your harddrive or large usb drive. Also configure it to be able to approach it through your webbrower on your desktop.
Step 5: Configure your router to accept certain incoming port that you configured for the torrent client application. This to be able to upload torrents.
Step 6: When everything has been configured correctly put your raspberry pi somewhere safe out of reach/nearby your router. Let it do what it has to do.
So why this idea? A Raspberry pi needs very little power consumption. I believe it will cost you about 10 euro's a year to have it running 24/7. You will be uploading Islamic torrents while you are eating, sleeping, fishing, praying, or whatever else. Just imagine legal Islamic books or spreading Islamic knowledge for others to want to download and benefit from and you in'sha'Allah also getting good deeds for it. We are talking about maybe thousands of people download those LEGAL Islamic books/videos/applications etc.
I noticed that we very often show idiotic behavior by just going and buying a "good" and "good"-price (expensive) BBQ. A few years ago i bought a Iron BBQ for about 15 euro's and after i THINK 3 years you could see it was already with one leg in it's grave. While the REAL GOOD BBQ are just made out of stone. As i have a balcony with limited amount of space one still want to taste BBQ meat now and then. So i decided to do some research and put my mind to work.
Step 1: Buy a decent amount of terracotta flower pot. Not too big or too small. If you have a yard, well you could just but some bricks together instead. So go buy a flower pot to your liking and size if you have a balcony like me and like/are permitted to BBQ on your balcony. Keep in mind when buying the flower pot, first look for size of your grill/BBQ spears/etc.
Step 2: Drill some holes on the sides (do measure off course the exact places where the holes have to be). START with the SMALLES drill and slowly go to the more larger drills.
Step 3: In the picture you can see i have those handles. I mean one needs to be able to pick it up/move/shake the ashes. So about the handles those are the u-bolts. On the inside i have large rings and on the outside i have smaller rings. This method prevents damaging the pot.
Step 4: I haven't used it yet to see if i get enough oxygen for the coals to burn and keep on burning. I believe as my terracotta BBQ wide enough for oxygen to reach the coals. Also using tin-foil it prevents a lot of heat hitting the terracotta itself as i have heard that when a lot of heat suddenly hits those terracotta BBQ it could break it. However tin-foil should direct a lot of heat towards your food instead. That being said, it also keeps it clean, as when the coals have turned in to ashes, just throw away the tin-foil and use new tin-foil the next time. In the pictures i used small piece of tin-foil, but off course you need to cover the inside completely.
Step 5: As the coals after some time will turn in to ashes, you need to shake it so the burning coals show. I have found a method by putting it on some terracotta feet and those on top of a dish type of thing.
I had to pay i think about 6 euro's for the flower pot. The U-bolts and everything with it, was a bit more expensive, but i can re-use those in the future if this one dies, although i doubt it will die like those iron BBQ you can buy at the store. So in the future the only thing i need to do is again buy a terracotta flower pot and that's it. Make your own BBQ .
Regarding printer ink, one thing maybe a lot of people don't know is that you can change the quality of the printing and use a lot less ink than you would with normal print quality (the printout is not affected so much but the amount of ink used is a lot less). Just go to Print --> Printer Properties, then change, the print quality from Normal to Draft. I print a lot and my ink cartridge lasts at least 6 months even with the amount of printing i do so this is really a great way for cost-saving without having to go through other complicated means. With normal print quality, it would get finished in a month.
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. The fastest shipment i have ever received was within 6 days.
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