This Static Spot is open for sponsor

Click Here to Sponsor MCT Eric Post in Full Page

Afrikaans Afrikaans Albanian Albanian Amharic Amharic Arabic Arabic Armenian Armenian Azerbaijani Azerbaijani Basque Basque Belarusian Belarusian Bengali Bengali Bosnian Bosnian Bulgarian Bulgarian Catalan Catalan Cebuano Cebuano Chichewa Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Corsican Croatian Croatian Czech Czech Danish Danish Dutch Dutch English English Esperanto Esperanto Estonian Estonian Filipino Filipino Finnish Finnish French French Frisian Frisian Galician Galician Georgian Georgian German German Greek Greek Gujarati Gujarati Haitian Creole Haitian Creole Hausa Hausa Hawaiian Hawaiian Hebrew Hebrew Hindi Hindi Hmong Hmong Hungarian Hungarian Icelandic Icelandic Igbo Igbo Indonesian Indonesian Irish Irish Italian Italian Japanese Japanese Javanese Javanese Kannada Kannada Kazakh Kazakh Khmer Khmer Korean Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz Kyrgyz Lao Lao Latin Latin Latvian Latvian Lithuanian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Luxembourgish Macedonian Macedonian Malagasy Malagasy Malay Malay Malayalam Malayalam Maltese Maltese Maori Maori Marathi Marathi Mongolian Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Nepali Norwegian Norwegian Pashto Pashto Persian Persian Polish Polish Portuguese Portuguese Punjabi Punjabi Romanian Romanian Russian Russian Samoan Samoan Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Serbian Serbian Sesotho Sesotho Shona Shona Sindhi Sindhi Sinhala Sinhala Slovak Slovak Slovenian Slovenian Somali Somali Spanish Spanish Sundanese Sundanese Swahili Swahili Swedish Swedish Tajik Tajik Tamil Tamil Telugu Telugu Thai Thai Turkish Turkish Ukrainian Ukrainian Urdu Urdu Uzbek Uzbek Vietnamese Vietnamese Welsh Welsh Xhosa Xhosa Yiddish Yiddish Yoruba Yoruba Zulu Zulu

 

 

Article Navigation

Back To Main Page

 

Click Here for more articles
Google
How To Plan Outdoor Holiday Decorating For Your Home And Stay Within Your Budget
by: Patty Gale
When I was a little girl, I remember my dad taking us for drives at night throughout our neighborhood to see the houses decorated for Christmas. There were some that had a simple wreath on the front door and some that looked like Santa’s Workshop on the front lawn.

I was always amazed at the beautiful lights, glistening snow, and holiday music. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized those beautiful displays took a lot more organizing, planning and money than I thought.

Whether you live in a cold or warm climate, you don’t have to break the bank in order to create a cozy and beautiful outdoor holiday display for your home.

Here’s how.

Create a plan. You need to decide how much money you can comfortably spend. Many people wind up over-spending during the holidays, use credit cards and find they take on more debt than they should. August or September is a good time to start planning and it won’t take long. Many retail stores are beginning to announce pre-Christmas sales and this is the time to find bargains.

If you live in a closed community, check for rules and restrictions. This will save you any headaches later on if there are certain things not permitted.

Here are some things to think about when creating your plan.

To Theme or Not to Theme: Once you have determined your spending limit, next is to decide how creative to get. Do you want to create a theme on your front lawn such as Disney or Santa’s workshop or would you rather stay traditional with just some lights and perhaps just a reindeer.

Lights – How many front windows do you have and do you want lights on all of them? If you live in a 2-story house, don’t forget the second floor. Measure your windows, so you know how many strings or yardage of lights you will need. Equally important is to check for an outside electrical receptacle where you will be plugging them in.

Window candles – These are the electric or battery-operated lights that look like a glowing stick candle on a window sill and create a nice, cozy effect. If you choose electric, make sure you have enough receptacles by each window to plug them in. If you choose battery-operated, you will need to have extra batteries on hand.

Front Door – Decorating your front door can be as elaborate as a gift box or as simple as hanging either a real or artificial wreath.

Lawn Ornaments – These can be anything from simple signs that say, “Santa, Stop Here” or “North Pole” to an entire village of animated characters re-creating Santa’s Workshop.

Roof – I am reminded of an episode from the TV show “Home Improvement”, where Tim literally fell through his roof when trying to re-create Santa’s sleigh and reindeer on his roof. Safety is always the first consideration. If you want to put holiday displays on your roof, you may be better off hiring a professional.

Once you have gone through this list and created your plan, start scouting the newspapers for sales at retail stores. Home improvement stores or discount stores will usually have an entire department established just for outdoor holiday decorations.

If you live in a cold-weather climate, putting up the lights and roof ornaments is best done before the snow and chilling temperatures arrive.

Plan early to stay within budget and you will have a great time decorating the outside of your home for the holidays.

About the author:
Patty Gale is a successful entrepreneur who has traded in her suits, hose and heels to work from home in her “jammies.” She is on a mission to empower others to do the same and can be reached at: http://www.Christmas-Decorations-Ideas.com


Circulated by Article Emporium

 


©2005 - All Rights Reserved

This Static Spot is open for sponsor

Home Improvement Information

Read Articles:


 Fix Minor Cracks Before They Require Costly Rep...

 What to Look for When Buying a Closet Organizer -

 A Guide to Antique Bird Cages -

 Start Your Next Home Improvement Project With T...

 Home Improvements That Increase Your Home’s Res...

 Making space at home

 1 in 4 homes in UK has one - The average costs ...

 Walk-in Closet Organizers -

 Kitchen and Bath Solutions

 A Nice Cozy Fireplace!

 Camps for Troubled Teens: Disciplines and Wild...

 A Look at Custom Shutters -

 Frightfully Fun Ideas for Halloween Decorating

 Granite Countertops: An Overview -

 The History of the Vacuum Cleaner: Perfection h...

 Choosing a Gas Fireplace to heat your home!

 How Stained Glass Can Add Elegance To Your Home

 Applications of 12 Volt Air Compressors -

 How to Replace a Circuit Breaker -

 Bathroom Interior Design

 The Benefits of Wood Closet Organizers -

 An In-Depth Review of Popular Air Purifiers -

 The Benefits of Bamboo Roman Shades -

 Adding A Floor Lamp to Your Home!

 The Benefits of Ceiling Fan Lights -

 Zebra Print Rug!

 A Look at Plantation Shutters -

 Custom Mini Blinds -

 The Basics of the Murphy Bed Plan -

 Should a HDMI DVD player be your next home thea...

More Article Pages 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

 

 Home Improvements – The Fun Stuff
 by: Raynor James

Planning home improvements necessarily involves addressing numerous practical matters. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the fun stuff!

The Fun Stuff

The first thing to plan for in home improvements is the practical stuff. The second thing you need to talk to family members about is the fun stuff.

Most people have colors they like and colors they don’t like. They have things that interest them and things that don’t. Get your family to talk to you about those things. Each person’s bedroom, or bedroom area, should reflect his or her taste and interests.

A boy who likes green, football, and backpacking can easily have a sage green (it “reads” as more neutral than many shades of green if re-sale of your home is a concern) room with cream woodwork, cream interior shutters, and cream ceiling. Framed football posters and wilderness scenes might be pleasant. Bedding with a rustic motif (rows of stylized pine trees?) from L.L. Bean or Plow and Hearth would work right in. Add a touch or two of a bright color like red or yellow.

Does he need a desk in his room? A chest of drawers? A bookcase? Would he enjoy having a bulletin board? Even if they’re small, most rooms need at least three lamps so that illumination is general and even. The shades are usually best in warm, neutral colors. (Light coming through green shades tends to make people look sick.) Lamp shades should be level and the seams should be toward the wall so they’re not visible. When the bottom edge of most lamp shades in a room are the same height from the floor, the room tends to look serene and cohesive.

Hanging pictures usually look best if the bottom edges of the frames are the same height from the floor and level with each other, too. There are exceptions to this and every generalization of course. A grouping of pictures can have the bottom tier follow the “rule” while all of the other pictures are higher. A picture over a fireplace often looks good higher than the other pictures in the room.

Pictures usually look best when they have a relationship to furniture or an architectural feature. Pictures centered over a chest, bed, bookcase, or fireplace are good examples. Pictures don’t tend to look good if they’re scattered willy-nilly around a room, or if they’re up near the ceiling (unless they’re part of a grouping), or if the height at which they’re hung varies wildly with no rhyme nor reason.

A girl who loves pink, the ballet, and swimming can have woodwork the same cream as her brother’s while her walls are a soft pink (a pink with a hint of yellow in it tends to go well with cream), and her art work reflects her interests. If she loves to read, make sure she has a good reading lamp near her bed, or near a comfortable chair, or both.

A cream colored dust ruffle with widely spaced pink stripes and a quilted plaid coverlet in pink, green, yellow, and blue on a cream background might look nice. Add cream fabric window shades with large pink polka dots and I’ll bet she’ll smile.

The bigger point is to simply have fun with some of your home improvements. There is no need to look exclusively at practical matters.


©2005 - All Rights Reserved

JV Blogs Visit free hit counter