DIY

Collins DIY Manual

This international bestseller is the most comprehensive and authoritative DIY manual ever produced. This new edition has been updated with information on all the latest changes in products, techniques and regulations developed since the last edition (published in 2004). Catering to novices, DIY enthusiasts or professionals, this essential book continues to be the most in-depth, up-to-date and user-friendly DIY book on the market, covering everything from decorating and repairs to electricity, plumbing and much more.

List Price: $ 47.95
Price: $ 27.68

Craftivity: 40 Projects for the DIY Lifestyle

From the creators of the hugely popular craft site, Supernaturale.com, comes a hip and funky compendium of new DIY projects that reshape, reuse, and redefine the concept of “handmade,” moving away from country–cutesy, granny craft into utilitarian craft art for the 21st century. Got a pile of extra buttons and don’t know what to do with them? Make a cool bracelet. Need some pillows for your new couch, and have a bunch of old wool sweaters? Turn those sweaters into felt! Knitting, felting, leather tooling, glass and metal work––it’s all here. CRAFTIVITY is filled with 60 amazing DIY projects that make the most of what you have by taking old stuff and turning it into functional, breathtaking art.

Rating: (out of 22 reviews)

List Price: $ 19.95
Price: $ 10.50

Black & Decker The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair: with 350 Projects and 2000 Photos (Black & Decker Complete Photo Guide)

Bigger and better than ever        The two previous editions of the book known by home improvement retailers as “Big Red” sold nearly 600,000 copies. This new edition features a larger portrait format for better visual clarity, and incorporates a new page layout style. But all the features that made the original America’s best-selling “bible” of home repair are still present here—thousands of color photographs and detailed step-by-step directions.   The third edition also includes more than 30 projects not found in the original edition, as well as more than 300 new photos. Got a problem with grout? Open The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair (to page 98) and watch your tiling worries dissolve before the simple beauty of photography. Black & Decker has anticipated your every question and problem with interior, exterior, and home systems repairs, and detailed the solutions in just over 500 pages. In no other human endeavor is a visual guide so important as home repair (well, maybe brain surgery), so this is a crucial aid to the handyperson. Easy-to-find sections on floors, insulation, roofing, chimneys, water heaters, wall switches, air conditioning, and much more are well-designed, brilliantly illustrated, and carefully outlined with step-by-step instructions from masters. The photos in particular are extremely valuable, offering many different views (sometimes even exploded) of the operation in question, and always showing just enough to communicate without overwhelming the reader with too much detail. These alone would be worth the price of the book, but the written explanations and instructions are also very helpful, offering tools, materials lists, and hints that wouldn’t occur to the amateur. The book finishes with a maintenance schedule to help you keep repairs from becoming

Rating: (out of 82 reviews)

List Price: $ 35.00
Price: $ 17.94

DIY Art at Home: 28 Simple Projects for Chic Decor on the Cheap

DIY Art at Home shows how easy it is to create modern masterpieces by using a few simple art supplies and the full-size templates that are also included. The book begins with The Practical Studio, which outlines the materials and tips that you’ll need to get started. The five chapters that follow–Living Room Spirit, Kitchen Inspirations, Bedroom Influences, Office Décor, and Sweet Expressions–offer 28 fresh, beautiful, step-by-step projects for every room, all with a clean, modern aesthetic that will complement virtually every style of decorating.

List Price: $ 21.99
Price: $ 13.76

DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture

“A veritable cornucopia of self-made worth. . . . DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture is a triumph from beginning to end. . . . Highly recommended.”—Trakmarx.com “A . . . comprehensive guide to the evolution of DIY culture as we know it today.”—Bookslut.com This exploration of lo-fi culture traces the origin of the DIY ethic to the skiffle movement of the 1950s, mail art, Black Mountain poetry, and avant-garde art in the 1950s. It follows the punk scene of the 1970s and 1980s to the current music scene. It charts the development of music outside of the publicity machine and examines the politics behind the production of “homemade” recordings and publications.

Rating: (out of 5 reviews)

List Price: $ 15.95
Price: $ 7.17

DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education

The price of college tuition has increased more than any other major good or service for the last twenty years. Nine out of ten American high school seniors aspire to go to college, yet the United States has fallen from world leader to only the tenth most educated nation. Almost half of college students don’t graduate; those who do have unprecedented levels of federal and private student loan debt, which constitutes a credit bubble similar to the mortgage crisis.The system particularly fails the first-generation, the low-income, and students of color who predominate in coming generations. What we need to know is changing more quickly than ever, and a rising tide of information threatens to swamp knowledge and wisdom. America cannot regain its economic and cultural leadership with an increasingly ignorant population. Our choice is clear: Radically change the way higher education is delivered, or resign ourselves to never having enough of it.The roots of the words “university” and “college” both mean community. In the age of constant connectedness and social media, it’s time for the monolithic, millennium-old, ivy-covered walls to undergo a phase change into something much lighter, more permeable, and fluid.The future lies in personal learning networks and paths, learning that blends experiential and digital approaches, and free and open-source educational models. Increasingly, you will decide what, when, where, and with whom you want to learn, and you will learn by doing. The university is the cathedral of modernity and rationality, and with our whole civilization in crisis, we are poised on the brink of Reformation.

Rating: (out of 28 reviews)

List Price: $ 14.95
Price: $ 8.89

DIY Shower Curtain

Bath time is more fun with a DIY shower curtain. This one is PVC free and made of 100% high-density polyethylene, and comes with a permanent marker so you can sketch your own design.

• Textile Material: 100 % Polyethylene
• Features: PVC Free
• Number of Pieces: 2
• Care and Cleaning: Machine Wash
• Dimensions: Height: 72.0 “; Width: 60.0 “

List Price: $ 29.99
Price: $ 23.99

D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself (Design Handbooks)

Not satisfied with the new T-shirts on sale at the local mall? Maybe you’d like a wedding invitation that expresses your own vision, not your party planner’s? How about some personalized stationery? An upgrade to your website? A business card? A poster for your political campaign? A CD package for your band? Sound good? Then get up off your couch and Design It Yourself! Avoid graphic identity theft: build your own. Ellen Lupton, bestselling author of Thinking with Type, will show you how.

Rating: (out of 26 reviews)

List Price: $ 21.95
Price: $ 8.97