Hobby Ideas

Are you looking to make homemade soap? It is a great hobby, sure to fill your leisure time with colors and heady aromas. It is also quite easy though more advanced processes will require you to be careful with corrosive substances like lye. Best yet, it is an affordable hobby, and you can sell the soap or use in your own home!

Read more

As with other professional sports, trading cards or collector cards (whichever term you prefer) are available for hockey. Collecting hockey cards is a fun and exciting hobby for hockey fans. Whether you choose to collect hockey cards in general, or cards for a particular team or league, card collecting can be a very interesting and educational experience as well as being loads of fun. The cards that you collect over the years may also be valuable at some point in time.

/>

To ensure that your collection of hockey cards does increase in value, especially if you intend to sell them sometime down the road, it is imperative that you keep the cards in tip-top shape, so you will want to protect them in some way. Of course, you can store your cards in boxes, but using binders with card protector sheets is a much better way to store the cards where they are protected and easily accessible for viewing. If you choose to box your cards rather than using a binder, be sure to use individual card protectors for each card. There are also boxes that are specially designed for card collecting in which your cards will fit perfectly decreasing the chance that they will get damaged.

Card collecting has always been pretty popular, but with the introduction of new trading card collectibles, in addition to the traditional sports cards, the hobby of collecting trading cards seems to have become more widespread. Now, you can get card collecting supplies, like binders, card collecting boxes and card protectors, at just about any variety store, discount store, office supply store, or sports shop. Most music or video game stores have card collecting supplies as well. Investing in the supplies to properly store and protect your hockey card collection is well worth the cost and will preserve your cards keeping them in good shape so you will have better results when you decide to trade or to sell your hockey cards.

Always store your hockey cards in a location that isn’t subject to extreme heat or direct sunlight. Heat may damage the cards, especially if they are in plastic card protectors, and sunlight will definitely fade the cards. Moisture is another enemy of card collectors. Be sure to keep your cards where they won’t get wet and avoid exposing them to excessive humidity.

One last tip about collecting hockey cards - a collection of hockey cards are usually worth more if you have complete sets to sell. However, selling individual cards, especially if they are rare, can also prove to be profitable.

Read more

Creating a 50th wedding anniversary photo album is a great way to celebrate your own 50th wedding anniversary or to celebrate that of another couple. You can add a single photo that is printed on the front and back cover or you can choose two photos, one for the front cover and one for the back.

Read more

Mr Wills (not his real name) owned an antiquarian bookshop in one of the up-market malls in Rosebank, Johannesburg in the 1980’s.

/>

He was a quirky, bad-tempered Englishman who made you quake if you set foot in his shop but his books were superlative.

One just knew that books this beautiful had to be rare books.
Take for instance the account, with illustrations, of two Dutch explorers in the 17th century, Ensigns Bergh and Schrijver, into the hinterland of what is now South Africa.

To put that in perspective: that was so long ago in human history that the black speakers of Bantu languages had not yet come down the African continent to South Africa.

The Europeans had yet to arrive in force.

The region was sparsely populated only by the copper-skinned hunting-and-gathering aborigines, the Khoi and Khoisan.
The explorers kept copious journals that are now kept in the Cape Archives. In 1931 Dr E.E. Mossop wrote a book, based on his translation of these journals, entitled Journals of the Expeditions of the Honourable Ensign Olof Bergh (1682 and 1683) and the Ensign Isaq Schrijver (1689). Today copies of Mossop’s book rate as rare pieces of Africana, although they do come on onto the book market from time to time.
I remember Mr Wills showing me this book but not allowing me to touch it. It was a rare book, he explained.

And so the idea of a rare book was formed in my mind. “Hand-scribed Byzantine tomes are rare. Gutenberg Press books are rare. Self-published Victorian tomes are rare,” I thought.

I was confident that I knew what a rare book was when we started our bookshop deep in the country, quite near where Schrijver penetrated the mountains for the first time.

Then Mr Besant (not his real name) came asking for a book called A Colossus of Roads by Pat Storrar and Günther Komnick. It was published in 1984 by Murray & Roberts, a South African construction firm, and concrete firm Concor.
The subject of the book is the road passes built through the Great Rift mountains swathing the eastern and southern sections of the country by one intrepid visionary called Thomas Charles John Bain (1830-1893). His road works still exist in all their daring glory. His endeavours resonate strongly with the travels of Bergh and Schrijver. Whereas the earlier travelers clambered over mountains to explore the interior, Thomas Bain built lasting thoroughfares through mountain passes hacked into the mountainsides, living in remote areas to complete his work.

Mr Besant had been searching for this book for a long time. I assured him that it would not be difficult to find. I would put out the word to the SA Bookdealers Association (SABDA) members and search through the aBillionbooks booksites, I told him to keep his mobile switched on. It would take no more than an hour to locate, I said.

I believed that sincerely. My parents were friends with Pat Storrar. I own a signed copy of The Colossus of Roads. How hard could it be to find?
Well, five months later I called Mr Besant’s mobile with the good news that I had finally located a copy.
“I thought you said it wouldn’t take long,” he complained.
“Well, it is a hard-to-find book,” I said firmly.

Why didn’t I call it a rare book? Something told me it would be sacrilege to place this book, as interesting as it is, alongside books as special and rare as the rare piece of Africana in Mr Wills’s shop.

Some semantic significance is attached to word “rare” for us all. “Hard-to-find” apparently means a more recent book that was under-published in error or so popular that no one wants to place their copies in the secondhand market. “Rare” apparently means a book over a hundred years old for which one feels an intuitive veneration.

The difference is spurious, really, now that online bookstores are bringing elusive and obscure books within reach of everyone. Now as a matter of principle I mix the two terms freely and use them interchangeably.
True, it is hard to find a rare book. But wouldn’t you expect it to be? And hard-to-find books are rare books, even on the internet. That’s why they are hard-to-find.

Think about it and decide for yourself.

Read more

Those who collect coins are called coin collectors or numismatists. Are you an excellent numismatist? If it is so, you need to be more knowledgeable and authentic. There are many guys who love to collect the different coins which have good features.

Read more

A lot of people these days devote a lot of time searching through old pictures, cutting the pictures to fit on a page, gluing each and individual photo, and continuing the process over again. There is a much easier way to generate a well organized and presentable scrapbook. It is called scanning your photos (or slides to photos) into digital images. The process is quite simple and it saves a good amount of time.

/>

Before you think about trying the process of scanning your photographs, you will have to ask yourself this question: Am I going to scan photographs on a regular basis? If you are not, then you may need to go the professional route. Why buy a scanner if you are only going to use it for a couple of times.

Professional scanning services offer many options and make things less problematic. Various companies allow you to save time and money and create high quality digital images in which you may not have been able to do yourself. Most companies have software to enhance the quality of your photos (usually Photoshop – perhaps Photoshop Element). They image editing software brightens fading colors, take the red-eye effect out and erase dust particles – allowing the image to look like it was taken yesterday.
Getting back to scrapbooking; the people who actually spend a lot of time doing this particular hobby probably have a lot of time on their hands (many retired individuals do this). The ordinary person does not have the time to do scrapbooking. Dropping your pictures (or slides / negatives) off to a professional scanning service not only relieves the pain of the constant strain of cutting out photos one at a time, but it also saves a lot of time and money. Last but not least, don’t forget the quality in which your photographs will be presented in a desired fashion that anyone can afford.

Read more

Serious treasure hunters know that for precise locating of small targets, a metal detector pinpointer is essential. So which ones are any good? These 5 pinpointers are used by hobbyists and pros, and are among the most popular choices for precision hunting.

Read more

Most model railroaders have a myopic view of their layouts. The only see what makes them proud and can’t seem to see the flaws that make other layouts look better than their own. In this article I’m going to tell you the secret to making your model railroad layout the best it can be.

/>

The real secret to creating a model train layout that looks authentic and impressive to others is perspective. Not the kind of perspective that we use to create artificial depth to your layout but rather the perspective that the model railroader needs in how he views his layout as compared to the real world. To truly create a great layout you need to be able to view different elements in your layout as they compare to the real world.

The basic model railroad elements that you need to look at are your trains, your landscape, your buildings, your people and your roadways. Each one of these elements has key features about it in the real world that we sometimes fail to carry over in our layouts. We’ll look at each one individually.

1. Trains – Look at your trains and think about how locomotives and rolling stock appear in the real world. First off, they are not the pristine pieces of equipment that most layouts would indicate. Everyone knows about weathering but so many modelers have an unnatural fear of doing anything to their trains that would lower their value. Why?

Are you really going to sell them off someday? Whose enjoyment exactly did you buy them for? Weather away. Get the most enjoyment out of your trains by creating the most realistic trains you can have. I even go beyond just weathering and actually will break off or bend a few pieces here and there. In the real world trains are used and get damaged.

2. Landscape – Does your landscape look like the real world? Take some time and walk outside. What do you see when you look around your neighborhood. You know what I see? I see that the trees tower over all the buildings. There are bare spots in the grass. There are wet spots were puddles seem to always form. The creeks and streams have trees that have fallen over into them. The shrubs are not perfect in front of every home.

3. Buildings – The obvious thing about buildings is weathering, but in the real world most buildings actually look pretty new for most of their lives. What they are though is cluttered. Bicycles are on back porches. Garbage cans exist behind or beside every building in the real world. An auto repair shop is going to have tons of extra parts sitting around outside that they just don’t know what to do with. Every manufacturing facility has tons of junk leaning against the building in areas that the general public doesn’t see.

4. People – What do people really do in the real world? They hang wash in the back yard. Young men hang out in groups on the corner. People sit and wait on walls and curbs, not just park benches. The carry bags with them as they shop downtown. When you’re in your car take notice to what you see people doing outside along your way. What do you see people doing in your own neighborhood? Duplicate these acts in your layout.

5. Roadways – In the real world painted lines fade. The blacktop varies in shades of grey or black. Accidents happen. Refrigerators get dumped along the sides of less traveled roads. Cars break down along the highways. These are real things that you see in the real world. Cars have dents and rust. You get the picture.

As you can see, making some detailed changes can add a sense of realism that will make your model train layout stand out from other layouts and give you much more enjoyment. Best of all, these details can be added to existing layouts, they don’t necessarily require that you start any of your layout over.

Read more

Read more

There is more to a cigar than just smoking it. The making of the cigar itself is an art form in its own right. Smoking a cigar involves all of your senses, and most important including taste. All cigars have their individual tastes, smells, and textures. There are some that you will hate, others that you can tolerate, and some that will become your favorite. You can tell which ones you like by rating them. Rating a cigar lets you explore the many aspects of it such as taste, burn, tobacco, and other things. You should rate everyone you smoke because even the same type of cigar can taste different because external factors can affect how you feel about it. Here is how you rate cigars.

/>

There are different factors you should record when smoking a particular stick. The taste can depend on external factors such as what you are drinking, what you are eating, or the last time you had something to eat. There are certain types of alcohols that accompany them. It is not unusual for cigar shops or lounges to have alcohol and cigar tastings together.

After you have recorded anything you are eating or drinking at the time, you can move on to the next step of rating a stick. It is important to look at the cigar and examine the leaf and wrapping. How does it look to you? Are there any tears in the wrapper? Is the color light or dark? Does the stick appear to be smooth, have ridges, or veins from the leaf? Keep note of the appearance of the cigar.

After you look at the cigar, take time to smell it. The scent of the cigar will often hint at the flavor it has. Some sticks may be too potent or stout for you. Smoking them and enjoying a certain type is such a personal preference. Usually you will be able to tell if it is going to be spicy, bitter, or bland.

After examining the cigar you are going to rate, now the best part comes in and you smoke it. Smoking cigars will affirm what you have examined or smelled about them. There are certain things that you can record about smoking the stick to help you rate it. What is the burn like? The cigar should stay lit easily and have a good draw. The burn of the stick should also be consistent. When you are smoking pay attention to the burn, draw, smoke, ash, and flavor. Does the smoke sting your mouth or is it smooth? Can you ash the cigar easily and does it stick together when doing so?

Rating a cigar can be based on a scale you make or on a 100 point scale. If you are rating on a point scale, give each category a 1-10 rating and then add up the points. Maybe you like to rate them on a more flexible scale of your own. Smoking them is a personal enjoyment, and so should rating them.

Read more