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If you want a small candle, votives are what you need to look for. Votives can be scented or unscented and they are easy for you to make at home. First you will need the proper wax for the candle. Votives are primarily made with paraffin wax, which has a melting point of 130 F. Depending on the effect you want to achieve with your votive candles, you may or may not have to included additives in the wax. Once you follow the simple instructions you will have your candles ready within 2 hours. If you want to start learning how to make a candle, votives are the best ones to start with.

In addition to having the wax to make a candle, votives need special molds. There are many of these molds to choose from and the number you have require depends on the number of votive candles you want to make. You don’t need to use any fragrances if you want unscented votive candles, but you can add whichever scents you want if you prefer to have a scent on your candle. You will also need to have the proper wick for a votive candle and here too, there are several choices you can make. For example, you can use a pre-tabbed votive wick, a cotton core waxed wick or wick clips.

In order to have little difficulty releasing the votive candle from the mold, you can buy silicone spray. Just spray the mold before you pour in the wax to make the candle. Votives don’t require large molds, so you probably won’t need to use this. However, if you intend spending any amount of time making votive candles, then it won’t add very much to the cost of your supplies. Candle fragrance is also optional because many people are allergic to scents and prefer the unscented votive candles.

When you gather all your candle making supplies, cover the countertop with newspaper so that it will catch any spills from the wax for the candle. Votives are small and it is very likely that you will spill some of the melted wax when you start pouring it into the mold. You will also need paper towels to clean the stove top because there is likely to be splatters. Before you start pouring the wax for the votive candle into the mold, make sure you have it placed on a flat surface. Otherwise, you may have lopsided unscented votive candles.

When it comes to candles, votives are by far the most popular. This is because they are small and dainty and fit into most candleholders. Although they are usually sold in sets of six, they are very inexpensive, if you would prefer to buy them rather than make your own candles. Votives are also easy to store in a small box, but you do have to keep them in a cool, dry place.

Do you find it difficult to spend time together as a family?

There are so many pressures and activities that can take away from the sense of family which was more commonly experienced 50 years ago. Parents often both work, and their commute can be tiring and long. For children there is school and homework, TV, video games, and the computer to juggle with. This does not include outside the home activities such as belonging to sports teams and organizations. All of these factors mean that the family is not together so often. Many activities that occupy children nowadays are individualistic or non-social. Electronic forms of entertainment are now normal, but the disadvantage is that they are not conducive to social interaction and relationship building.

Parents increasingly have to plan to set aside time to spend as a family. During these times it is a good idea to plan activities that involve everyone. A great way of bonding is to do an activity where everyone works together to accomplish a project.

Doing a jigsaw puzzle together is a good example of this and has many benefits. Working on a jigsaw puzzle is a practical activity that all ages can participate in some way. Even younger children can be encouraged to help. They can sort the pieces into like colors, or look for particular pieces. They feel such a sense of accomplishment when they find the piece and help complete the section.

For children, a jigsaw puzzle has several learning applications. It develops spatial awareness and hand eye coordination. There are analytical, abstract, and concrete thinking skills that are needed to become adept at doing a jigsaw puzzle.

While the family is together around the puzzle, a relaxed natural environment is created for conversation and relationship building. It develops a sense of team as all participate.

Doing a jigsaw puzzle is also a great introduction to other types of hobbies and crafts that involve using hands and creating something. For the upcoming generation these types of crafts and hobbies are in danger of dying out as electronic entertainment increases in popularity and use.

I have fond memories of doing jigsaw puzzles with my family as a child. It became a family tradition especially during the winter months. Today, however, this can still be done but without the inconvenience of losing the use of the dining room table until the puzzle is completed. There are now puzzle mats and other new storage possibilities now available.

In comparison to the jigsaw puzzles that were around when I was a child, the jigsaw puzzles today are far more interesting and appealing. There are shaped puzzles, glowing, educational puzzles, and more complex puzzles for the experienced puzzler such as 3D and two sided puzzles.

Create a tradition for your family. Plan now and buy some jigsaw puzzles to bring out on a rainy or cold weekend and have a refreshing family bonding time .

I would recommend http://www.thepuzzlemania.com as a good place to order puzzles online and get prepared for family fun.

Barbara White, a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast, has a passion to revive family traditions. For more facts and trivia about jigsaw puzzles visit her blog and forum at http://www.thepuzzlemania.com , an online jigsaw puzzle store for all the families interests.

Most people write differently and many prefer particularly designed fountain pens. Fountain pens to suit an individual’s writing needs are called custom fountain pens. Custom-made fountain pens are wonderful combinations of the creativity of the manufacturer and the individual needs of the user; they are manufactured out of wood, glass, precious metal, hard rubber and celluloid according to a specific design (sometimes ordered). Engraving of names and messages are also a part of the custom fountain pen manufacturing process. Precious metals like gold and diamonds may enrich a custom fountain pen. Cost is not often a deterrent to the user who wants a particular design.

Adjusting the tip of the nib to write cursive right obliquely, cursive left obliquely, cursive italic, straight italic, straight right oblique, straight left oblique, stub and round pointed are a few custom fountain pen varieties. What can be achieved by customizing the nib is that it can be made narrower, or its size can be increased by retipping.

Most custom-made pens are preordered. Many manufacturers offer custom-made pens in bulk, while only a few are willing to take up orders for custom-made pens in ones or twos. The best way to promote a company is through gifting away pens. Corporate offices may gift away custom-made pens with name, message or company logo engraved on the pens to their employees or clients. Engravings are done on the nibs, barrels, caps and clips.

Of the various materials used in custom-made pens, deer antler is the most difficult one to craft. There are custom fountain pens made of ivory, too. While it is common to have nibs of gold and silver, the clip is also made of gold and studded with diamonds in some fountain pens.

A custom-made pen may be gifted or preserved, adding to the collection of exquisite pens.

Fountain Pens provides detailed information on Fountain Pens, Fountain Pen Cases, Fountain Pen Refills, Fountain Pen History and more. Fountain Pens is affiliated with Fountain Pens.

A merchant bank in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio or so can have a total completely different actual rate for a 25000 dollar bank loan then a bank in Minot North Dakota and that makes a large clear gap in your yearly pay offs. It makes no difference if you live in Lakeville Minnesota or in Madera California a estimable online examination will salvage you often lots of anguish. Check out to see if the moneylender who is tending to give you a money loan is fine. 7.7 percent rate of interest may look so reasonable but will it stay the same after you have to pay back your credit loan. Lots of of the merchant banks wil show you a interest rate that is looking upright but feels poorly or so after a while. That’s the reason why now you really need to inquire and check if you can have a credit loan at a good percent rate. At present you can suss out rates of interest quickly and fancy if there are possible sneaky traps you should be aware of. You should be lustrous today to if you have a great deal or if you don’t with the bank that offers you a bank loan.

Translated it says: Woon je in Korendijk of Waalwijk en hebt u BKR registratie. Lenen met een BKR notering is nog nooit zo eenvoudig geweest. Verwen jezelf met een nieuwe auto met geld lenen met negatieve bkr registratie, 399883 euro is geen probleem om te lenen. Van Vlissingen tot Kollumerland en Nieuwkruisland, geld lenen met en BKR codering gaat hier altijd.

Dollhouses can be defined as a replica of a house. A dollhouse is mostly used by children in play where they imitate real life domestic scenes. Dollhouse have also become very popular with adults as a hobby. This is because the making decorating styles and display of dollhouse is very fascinating and interesting.

Dollhouse made for children come in various sizes which should suit the sizes of the dolls used in play by them. The styles and degree of sophistication are very wide, from the ad-hoc to the complete scaled downed version of an actual house.

Dollhouse owe their origins to the ancient times of the Egyptians who crafted miniatures of every day objects. Dollhouse have carried on as a hobby for adults since then. The most common scales used by dollshouses are the 1/12th or 1″ scale and the 1/48th. You can also see in other scales.

Doll houses as hobby has become very popular with adults and has expanded considerably. Those can be seen from the fact that there are many magazines and websites devoted to doll houses and there are a number of suppliers of doll houses materials and accessories. There are also doll house clubs which meet regularly and chat rooms on the internet on which you can share your views and collections with other collectors.

There are various types of styles of adult doll houses. They can be accurate versions of historical styles of houses or a doll house construction of your own choice.

Annureeta Chauhan

They smell sweet, look great, and have a lot of variety to them, no it’s not your significant other, and it’s the ever popular gel candle. Gel candles are made with 95% mineral oil and 5% polymer resin. Gel candles typically work under a simple rule of thumb, the more thick they are the more scent will come from them, and the longer they will last. These candles are used for aroma therapy as well as for home décor.

Making gel candles is as easy as baking a cake and these will last much longer then your typical sponge cake. Making gel candles is not only for those with a passion for crafts, it also can be enjoyable for those looking to mix, and match new scents. For the serious gel candle makers a potential business opportunity awaits you. Whatever the reason may be, it will be worth your time to learn about how to make gel candles.

The first step in making your gel candle is to pick the scent you would like to put in it. The typical scent for your candles will come from essential oil, or candle scent concentrate. The types of scents are limitless, and are available at any crafts store, online candle making website, or a local specialty store. Once you have chosen the scent you can move on to getting the mold.

Choose the mold that best fits your gel candle making needs. As generic as that statement sounds, it is true, you must pick what will work for you in terms of a mold. A gel candle mold is similar to a cookie cutter, or muffin tray, they are indented, engraved, sheets of metal that can be baked at high temperatures. For advance candle making one can make their own mold. For beginners it’s recommended to choose a simple mold, like that of a jar.

Once the mold has been selected, the scent has been purchased, and you’re ready to get started head on over to the kitchen and preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Add some glue to the bottom of the mold, insert the candle scent concentrate, and pour the gel. Now in order to get the gel to a liquid form, one must first heat the gel in the oven at 200 degrees until the gel turns into a liquid format. Once the gel is liquefied add the wick to the mold, pour the gel, and pull the wick up to the top. Let the candle cool for 4 hours, and enjoy!

Clark Covington is a professional writer who provides information for Candles 4U on gel candles and candle making.

Today there are many options for putting colorful patterns onto porcelain china. Some, like decoupage, waterslide decals and air-dry paints like Delta Air-Dry PermEnamel are within the reach of any home crafter.

Others, like dye sublimation printing, transfer printing and hand-glazing high-fired pottery require substantial investment in equipment and are best suited to well-capitalized businesses and artists’ cooperatives.

The two classic ways of putting patterns onto porcelain, hand-painting and transfer printing, still exist today. In addition, there is a high-tech version of waterslide decals used commercially which consists of screen-printing decals with glazes and applying the decals to the porcelain. In each case, the pottery is high-fired before decorating to at least cone 6. [Cone is a measure of heat absorption resulting from heat applied over time. Cone 6 translates to between 2165 and 2269 degrees F (depending on how fast the kiln heats - or ramps - up).] Such high-firing produces the hard almost-translucent quality of genuine porcelain. Then the piece is decorated and lightly fired repeatedly to melt and fuse the glazes to the porcelain.

Incidentally, the term “porcelain” has been applied more and more broadly as new techniques developed. Ask any potter to define “porcelain” and he will likely give you the classic definition. To a potter, genuine porcelain is high-fired (cone 6 or higher) white clay that is at least somewhat translucent. It has a large proportion of kaolin clay, with the remainder being primarily feldspar and silica. This clay composition accounts for the pure white gleam of porcelain.

Artisans who paint porcelain (rather than actually make it) refer to three grades of porcelain: hard-paste, soft-paste, and bone china. They all contain kaolin but only hard-paste has feldspar and silica and is high-fired. The high temperatures cause the body and the glaze to fuse. When hard-paste porcelain is broken, it is impossible to distinguish the body from the glaze.

Soft-paste porcelain adds ground glass or frit (material for glass that is not yet fused and vitrified) and is fired to between cone 01 and 1 (1999 to 2109 degrees F). Because soft-paste porcelain is fired at lower temperatures, it does not completely vitrify and remains slightly porous. When soft-paste porcelain is broken, you can distinguish a grainy body covered with a glassy layer of glaze.

Bone china has bone ash added to the kaolin and vitrifies (becomes glass-like) somewhere between cone 2 and cone 5 (2034 to 2205 F). Though not as hard as true porcelain, bone china is more durable than soft-paste porcelain. The bone ash greatly increases the translucence of the porcelain.

Finally, go to a tile store and look at their “porcelain” tiles. If you turn them over, you will see base clay ranging from white to brown to gray.

The definition of “porcelain” in the tile industry has nothing to do with the clay content or level of firing. Rather, tile manufacturers define as “porcelain” any tile fired to the point where it absorbs less than 3% moisture.

For more information about decoupage, waterslide decals or dye sublimation or other crafts, visit http://www.theartfulcrafter.com/craft-ideas.html

Eileen Bergen was a teacher and later a vice president for a major financial institution. After being downsized, she has been running a successful craft business as well as The Artful Crafter website - http://www.theartfulcrafter.com

Want to talk about fiction but not sure if you can commit to reading a book each month? Especially if it turns out to be a book you don’t like. It’s one thing finding time for a novel you do like, but one that is a struggle just to turn the pages? No thanks.

So what is the answer. Short stories, of course! They can be read in a fraction of the time and then you can talk about them instantly.

So how does a short story club work? Basically the same as a book club but without the 12 hours of homework that it takes to read the novel so that you can join in the discussion.

First up you need to decide if you want to be in an online or offline club. If you are wanting to set up an online club then the best way to do it would be to use either an instant messaging service (Yahoo or MSN are too popular services) or an internet voice service like Skype so that you can chat aloud for free just like you would if you were all meeting in person (go to http://www.skype.com/ for more details).

Whether you decide on an online or offline club, you will need to work out a few other details like how many people you’d like in the club. Too few members and it maybe difficult to get a discussion going, too many and it maybe difficult for everyone to get an opportunity to speak. Eight is probably a good number as it allows for a few people to be away each week but it would probably still work well with six. You could always start off with less and then invite more people in if you feel you need to.

You need to set the guidelines up front so that everyone knows how it will work.
1. How often will you meet? Once a week, once a month, once every two months. You probably wouldn’t want to go any further out than two months or you will lose momentum.

2. When will you meet? Lunchtime, after work, in the evenings, Saturday afternoons, over breakfast. It’s better to be consistent, say every Friday lunchtime or the first Monday evening of the month, so that you save on scheduling time and avoid confusion.

3. Where will you meet? This will probably be determined by when you meet but some possible options are a library, restaurant, someone’s home, a community centre or a café. Wherever you go, make sure that it is not too noisy so that everyone can hear what others are saying.

4. Work out how you will choose what to read. Will you take it in turns to pick? This could work well if people have time to go searching for stories. Will you work from a book of short stories? Bear in mind with this that some people will read ahead. You could subscribe to a short story service like espresso Fiction and receive a new short story every Tuesday which you can discuss. The benefit of this is that the onus to plan ahead doesn’t fall on any one person and saves time.

So you’ve now got the rules organised, how will you get a discussion going? The best way to do this is to structure each meeting along similar lines. A rough outline follows:

. Meet at a set time and allow a few minutes for everyone to catch up with each other

. Spend 15 minutes reading the story

. When everyone is finished, go around in turn and have each person say what they liked or disliked about the story

. Run through a standard list of questions:

- Did the opening grab your attention?

- Was the ending satisfying? Did it derive from the story or did it feel too left field?

- Was it well written?

- How was the pace of the story? Were there any dead spots?

- Was there any padding that didn’t contribute to the telling of the story or development of the characters?

. Finally ask each person to give the story a rating out of ten. One being terrible and ten being outstanding. You can then add the scores together and divide by the number of people attending to give an average score.

Don’t waste time hunting for great short stories to read. espresso Fiction can send you a great new story each week by email. For more information go to Fast Food For Your Mind.

There are many factors which need to be thought about when choosing what kind of

href="http://www.yourfloors.co.uk">flooring to install. Getting new flooring installed in your

home can breathe new life into it and can be a great way to reinvigorate your living environment. It

may not be as expensive as you think either.

An important factor when choosing flooring is how that particular room will be used. Flooring which

makes sense for the dining room may not be suitable for the kitchen or bathroom for example. Some of

the most widely used types of flooring are carpet, vinyl, wood, and laminate.

Laminate flooring can be a great substitute for solid wood floors if you are looking for a wood

effect floor for a fraction of the price. Laminate flooring consists of a sheet of MDF with a wood-

effect plastic surface fixed to it. The downside of laminate flooring is that whilst it is scratch

resistant once it is damaged it is impossible to repair. That aside it can still be an ideal choice

for a kitchen, where the plastic coating provides an easily cleanable surface. Conversely solid wood

flooring would not be advisable in a bathroom, or in fact any room which is likely to get very humid

and wet. Some woods are more vulnerable to the wet than others.

If you are planning to install a wooden floor, its critical you have the right surface to fit it

on. Ideally your existing floor needs to be flat, and dry. There are options however to resolve

uneven flooring problems, such as laying ply throughout, or employing an underlay to create a

floating floor.

Often laminate flooring is sold as a product you can fit together without help which is a great way

of keeping costs down. Solid wood flooring requires however a higher degree of DIY skills, so it can

sometimes be advisable to get solid wooden floors fitted professionally which can add a considerable

cost.

One point to remember many people do not realise when they measure their room to work out how much

flooring they will need ” is that it is crucial to include a 10mm gap around the edge of the room

for the wooden flooring to expand and contract.

As an integral part of any interior design strategy, it is important to select the right flooring.

Whilst wooden or laminate floors can be ideal ” often for a more chic minimalist look; carpet can be

a better option if you are trying to achieve a more traditional home feel. The important thing is

you take into account the various factors you need to consider before ordering new flooring.

22% of all scrapbooking searches, completed on the internet, in October, were for scrapbooking ideas. New and fresh scrapbooking ideas are at the top of every scrapbookers mind. Whether newbie’s or veterans, many scrapbookers have a hard time coming up with innovative ideas. Scrapbooking addicts find themselves spending hours at online forums and buying idea books and magazines, hunting down the latest scrapbooking ideas and projects that they can do themselves.

This isn’t some crazy fad, either. Some estimates put the number of women who scrapbook in 1 out of every 10 families. SPAM, although controversial, is one great, secret stash of scrapbooking ideas for scrapbookers. It’s ironic that something everyone hates, can offer such exciting ideas for scrapbookers to use. Not only can they get ideas for their layouts, from SPAM, but they can find inspiration for gift projects and albums as well.

So, in their ever widening hunt for innovative ideas and concepts, SPAM may be a great untapped resource for scrapbookers. Here’s a warning, though, you don’t want to top open your SPAM emails without a good quality virus scanner. Here are a few more reasons your favorite scrapbooker might be interested in SPAM inspired scrapbooking ideas…

- Quick and Easy Color Themes and Ideas - There are so many different color options out there. This is a great way to gather new ideas on color, and using colors together.
- FREE Ideas They Definitely Won’t Find Anywhere Else - Find various idea inspirations, from small layout elements, to whole page designs, and from simple catalog-style sketch samples, to complex, layered ideas.
- Lots of Different Page Element Shapes and Design Inspirations - Discover mountains of creative shapes, themes, and motion ideas that the advertising designers use.
- Different Photo Sizes and Photo Layout Options - Although somewhat advanced, enlarging and cropping your photos is a fantastic way to spice up your designs. Ads give tons of ideas for resizing photos, laying them out in new ways, and cropping them to complement your layouts.

This short list gives scrapbookers a brief glimpse into a NEW source for inspirational scrapbooking ideas.

Al Speer runs http://www.ScrapbookRadio.com a FREE online scrapbooking resource, with audio interviews of scrapbookers about what inspires them and what helps them with more creativity. Online since June 2004, you can listen to the Scrapbook Radio interviews any time you want, on your own schedule.