The perfect compliment to your DIY wrapping paper would be a hand made bow. Instructables user Tiffany Tomato has a straight forward guide on how to turn colour scrap paper and magazine pages into big bows. All you need is the paper, tape, scissors, a ruler, and a stapler. For more ideas on recycling around the holidays, check out how to recycle a cereal box into a gift box and reuse your old gift wrap to store decorations. ReWrap – Recycled Wrapping Paper and Bow From Scrap Paper [Instructables]
It’s taken a while, but it looks like competition is finally hotting up on the Australia-US route. To fly that sector, airlines have to be either US or Australian owned, which has meant in recent years Qantas has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the route (US airlines largely lacking the resources to run profitably in their own market, let alone a smaller long-haul route.) The only US competition has been from United, about whose B-grade service the less said the better. But things are improving. It’s suffered a delayed start, but Virgin’s new offshoot VAustralia is due to make its first flights to the US early in the new year, and now over the weekend Delta has also announced plans to fly Sydney-LA from July 2009. As the Australian’s Steve Creedy points out, that means more activity for Skyteam, the third major global frequent flyer program (alongside OneWorld and Star Alliance). All of that should potentially mean lower prices, a wider range of flying times for Stateside travellers, and possibly better connections — though I won’t be getting too excited until I see a timetable and a price schedule. Delta no threat to VAustralia [The Australia]
Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
Beware Of E-Cards Bearing Malice“Here at Lifehacker we’re pretty keen on e-cards as a form of Christmas greeting, but it’s worth reminding people that holiday cheer is also often utilised as a means of distributing spam and malware.” Most Popular Free Mac Downloads Of 2008“We’ve featured gobs of great Mac freeware over the course of the year–now it’s time to check out the best.” Hotel Prices Are Falling Online, But Catches Still Abound“The credit crunch might be doing nasty things to your job prospects, but it has one potential upside for travellers: hotel room prices are falling across the globe. However, last-minute discount deals won’t always represent the best value.” Top 10 DIY Photography Tools“Getting better at photography can be a long-haul test of willpower and humility. It doesn’t have to be expensive, though.” Electronic Freedom Project Wiki Tracks Politicians’ Responses To Censorship Concerns“The Electronic Freedom Project is maintaining an interesting Project Score Card, which shows what responses have been received from various politicians on Internet censorship.” KickYouTubes Lets You Download Videos Without Extra Software Or Hassle“KickYouTube is one of the simplest solutions for downloading YouTube videos we’ve reviewed at Lifehacker.” Most Popular Linux Downloads Of 2008“Along with Windows and Mac downloads, this year was chock-full of free software for Linux users. Read on to see what our readers were eager to grab and install on their free desktops.”Marko Manriquez is the founder of The Freegan Kitchen, a site that promotes cooking found food. He’s been diving in dumpsters for food going on three years now. As a result his lifestyle is both environmentally and socially responsible. I recently became aware of freeganism through a mutual friend. Then I got to interview Manriquez about how he’s been off the agri-business grid since. Photo by electromute.
