Last October, someone left a bottle of cheap red wine at my house. It was too gross to drink. I thought of freezing it or cooking with it, but there was too much of it for that. And yet I didn’t want to pour it down the drain, in part because this is hardly the first time this has happened to me. For some reason, I often end up with cheap bottles of wine that no one wants to drink.

Then it occurred to me: since I had a free source of wine, why not turn it into a free source of vinegar instead?

I looked up making vinegar and discovered it takes is something called Mother of Vinegar. This is a bacteria that eats the alcohol and converts it to vinegar.

There are different mothers for different vinegars–in this case, because I had red wine, I would need a red wine mother. You can make vinegar without the Mother of Vinegar (more on that in a moment), but it takes longer. I purchased Mother of Vinegar from a local hobby store for $8. You can also buy it online.

To make the vinegar, I combined 2 cups of wine, 1 cup of water, and the mother in a sterilized 5-gallon jar. Then, because the vinegar needs air to convert, I covered it with a cheesecloth and a rubber band to keep the dirt out, like so:

I stored it in a dark place for three months. At the end of that time, I had vinegar.

Over the three months the Mother of Vinegar had turned into this weird, gel-like stuff that you can reuse to make more vinegar. So after I decanted the exiting vinegar, I added more cheap red wine and started a second batch.

Here are the pros of making your own vinegar:

* It tastes better. The homemade vinegar has a rich depth of flavor that is remarkable considering the cheapness of the wine. It will be great in cooking, salad dressings, and anything else that calls for vinegar.

* It’s easy. Combine everything in a clean jar, cover, and wait. Simple.

* I have a never-ending supply of vinegar. I can keep making vinegar for as long as I want–all I have to do is keep adding more wine, waiting three months, and decanting.

* It’s frugal. I paid $8 for the Mother and everything else I used was free. Considering that I can reuse the Mother, it will quickly pay for itself. Even if you don’t have a regular source of free wine like I do, wine can be bought for as low as $2.

I was so pleased with my red wine vinegar, I decided to make apple cider vinegar, this time without buying the mother. A friend had an old bottle of apple cider vinegar with bits of naturally formed Mother floating around in it. I combined it with homemade apple cider and put it in a jar with cheesecloth over the lid.

In a couple of months, we’ll see if I have apple cider vinegar too.

Here’s a video on making vinegar that shows you the Mother of Vinegar. I like that the woman reuses the wine bottle–I wish I had thought of that.

The cat box has been an eye sore in my bathroom for awhile now. Just look at it.

With Savvy Junior veering toward crawling soon (and getting into things), I wanted something that would cover the cat box, look nice in the room, and double as a bench.

The problem was that our cat box was too wide for most furniture designed to cover cat boxes. I looked all over at chests, baskets, and boxes that I could cut a hole in the side, but nothing worked. They were either too big for the space or too expensive.

So I asked my dad to make me one as a Christmas present, and he did! Here it is.

I’m happy with it. It matches the dark stain we’re using in the bathroom and fits perfectly beside the toilet. It has no bottom, so it simply sits over the box. When we want to change the cat box, we either lift the cover off entirely, or lift the lid.

The cats seem to like it, too.

Now to tackle a better way to store toilet paper…

This Polar Bear Hat is adorable–and the pattern is free!

I love beeswax candles, but they are often expensive. This post on Beeswax Candles DIY informed me that one pound of beeswax costs $10, which can make five small candles. $2 a candle sounds worth making them yourself–plus they would make great gifts.

Last year’s 10 Fast DIY Christmas Gifts was so popular, I decided to follow up with 10 MORE DIY Christmas Gifts. Unlike last year, there’s still almost a month before Christmas, so that’s plenty of time to do any one or more of these ideas.

1. Leather Cell Phone Case. With the free printable template, leather, and a few tools, you can make a cell phone case that looks like it came from a department store.

2. Google Maps Throw Pillow. Put your loved one’s address in Google Maps, print the image out on fabric, and make this one-of-a-kind throw pillow for their house.

3. Embroider A Map. On a similar note, get a map of an area that you know to be meaningful to your loved one, get out a needle and thread, and embroider away. Frame the finished map, and you’ve got a pretty awesome gift.

4. Chalkboard Serving Tray. Add chalkboard paint to an old serving tray and turn it into something interesting and hip for the entertainer on your list.

5. Slippers. This has to be one of the most common Christmas presents we give. Why not make them special by sewing them yourself?

6. Candy. Everyone loves it, and it’s even better when it’s homemade.

7. Comic Book Coasters. As first mentioned in 10 DIY Father’s Day Presents, you can make these coasters with the help of modge podge and some comic books.

8. Pumpkin Candles. Hollow out a mini-pumpkin or other squash, fill with wax and a wick, and you’ve got a great Christmas gift on your hands.

9. Carved Rocks. Use a dremel to carve rocks for jewelry, keepsakes, or garden accessories.

10. Toy Lamp. Finally, arrange toys around the bottom of an inexpensive lamp, glue them in place, then spray with a high-gloss paint to make a whimsical lamp.

Instead of shopping this Black Friday, I’m thinking of making some candy. Homemade candy makes a great Christmas present that you know the recipient will enjoy. And, it turns out, it’s not that hard to make. Here are four candy recipes that look promising:

Classic Caramel Candies

DIY Rock Candy

Almond Joy Candy Bars

Peppermint Bark

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m not sure where this image came from, but it’s a LEGO Halloween costume made out of cardboard boxes, solo cups, and glossy paint. Here’s a similar how-to using round craft boxes instead of solo cups. Adorable and easy to make, too.

I’m playing with the idea of making slippers for family members this Christmas. Here are a few patterns that looked promising:

Chunky Knitted Slippers. Cute, and you can leave the pom-poms off if you want.

Rosie’s Slippers Pattern The pattern covers Childs, Small, Medium, and Large sizes.

Mary Jane Slippers. There are a lot of patterns for this slipper design on the Internet, but this one looks like it turns out well.

Cozy Slippers. If you can’t knit, these sewed slippers are pretty cute too.

Fox Slippers. These are my favorite. Instead of making the slippers, you buy a pair from the store, embroider the fox faces, and glue them on. Love them.

What’s your favorite DIY slipper pattern?

I kind of like these Leather Cell Phone Case. They look like something you might see in a department store.

And they are easy to make, especially if you have a leather scrap lying around. It’s a matter of cutting out the template (which you can print from the site), then sewing and gluing up the envelope. Great Christmas gift potential!

Awhile back, I told Mr. Savvy that I was going to stop buying plastic things made in China because they kept breaking on us. Unlike things made out of wood or metal, plastic is nearly impossible to fix… or it was. Then Mr. Savvy became fascinated with 3D printing.

3D printing is a way to create three dimensional objects out of plastic (or other material). To do this, we purchased a Printrbot.

The way a Printrbot works is, a spool of plastic is threaded through the machine, which is melted and squirted out in a pattern, kind of like a hot glue gun. Once it cools, you have a usable object. Here’s a short video of the Printrbot in action:

The Printrbot costs $550. I mention this because a short time ago, the most affordable 3D printer cost $2000. We’ve experimented with different plastics and settled on PLA, a nontoxic plastic made out of corn and sugarcane. It costs $35-$50 a kilogram.

The Printrbot is not something I could use on my own–it took Mr. Savvy’s considerable technical skills to calibrate it when we first got it. But it’s still pretty cool. Here are some of the better things we’ve printed out:

The end of this plastic watering can (made in China) broke, so we printed out a new tip and attached it with duct tape. It works great now.

Paper towel holder.

A plastic case that converts an AA battery into a C battery. No more purchasing of different battery sizes for us. We use it to run our Roomba.

This little plastic doodad fixed our dishwasher. When we first got our dishwasher, the plastic washer cracked and the spinner on the top broke, making the machine not work as efficiently. We replaced the broken washer, and it works great now.

A bottle opener.

A tube squeezer.

Giant keys, a baby toy for Savvy Junior.

A hedge hog, another baby toy for Savvy Junior. The wheels roll.

A case for a Raspberry Pi, a $35 computer. (But that’s another post.)

Plus much more.

3D printing is the manufacturing of the future. Instead of buying crap from overseas, we will be able to print our own crap in our own houses. Imagine the creative possibilities.