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Creative Soap Crafts
Soap is a craft that is fun and easy to make. It's a great project to do with your kids.Simply follow the instructions below and you'll be on your way to one of your first bars of soap..... where you choose all the soap colors and shapes. You will...
Fibroid Tumors
Fibroid Tumors
This is a long overdue article for American females. So many females are plagued with uterine fibroid tumors, older women as well as young teenage girls. Well, what are fibroids and how do they develop?
Fibroid tumors are...
Parenting Style, One of the Worst Ever!
Some parents rush to serve every squeak and squawk from their kids. "I can't let my child feel pain!" said one dad. Parents, if you are giving way too much, find out why your parenting strategy may be one of the worst strategies ever.
I remember...
The Stamp Of Friendship
Visiting one of my favorite scrapbook stores, I came across a thought-provoking encounter. Upon checkout, I mentioned to the cashier that I had driven an hour to her store because I really liked the extensive selection of papers and embellishments....
Top Ten Best Excuses To Not Use The Time Of Your Life
“Time is on my side, yes, it is!” Each time I think of time, Mike Jagger’s melody enters my mind… For me it is a song, for another a tragedy. What is time, that it consumes so many of us; how much of it we have, how little, what to do with it, how...
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Decorating For Real People
I spent a recent weekend curled up with a stack of decorating magazines. I read them cover to cover - usually back to front, but that's the way I read most magazines and newspapers. I studied each photograph and tried to determine the particular design concept that was being presented. I looked at the number and placement of accessories, how and where arrangements of items were hung on the walls, choices of color and texture, and flooring selections. Each photo was scrutinized in the minutest detail. At some point I started to wonder for whom these absolutely gorgeous rooms were designed.
Bedside tables held no alarm clocks or clock radios. While there was usually an abundance of decorative items, there were no tissue boxes or eyeglass cases. Dressers displayed beautifully arranged floral creations and perhaps a cut glass perfume bottle or two, with ornamental stoppers. No jewelry boxes, no lotion bottles, none of the everyday stuff of life. I don't know about you but I want a telephone at the side of my bed. And someplace handy for the TV remote.
And the bathrooms! Don't even get me started on the bathrooms! Do the users of these bathrooms ever need to replace the toilet paper or the hand soap? Do they have their hair done weekly (maybe daily?) at beauty- or barber-shops and thus have no need of shampoo and conditioner bottles? Toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss? The men don't have to shave and the women have no need of makeup? Streamlining and organization can only take you so far. Sooner or later you need a place for feminine supplies, room deodorizers, and the extra cotton balls and swabs that don't fit into the pretty little designer containers. And I can't be the only person who thinks that a plunger should be stored someplace handy to the location of possible need.
No cords for the lamps, no tangle of wires for the home office computer system. One photograph featured an elegant "work space" with a large bouquet of flowers drooping fetchingly over the printer. I could imagine spent blossoms dropping into the works, and I couldn't imagine how to open the paper tray without knocking the vase over. I suppose the person who would work at such a desk would have no need of a mouse pad,
Wind Power Wanes With Fading Federal Incentives
Wind power, one of the largest segments of the renewable energy market, will experience a sharp decline in growth this year. The slowdown comes as a surprise because the stimulus bill included $43 billion for energy projects -- a big boost for renewable forms of electricity.
Obama Seeking $50 Billion For Infrastructure
The investments in the nation's roads, railways and runways are part of a package of targeted proposals that must be approved by Congress, which is highly uncertain at a time when many legislators and voters are worried about adding to federal deficits.
paper clips, or a pile of sticky notes. I wish I could work like that.
I want to know what the rooms in the photographs look like a week later. Are the same three Granny Smith apples still in perfect position on the glass-topped table? Is the fringe on the cashmere afghan still draped just so over the arm of the rocking chair in the baby's room? Does the kitchen counter look bare without the tureen of soup and the matching soup bowls? I mean, the soup was eaten, wasn't it? Am I losing my perspective here?
Show me a playroom after the children have been forced to put away the toys. I'll bet there are no cunning arrangements of stuffed animals having tea, and the blocks aren't stacked into just-right pyramids with one block placed in front and a little to the side. The pillows are all over the room and the bedspread is trailing onto the floor. That's real.
I realize that the decorating magazines present rooms and arrangements that are idealized and stylized. They are intended to give our imaginations a jumping-off point; we are meant to adapt their ideas to our own needs. They do a wonderful job and I will continue to peruse the glossy pages of each publication. Occasionally, however, I'd appreciate a view of a real room, spiffed up for company, perhaps, but real. I want to be able to imagine waking up to the clock radio, to see myself sitting at the computer and actually getting some work done, to know where I would store the supply of makeup without which I cannot face the world. I want to think that I could actually live in the room. Isn't that the point of the whole exercise? Don't we all want comfortable homes that suit our life styles, organized and better looking, maybe, but still us?
Go take a look at the pictures in a decorating magazine. See if you agree with me. I think I'm going to go clean out a couple of drawers and straighten a bookcase shelf or two. It won't end up picture perfect, but it will be real.
About the Author
LaJoyce Kerns is the creator of the website: www.decorate-bedrooms-for-less.com. She provides tips, ideas and techniques on decorating bedrooms for real people. LaJoyce believes that you can achieve beautiful results without breaking the budget.
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