Posts Tagged: how to

Gardening — Comments Off
15
Jun 11

How to Cat Proof a Garden Fence

It is becoming more common for responsible pet owners to keep their cat indoors to protect them from road accidents or attacks from other cats or dogs. If a cat has never been exposed to the great outdoors, then he may be content to live inside the house, but it could be a dull, lonely life. There is a simple system of cat proofing your garden fence so that your pet may enjoy a fuller life, playing and hiding, watching birds and insects.

There are many reasons for keeping your pet indoors or wanting to prevent him from leaving the safety of your garden. The average age of an indoor cat is 16 years, with some living to 21 years. Compare this with the outdoor cat’s average age of only 2 – 3 years, and you can see why some pet owners are reluctant to allow their cat outside. In addition, neighbours can get upset about cats using their garden as a toilet and damaging young plants. If bitten by another cat, your beloved pet may be infected with the feline HIV virus. There is no treatment or preventative vaccine for this fatal disease. In addition, cats can be killed or maimed by dogs, and may be seriously injured or killed if hit by a car.

If your garden is enclosed by a six foot high wooden fence, you can make the fencing cat proof by adding some plastic mesh trellis to the top. It is important that the trellis is set at an angle pointing inwards to the garden, to deter the cat from jumping at the fencing and climbing over the top. In order to climb a fence, a cat will jump about half way up and scramble up to the top by using his claws to get a grip. He will then balance on the top edge before deciding whether to walk along or jump down the other side. When he looks up at a cat proof fence from the ground, he will see that access to the top of the fence is blocked. He may make a few attempts to climb to the trellis, but when he realises he cannot get around the trellis, he will jump back down to where he started. This method of cat proofing a garden fence also has the advantage of keeping stray cats out of your garden, so that your pet will be safe from fights and infectious diseases.

Most garden centres sell plastic mesh climbing plant trellis in 50 cm widths. You will need enough trellis to run along the top of your fencing, some metal brackets bent at 45 degrees to support the trellis, fencing staples and cable ties. These items can be purchased from good DIY stores or builders merchants.

After installing the trellis, supervise your cat to make sure there are no weak spots where he can make his escape. Then sit back and enjoy pottering in the garden with your feline friend!

Crafts-Hobbies — Comments Off
10
May 11

Fall Window Box Ideas – Decorating, Planting, and Vegetables

Decorating window boxes in the fall can be a fun task. Many window box owners find that changing their window boxes to match the seasons is an enjoyable activity that can keep their window boxes and houses looking fresh with the seasons. This article will provide you with some great Fall window box ideas that will help you determine the best way to decorate your home for the holidays

One of my favorite fall window box ideas is to incorporate a Thanksgiving type theme into the window boxes. This can be achieved with an assortment of pumpkins, corn stalks, squashes, and flowers and leaves with autumn colors in them. Steer towards reds, oranges, and browns to match the color of the changing leaves in your yard. It’s also a great way to decorate the home for visiting family over the Fall holiday seasons.

In addition to festive decorating in the fall, their are also many plants and flowers you can grow that will thrive in the Fall conditions. Some of my favorites are geraniums, petunias, and sweet potato vines for a nice trailing effect. A good mix of both vines and colorful flowers can create a great combination in a window box. Often, a flowering centerpiece can be used to create drama or add a personality highlight to the box. There’s no end to the possible combinations you can enjoy.

Some of the best vegetables to grow in the Fall for window boxes are broccoli, turnips, and tomatoes. Broccoli is a very popular and productive plant even in the Fall and turnips will mature quickly allowing you to harvest more often. Tomatoes can take some more work, but are a favorite among avid gardeners. Window box gardening is often a convenient way for beginners to get started with easy maintenance right from a kitchen or an easy access window. They’re easier to maintain and take less of a commitment than preparing a garden area in the backyard.

No matter what the season: fall, winter, spring, or summer, there are creative window box ideas you can use for fall flowers, plants, and decorating. Good luck and have fun!

Parties — Comments Off
23
Mar 11

How To Do Cake Decoration

Easy Flowers

Flowers, although there are many recipes and instructions on how to make iced roses they can be quite fiddly to make, if you are not confident enough to create iced roses or flowers I suggest using fresh ones.

Simply pick your flowers; roses, holly, violets, lavender or even beautiful brown maples leaves for an autumn cake- it all depends on the season I suppose, and ensure that they are bug-free and clear of any debris.

Whisk an egg white lightly, dip the stems of the flower/leave in and then lightly coat the petal/leaves using a brush. Secure the flowers into bunch and decoratively place on your cake.
For a dramatic look use single rose petals or, as previously mentioned, unique leaves, once iced and dry place on and around the base of the cake for a contemporary look.

Cake Boxes

To create a contemporary and unique cake and rather than producing one cake produce several portion sized ones.

To do this, you simply need to bake your cake in a large rectangular tin, ensuring that you adjust the cooking times and temperatures accordingly.

Once baked cut your cake into even square portions; try to create a piece for each person.
For adult cakes you can ‘wrap’ the cakes all in the same icing; however if you have more time different colors can be fun for adults and children alike.

I often enjoy creating, for my friends, lots of Tiffany jewelery boxes, using turquoise blue icing to create the distinctive box and white, iced or regular, ribbon to finish.

Once you have chosen your icing color of choice you simply wrap each cake up; a simple tip for this is to cut a square ensuring that it will cover the top level and sides of the cake. Use this as a template for the other cakes. To create perfect corners you can either use a proper wrapping method pushing the fold together to create an envelope point or you can pinch together the icing into a right angle and cut the excess off. Finish with ribbons and bows; placing them decoratively on a large plate.

Creating ribbons

Create ribbon with different colored icing, cut into strips and place onto the cake; to create a bow take a length of the ribbon icing and join the ends together this will be the middle knot of the bow. The ribbon icing should now resemble an elastic band, place this joined section flat on the table and taking the icing at the point directly across from this joining- and ensuring there is equal length on either side- and press this into the joining also to create the two side bow sections. Take two lengths of the ribbon cutting them diagonally at the bottom and attach them to the middle of he bow also. To finish wrap a smaller measure of the iced ribbon around the joining.

Parenting — Comments Off
14
Oct 10

How to Write a Thank You Note for Kids

You know it抯 a good idea to get kids in the habit of writing thank you notes early, but what if they抮e not even old enough to write? You write them. Yes you, the adult! Here are 3 basic steps.
Things You’ll Need:

- Notecards

- Pens/pencils/crayons/pens

- Stickers (optional)

1) Choose your voice– Will you:

a) Write as if you’re the child, as in “Thank you for the sidewalk chalk? I drew all over the driveway with it.” or

b) Write as yourself, the adult, such as “Thank you for sending Billy that adorable shirt.”

Either is okay; do whichever feels right to you.

2) “Interview” your child about the gift. You’d be surprised how much this helps. I抦 staring at a toy car, totally uninspired about what to write, and then I ask my son why it抯 cool and he says, “I like the fire on the side and I can make it go VRROOOOM.” Voila, thank you note done.

3) Write the note. Here are a few examples to get you started:

Example 1:

Dear Grandma,

Thank you for the Webkinz! I named her Happy and have already set up her room. She has a princess bed, a checkers game, and lots of clothes and friends. Her favorite food is blueberries.

Thanks again. You know how much I like Webkinz. She is my favorite toy!

Love,
Fifi

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Example 2:

Dear Zachary,

I love my huge box of Legos so much, I can抰 stop playing with them. I build a tower and knock it over many times a day. I don抰 know what I used to do before this. Thank you so much for the great toy. My mom also likes that it comes with its own box, though I have not yet left it alone long enough to put it away!

Your Friend,

Logan

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Example 3:

Dear Thomas,

Thank you for the bug habitat and vacuum. I love being able to collect bugs and give them a home. I have 4 right now, and I named them all. I can tell they are really happy.

Thanks also for coming to my party! Having you there made it extra fun.

Your Friend,

Luke

Children can “help” parents write notes as soon as they are old enough to hold a crayon or peel a sticker. Let them personalize the note however they’d like; even if they just scribble, it shows the gift giver they were part of the thanking process and it lets the child know he should be!

When they are old enough to write their names, they can sign the cards you write and draw a picture. When they’re old enough to write, kids can write the notes with a little help with wording from parents. Eventually they’ll be proficient enough to write a note that will make Emily Post (and you) proud!

Parenting — Comments Off
30
Jan 10

Bad Behavior in Children – Is it Really Bad?

If you find that you are yelling and getting angry with your child more often than you would like, you may be looking at some ways to handle bad behavior in children. The first thing you need to keep in mind when you need to handle a behavior situation is that a child is a person. A child is a young adult that hasn’t grown up yet. They know more and feel more than we can ever realize. Just the atmosphere in a home that is not at a high level can affect the child in ways that we do not know about.

Is there really such a thing as bad behavior in children or is it really just misguided behavior that needs a quick correction? If we are going to label and behavior as bad then what is to stop the child from differentiating the label of bad behavior from bad child? There really are no bad children, and by using the word bad as often as we do, we may be putting a label on the child by association. Indeed children can do many things that can be very frustrating and tiresome, but in the end there are no bad children and let’s stop calling it bad behavior in children, especially in front of them.

If the child has a behavior habit that is not optimal such as screaming and yelling if he doesn’t get his way, then this is definitely a behavior that needs to be modified. The first thing to do when handling it is to sit down when the child is calm and discussing it with them. The worst mistake that a parent can make is to sit down and have a calm rational talk while the child is screaming. Let the child finish the screaming, it won’t kill you to listen to it one more time, and wait an hour or two until the child is very content doing something else and talk to him. This so-called bad behavior in children can usually be talked through.

If you are looking to correct bad behavior in children the first thing you need to do is stop calling it bad behavior. The next thing you need to do is really talk to your child and let him know what you think about this behavior. This needs to be done at a time following an incident.Remember never loose your temper take a big breath count to ten then give the child a hug.It may not work the first time but if you are patient it will work.In most cases the child is just looking for attention so give it to them.A hug will get you a lot farther than screaming and loosing your temper.

If you want further information about how to deal with the child and to really connect with him so that you can not only correct the misbehavior but build a relationship as well, you should go to http://bestsmartparentingtips.com/ for more answers.