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Friday, April 25, 2008

Christmas Scrapbooking

Christmas scrapbooking holds a special place in our albums. Offering lots of special dreams and fond memories because there are so many themes to follow - beginning with the snowy weather and ending with the religious meaning of the season, there are plenty of scrapbooking ideas inspiration to draw from the season.

Some suggestions for your Christmas scrapbooking might include creating a special Christmas Idea scrapbooking project. This could enlist the help of all members of the family. For a special loved one far away, perhaps serving in the military or for an infirmed grandparent, a special gift such as a Christmas scrapbooking calendar with family pictures and a little journaling would be a great idea. Start early to insure that you are finished on time.

Another idea is to take head shots for each person in your family or each of your friends. Make an ornament from their head shot using colorful background papers, and a circle or ornament template. Cut and adhere the photos and baubles at different heights from the top of the page. Use realistic Christmas scrapbook tree paper across the title block for added effect. Add additional ornaments with favorite Christmas Scrapbook memories. This Family Tree idea and other Christmas ideas for scrapbooking will make your family album lots of fun to look at in later years.

A few more Christmas Idea scrapbooking techniques:

  • Save pieces of wrapping paper for picture backgrounds.

  • Use the ribbons from your Christmas gifts, tie bits and pieces along the spine of an album to decorate it.

  • Staple pieces of ribbon to the edges of the page or onto journaling.

  • Save colorful gift tags for embellishments.

  • Have the children write letters to Santa. Save them or scan and reduce them to use as embellishments for your holiday pages.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Ifiok Ekon is the owner of allscrapbookingideas.com. Looking for scrapbooking ideas? Get all the exciting scrapbooking ideas, suggestions, tips, and techniques for your baby, wedding, military personnel, and lots more at allscrapbookingideas.com.

Kundalini Yoga And Meditation

Improving Your Short Game, Secrets To Playing Better Golf

How many times have you had an excellent drive followed by an equally excellent approach shot only to be disappointed by your chip/pitch/sand shot and/or 3-putt effort? The short game (putting, chipping, pitching and sand play) accounts for about 80 percent of your total score. These skills are too important to be ignored.

You dont believe us? The next time youre out on the golf course, count the number of shots it takes you to get from the edge of the green to the hole. If youre an average golfer like us, you will be surprised at the number of strokes you use on your short game, and it doesnt necessarily depending on what golf equipment you are using.

If you want to lower your score, your best chance to do so would be to work on your short game. With a little time and effort spent practicing with your wedges and putter, you will improve your game and shave strokes off your score. The great thing is that improving your short game does not require any special strength, coordination, conditioning or special golf clubs. These are skills that everybody who plays can masterand have fun improving! The key is to spend just as much time, if not more time, practicing your short game as you do your long game.

Putting Rule: When putting, try not to think too hard. This is when mistakes are usually made. Am I taking the putter too far back? Am I aligned correctly? If you continually ask yourself these questions on the green, you are already thinking of ways to miss the putt. Just look at the hole and go straight at it. Why do you think new golfers and kids sometimes do so well at putting? Is it because they have a special gift for putting? No, of course it isnt. Its because they are not thinking about their approach and are only wanting for the ball to go in the hole. We know that this sounds overly simplistic, but if you do your thinking on the practice green and get your timing and alignment set on a consistent basis, the next time youre on the course it will all become instinctive and you can then concentrate on distance and the undulations on the green and not focus attention on your putting stroke.

Putting Practice: Before you tee off on the first hole if you're in a hurry. This exercise will help you make good contact with the ball and create momentum on your putts. Place the ball about three feet away from the hole on a flat part of the green. Without using a backstroke, push the ball into the hole using your putter. In other words, don't use a backstroke during this part of the exercise. Hit the ball immediately from address, do this 5 times and get a good feel for your follow-through. After doing this, use your normal putting stroke and hit the ball another 5 times from the same distance. You should notice a difference in your putting stroke. This simple and quick exercise creates a smoother stroke and follow-through when putting.

Pitch Shot Rule: Set your hips, knees and feet open to the target and accelerate through your swing. Yes, there are other things that your could work on when hitting a wedge, but the most common mistakes that amateurs make are standing square to the ball at address and slowing down on the backswing. Correcting these two flaws will enable you to hit more consistent and accurate shots. Keeping your shoulders square and slightly opening up your hips, knees and feet towards the target will allow you to get through the shot and get air under the ball. Your follow through should be as long as, if not longer, than your backswing just to make sure you accelerate through it. This will allow you to make good contact with the ball and you will make consistently straight and accurate shots.

So, what are you waiting for? Get out to the golf course and start shaving strokes off your score!

Copyright 2007 David Lester

David Lester is the owner of http://www.shop4clubs.com a golf content website. David has worked in the golf industry for over 10 years in various capacities such as product management and international sales.

Yoga Ball Kit

Humidifiers: Great For Comfort And Health

When you heat a house during the winter, humidity in the air is sent outside along with the cold air. The optimal amount of humidity in your home is 40 to 55 percent, however, running a heater can drop the humidity in your home down to 5 percent. This lack of humidity can have an effect on your health, furniture and even your utility bills. The lack of humidity can cause or aggravate respiratory ailments and make winter time colds even worse. The dry air also sucks the moisture out of furniture as well, which can even cause it to eventually fall apart. Evaporating moisture on the skin will also cause coolness so you will continually need to adjust the thermostat to remain warm.

When you make the decision to purchase a humidifier for comfort and health, you must consider the type of heating unit you have, the cubic footage of your home and the hardness of your water. Once you have the cubic yardage of your home you can compare the different types of humidifiers, choosing one which will provide relief to the entire floorplan.

Row-thru humidifiers work through evaporation and only put the amount of moisture into the air that it can handle which would vary depending on room temperature. By-pass humidifiers are the most common furnace humidifiers. The third type is a steam humidifier which works on the same principle as the vaporizers your mother used when you were a child with a cold. These are the most common type of humidifiers sold in retail stores.

Room size humidifiers can sit on a table top and work to return moisture to one room. For the entire house, you would need a free standing unit or a central humidifier that can be tied into the homes forced air heating system. It is a good idea to oversize the unit you choose which means the moisture level is higher than required for your cubic yardage. This will help make sure that your home stays at a proper level of humidity year round.

Visit Humidifier Information to see different types of humidifiers compared plus more great info!

Long Yoga Mats