Stress Free Christmas – Page 6 – And All Other Holidays Too

Door Covers For Easy Fun Budget Christmas Decorating

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Decorating For Christmas

Not everyone wants to think about a Christmas theme or to carry out all the work involved in sourcing and decorating to suit the chosen theme. There are some really lovely and unusual themes that can be chosen, instead of the traditional red and green that can be supplied by a Christmas tree or wreath and some red baubles or holly berries. These can require a lot of work and a reasonable budget that not everyone can afford. Christmas can still be fun and decorative without a large budget.

Tree and wreath with mistletoe for a traditional Christmas

Christmas Tree

For some people, a cheerful Christmas tree, decorated with hand made items, some fairy lights and perhaps sparkly tinsel is as much as they can think of with everything else to do at Christmas, especially if children are involved. And if a budget is a big consideration, then perhaps any spare money should be spent on quality toys for children or good food, rather than decorations which may be discarded once Christmas is done or which may not survive any mauling they may receive.

Christmas Themes

Fun Christmas theme using gnomes

For others, decorating for Christmas requires careful thought ahead of time, with a different theme or color scheme each year being a total necessity. Your theme may depend on whether you will be hosting adult or perhaps business company for Christmas or whether you are a harrassed parent with a number of small children and plenty of company to keep you busy. Themes do not all have to be high cost or bought in, they can be home made, with children creating snowmen or snowwomen and families or gnomes, for instance from recyclable materials that might otherwise be junked, including toilet paper inner rolls, dishwashing liquid bottles, cereal packets, paints, pencils or crayons and a lot of imagination and possibly cotton wool.

Door Covers

Door covers are a great way to decorate the outside or inside of your home at low cost. These are plastic or pvc sheets with colorful Christmas themes and pictures that are pinned or taped to the doors in your house. They are mostly budget friendly and provide a quick way of brightening the house with a cheerful and colorful festive feel. Being plastic, they are waterproof, so can be used outside on your entry door or inside on various inner doors.

Points To Be Careful Of

Christmas cover poster with snowflakes for door wall covering ideas

Plastic Christmas door cover or poster

If you are choosing a door cover or door covers for your house, make sure you know, as far as you can, what you are getting.

Height

Door covers can be different heights, ranging from 5 feet to 7 feet. A 5 foot cover is unlikely to cover your whole door but can look very effective centered vertically on the door, especially if it has a glass panel to shine light through. You can also add decorations top and bottom, depending on your creativity and the material to hand, For instance green paper at the bottom for grass or white for snow, perhaps wood effect paper at the top to suggest a shed. A 7 foot door cover may well cover your whole door or most of it.

Width

Check the width of your chosen cover against your door width. You may prefer a narrow cover or want one that goes right to the edges. Remember you will need a way to open the door and may need to cut a slit for a handle.

Attaching The Cover

Many of the door covers come with a rope that attaches to corner holes but this may not be suitable for your door. You may need to tape or tack the cover to your door. Be sure you are happy with the options you choose before perhaps realising that you could cause damage to a new door.

Quality

As with anything, you need to be sure of the quality of the item you are getting compared with the price you are paying. You will not get a silk purse at sow’s ear prices but you will at least want something that is likely to last out the Christmas season without ripping, even if it does not survive for re-use next year.

Glass Blowing

Glass blowing is a glassmaking technique which involves gently inflating hot glass to a bubble with the help of a blow pipe. A person who blows glass using the blow pipe is known as a glass blower, glass maker, or gaffer. Discovered in the 13th century in Venice, Italy, glassblowing has come a long way since then and today it’s one of the most popular forms of art the world over.

Glass blowing is all about creating both decorative and functional shapes like figurines, ornaments, testing tubes, dishes, and more. The invention of glass blowing can be traced back to the Roman Empire, but back then this craft was being done exclusively by using molds. Molds developed in the first century AD.

Blowing glass with a (special type of) furnace, also known as kiln, is similar to furnace baking, the difference being that kilns can heat the glass at one end of the furnace to a specific temperature before blowing the material out the other end of the furnace.

It is important to realize that glass blowing and mold-blowing techniques are not the same. Mold-blowing involves blowing molds of various shapes, sizes, and depths into the mold, while glass blowing usually only involves blowing clear glass or semi-opaque glass. Mold-blowing techniques are often used by artisans who design stained glass windows.

An important distinction between the two techniques is that glass blowing utilizes a blow pipe, while mold blowing uses a mold pipe. The difference between the two types of glassblowers is that glassblowers do not need to quench their work with oxygen. Once molten glass has been allowed to cool, most glassblowers can finish the job by merely blowing on it. A mold blower on the other hand needs to quench his glassblowing work with oxygen in order to ensure that the final product is clean, smooth, and free of bubbles and lines.

The earliest glassworkers practiced their trade by creating small glass items such as test tubes and figurines. Although glassblowing was considered unusual, the artisans found that their skills could be developed and enhanced when they started making larger glass items such as bowls and vases. Glass bowls and vases are perhaps the earliest example of modern glassmaking, and the first glass-making furnaces appeared in the 1st century AD.

The Roman Empire, which ruled over much of the Middle East and much of Asia for over a thousand years, is well known for the things it left behind. Among these items are many magnificent glass objects, including Roman glass decorative furniture, mosaic tiles, and even some authentic glass jewelry. Most of these objects have survived to this day, and new glassworkers continue to produce new items, ranging from gorgeous glass figurines to intricately designed glasswork. The next time you have the opportunity to partake in the history of blowing glass, you should make the most of it.

Alyosha Lonoff loves making glass art. To learn more about glass blowing check out her site today.

Christmas Gifts for Kids – Giving the Perfect Gift This Christmas!

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Every year, parents wonder what to give as Christmas Gifts for Kids. This is an age where young people’s interests change drastically. Sometimes, the most fun things that you can buy them are toys. But toys are not the only things you should consider for them. Here are the best Christmas Gifts for kids.

Ages

Soft Toys

There are different gifts that are appropriate for different ages. If your child is two years old or younger, then the best gifts for him or her are probably stuffed animals. In fact, stuffed animals are among the most popular Christmas Gifts for kids of all ages and even some adults. Some of these soft toys remain treasured long after childhood, as recounted in the classic children’s story of “The Velveteen Rabbit”, in which a toy rabbit becomes real through a child’s love.

Play Toys

Kids ages four to eight years old can be given toys. These toys will keep little ones busy all day and they won’t get bored even with playing these toys all day long. One of the most popular Christmas Gifts for kids, whether boys or girls, is a dollhouse. With a little bit of imagination, you can add many things to this toy to make it more interesting. You can add a kitchen set and a play kitchen. Or maybe put in some furniture and dressers. Adding a dollhouse to your child’s room can help him or her develop his or her own motor skills and help develop their social skills as well. Some playsets come with action figures, so that the dollhouse can be turned into a multi roomed firestation or superheroes hideout. Many kids enjoy toy kitchens and some of these items are big enough to play with friends as well. A toy shop is also another very social type of toy that two or more children can play with, so that older siblings can play with younger ones.

There are many other toys available for this age group, including Duplo and Lego building bricks, construction sets, ride on toys, like bikes, balance bikes and toy trucks; and board games, like Ludo, snakes and ladders, or jigsaws and coloring books.

Favorite Movies

Every kid loves watching their favorite movies. Buy your kid a gift certificate for his favorite movie rental house and let him watch his favorite movies every night of the year. Some kids even collect movie memorabilia and have turned their bedrooms into a mini movie theater. There are so many Christmas Gifts for kids that incorporate watching movies into their gift giving. Of course, there are also plenty of DVDs of their favorite movies or perhaps you would consider a subscription to a movie channel or you can buy an online version of certain movies.

Toys That Move

Kids of all ages really like anything that moves, or activity toys. This Christmas, what about a mini golf set? They’ll spend hours having fun with this item. You can get ones for kids of 3 years old or more advanced ones suitable for children from the age of 10 years, or adults. Older children may enjoy a rock tumbler for polishing their own gem stones.

Gift Baskets

If you don’t know what single item to buy, what about several smaller items in a basket? You could always give them an ornament. Or a book about what happens during Christmas time. You could even get them a basket full of things they’re fascinated by such as stamp collections or doll house furniture or several art canvases and paints to make their own picture. Kids often love baskets and will find many ways to play with them, for instance for keeping collections of things, like toy cars or marbles, or as a dolls’ bed or a pet bed or even for keeping their own bathroom items in, like their toothbrush or own soap or bubblebath.

These are just some of the ideas you could use to give a good Christmas gift for kids. Of course, you need to know what your child likes. Also, you need to make sure that you’re buying something they will like. The same goes for the person you are shopping for. After all, it is only for them.

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