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Enjoying quality time in your own backyard is something many people seek for. However, not all backyards look alike. Did you know that you could curb the appeal of your backyard garden with a few simple yet effective ideas? Check them out to see which one suits you.

Stone Paths – Decorative and functional, stone paths come in a wide array of shapes and sizes. In order to prevent damaging your lawnmower, consider slightly sinking these flat stones into the ground.

Garden Boxes – Garden boxes allow you to grow flowers in high-quality soil without spending a fortune in the process. If you also want to create a touch of color and to make these flower beds stand apart, paint these boxes in bright pink, red, or orange. If you prefer that your garden boxes blend in, protect the wood with some oil instead of colorful paint.

Garden Pond – A garden pond is easy to create, provided that you do your homework and you buy the required materials. Nevertheless, this project requires good DIY skills and a wide range of tools, so you may want to hire an expert to handle it.

Birdbath Garden – While birdbaths are the perfect tool to attract birds, you can also use them to plant your favorite flowers. Such bespoke container gardens are fairly inexpensive and easy to create. You can mix and match the flowers to obtain impressive effects.

Garden Pergola – Pergolas with climbing flowers are always beautiful. Install one of them by the backyard garden entrance to mark the boundary that separates your relaxation oasis from the outside world.

If you are planning to set up your own backyard orchard, best to call an experienced arborist that is knowledgeable on it. In my case, I always trust tree services in Alexandria for making my trees strong and healthy.

These are only a few ideas to make your backyard garden look better. The list could go on for a long while. Everything is allowed, as long as you can afford it.

It is important to keep your kitchen clean and organized all the time. We tend to put everything on the kitchen counter. It is easy to manage your countertop. That is why it is easy for a kitchen counter to get messy. A messy counter can make your kitchen look dirty. Investing in organizers can help keep your kitchen counters organized.

Here are essential tips to keep your kitchen counters organized.

1. Use Vertical Storage

Do leave cooking utensils such as knives, strainers, and spatulas lying on the counter. They can take up lots of space. Store them upright. How? Put them in a jar or vase on the counter. A beautiful vase or jar eliminates the need for drawer dividers. And it can add some decorative value to your kitchen.

2. Use Appliance Garage

An appliance garage allows you to keep your appliances in one location. It is perfect for storing small appliances. It keeps your kitchen counter clean all the time. Because you will never leave several appliances on top of your counter. You just store them in the appliance garage. It is easy to keep an empty countertop clean and organized.

3. Use Trays

Do you have several small items such as bud vases, olive oil cruets, condiments jars, etc. on your countertop? Then, place them in a tray. Why? They look cluttered. Also, a tray holds small items and keeps them from falling. You can buy trays that match your kitchen’s décor style.

4. Use Fruit Baskets

Do not just place fruits on top of your countertop. There are wire fruit baskets that are perfect for storing fruits because they allow airflow. They can keep your fruits fresh for a long time. A fruit basket is wide open, which makes it easy to remove the fruits.

If you have a grease trap installed in your kitchen, clean it and don’t let it full. Best to handle it from a pro. Grease trap pumping Indianapolis is skilled in this field.

These are the essential tips to keep kitchen counters organized.

Most people often have a lot of trouble storing their kitchen utensils. You need to find a good spot where you can find them easily when you are cooking. On the other hand, you might have too many of them such that finding the best ways to store them would be hectic. Here are some of the top smart ways to store your kitchen utensils effectively.

1. Use A Towel Rack

– With S-hooks, you can hang your utensils on towel racks mounted on the wall. You can easily turn them in an evolving display and it would be easier to get them when you are cooking.

2. Use A Pegboard

– Although it’s used for storing tools in a workshop or garage, you can also use a pegboard to store your kitchen tools. You just need a good place to install the pegboard for a good display of your kitchen tools.

3. In A Pitcher

– You can use a stainless steel pitcher to store your kitchen utensils for a great look. You can choose any type of container as long as it can hold your utensils comfortably.

4. Use The Side Of Cabinets

– You might have enough wall space to hang all your utensils and their DIY storage hacks as mentioned above. However, you can hang a few bars or individual hooks on the sides of your cabinet and get instant and smart storage for the utensils.

5. Use Pull-Out Drawers

– Rather than storing the containers on the counter-top, you can use bins and put them in a pull-out cabinet. You will have more space in your kitchen and can use the utensils whenever you need them effortlessly.

It is also important to clean your hood. If you can’t clean it by yourself, you can call a kitchen cleaning services to clean it properly for you. Clean your grease trap regularly to avoid damages and blockage. Grease trap pumping and cleaning service are what you need.

In conclusion, the key to finding smart kitchen storage for your utensils involves choosing something that avoids clutter but leaves enough space for you in the kitchen.

If there’s a flood in your area and water comes inside your whole house or a water leak happens in your kitchen and the water spread out the whole kitchen, you should call a water removal service to clean it up.

When it comes to your special day, of course, you want to look your best. Therefore, it’s imperative to handle your makeup correctly! In this article, we will share some foolproof tips on how to do a wedding makeup.

1. Nothing Reflective

When it comes to eyeshadow, the best way to go is matte. Why? Anything with a sparkly or shiny texture and appearance will end up reflecting back in your wedding photographs. So when shopping for your makeup, stick with matte eyeshadow.

2. Keep It Simple

It’s not recommended that you select a smokey eye for your wedding makeup. In fact, keeping your eyes simple is a great idea. Consider a classic look that you can be happy with when you look back at your wedding photos years after tying the knot. Neutral shades look great, and won’t take away from your wedding day look.

For beautiful eyeshadow, one or two eyeshadow shades look best. Three should be your maximum amount of colors. Place your lightest shade on your brow bone, or the part that is right under your eyebrow. A little bit of this color on the inside of your eye, next to your tear duct, will help you to look awake and alert, as well. A darker shade works best in the crease of your eye, and if you opt for three shades, light shade is ideal for the eyelid, albeit not as light as the shade used for your brow bone.

Use a tiny bit of mascara and eyeliner to round the look out. A bonus tip? For longer and fuller lashes, lightly brush on the foundation before adding a coat of mascara using an eyeshadow brush. Once should be enough. Resist the urge to overapply your mascara. You can also get eyelash extensions to make your whole look more attractive. Eyelash extensions in Oahu can give you high-quality materials at affordable prices.

3. Lip Color

You want to choose a lip color that will last through your day, and be smudge-resistant. Select a shade that is fitting for your theme, but makes sure your lips are dry before application. Use a lip liner close slightly darker than your lip color, and then apply your lipstick (don’t use lip gloss). Blot with tissue paper, and then re-apply. Your lip color will stay and look great for hours.

Do you want to decorate your living room but are not sure where to get started? You can easily make the room look even better by adding all kinds of simple items to it. Most importantly, you are not going to need to spend too much money to decorate because there are a lot of great items that you can easily find at stores that regularly offer steep discounts.

Add an Area Rug to the Floor

You can instantly add something a bit more exciting to the room by placing an area rug on the floor. You can use an area rug on a hardwood floor, tile floor, or even carpeted floor. Simply choose a style, color, and design for the area rug and then center it in the living room. You may want to place it directly in front of the couch or right in the center of the floor between your couch and your television. If your concrete floors have cracks, find a reliable foundation contractor to repair it.

If you saw bed bugs lingering on your couch, curtains or on any corner of your living room, don’t hesitate to call a bed bug pest control service to get rid of all of them.

Add a Painting to the Wall

Create a unique look in your living room by adding a beautiful painting to the wall. You might want to put this painting directly above the couch if you have space on the wall for it. A painting will keep the walls from looking too plain and basic and will offer even more color, excitement, and uniqueness to the room. You can also add an air conditioner to your living room to feel you cool and freshen up. Install it from an air conditioning company near your area.

Hang Up a Photo Collage

Decorate the walls of the living room with a photo collage full of some of your favorite pictures. Include photos of your family and friends because you will love seeing their faces when you are spending time in your living room.

While there are a lot of ways for you to decorate your living room, these are a few of the ideas to consider. You might want to put an area rug on the floor, add a beautiful painting to the wall, and hang up a photo collage on another section of the wall to fill in the empty space. When a flood occurs in your are and your house is full of flood waters, you should call water cleanup service to clean and extract it quickly to avoid property damage.

You can hire a residential remodeling contractor if you want to renovate your living room to make it look not just even better but to look it newer and sturdy.

One of the most popular questions most people have is when should they replace their commonly used household items. Most of these items don’t have a visible expiry date, which can lead to a great amount of confusion. So, with that said, we’ll take a look at when you should replace these items.

Now, the first thing that we will look at is sponges. In particular, if you tend to wash your dishes by hand using a sponge, then it is very important that you replace these every 2 to 8 weeks. If you don’t replace your sponges, then they can become a breeding ground for a host of germs and bacteria. It is best that you also clean them after every use or few uses and you can do this by microwaving the sponge or even boiling it.

Next, we will look at the toothbrush. It is best that you replace your toothbrush every 3 months since the bristles will wear out after a few months and it can also gain a lot of bacteria over time. By replacing your toothbrush regularly, it will ensure that you’re doing your best to keep your teeth and gums clean.

Another household item that you should check and replace regularly is the toilet brush. These don’t have a specific time frame but once it starts to look too old, dirty and grimy, then you should throw it away and get a new one.

Look at the damage wirings or outlets not working. Oahu electrical repair has a professional and licensed electrician to check and fix it for you.

Your pillows are another item that should be replaced at least once every 2 years. This is extremely important since these tend to collect skin cells, germs, dust mites and bacteria almost every night. Of course, you can wash your pillows to increase their life but once they don’t feel as supportive as they once did, then it is time to replace them.

You should replace your old roof, especially it has a hole. Roofing Maui has quality materials and excellent customer service.

Consider adding a new layer of stucco of your home. This can have a range of positive effects on your home, but best of all it can really increase its visual appeal. If you have a pool, you can resurface or recoat it from a pool repair service.

You should repair or replace your rotten decks at home from a skilled deck contractor for safety.

In closing, we have just looked at when you should replace common household items. Be sure to research more on other household items and when you should replace them to ensure that your home is as clean and healthy as possible.

There comes a time when your decor may feel a little stale and your home could use freshening up. Spending money makes it easy to update your home decor, but there are plenty of ways to make your home fresh again without spending anything!

Go Green: Adding a bit of greenery to your home can make it feel clean and breezy. Take a walk outside and clip branches with leaves or other greenery that you find appealing. Use a modern vase to display your new botanicals! Let your trees in your backyard taking care by tree services like trimming and pruning.

Use Old Paint: We all have a half-empty bucket of paint lying around, but you can use yours to give your home a facelift. Paint an accent wall for interest or update one of your pieces of furniture using your remaining paint. You may even wish to use it to stencil interesting graphics on existing painted pieces. Remove or dispose of junks from your home or any items of furniture that you’re not using anymore to make space. You can call a junk disposal service with the best rates to do it.

Rearrange Your Room: A new layout is all it takes to make everything old feel fresh again. Grab a piece of graph paper and try re-designing the layout of your room. It helps to create elements in scale so you can move the pieces around as you desire. Consider adding an air conditioner if you have a budget for it. It makes your room feel cool and fresh. You can install it from Maui ac that has excellent customer service. If you saw bed bugs or other insects lingering around your home, contact a bed bug extermination company to remove them.

Re-imagine Context: The way we perceive our decor in the context everything is in today often contributes to a feeling of boredom. Re-imagining how you display your things can make you feel more favorable towards items that are boring to you.

Get Pinterest Ideas: Snag great ideas from interior designers and DIY decorators to make your decor more modern. Ranging from DIY makeovers and vignettes, you can gather great inspiration from Pinterest.

You can build a balcony in your home to have a place to relax and feel the wind outside. You can also do a custom deck from a company that suits your budget.

Making your home feel fresh is as easy as gathering the right tools and ideas to revamp what you own. With a bit of ingenuity, you can cozy up your living space and see things in a new way.

If you’re traveling to a new area, you might not want to rely on public transportation to get around. Instead, you’ll want to see if you can find affordable car rentals. If you explore all of your different options, you’ll be able to get a great car without spending a ton of cash.

Check Out Numerous Rental Companies

If you want to find reasonably-priced options, you’re going to want to take more than one choice into consideration. Instead, you should look at a few different rental companies and see what their rates are like. You may want to make a list of all of your options so that you can compare prices more accurately.

When you do compare rental options, you’ll want to make sure that the pricing information you’re looking at is completely accurate. You won’t want to make decisions based on special offers that you’re not able to take advantage of. Find out what it will cost to work with a few different rental companies in the area you’re visiting.

Look At Different Vehicles

In some cases, the cost of renting a car is going to vary wildly based on the type of car you are renting. For example, if you want to rent a luxury vehicle, you can expect to pay significantly more per day.

Think about what you need from your rental car. You should find a car that has the seating that you need. However, if a cheaper option is available to you, you should consider if the more expensive vehicle is actually worth the higher costs.

Consider All Your Expenses

The rental company isn’t the only place that will be getting money from you when you book a car. You’re also going to be spending money to fuel your vehicle. If you wind up renting a car that has poor gas mileage, then the total cost of gas could wind up bring your expenses up.

You won’t want to overlook the cost of gas, and you won’t want to ignore any hidden fees either. Think about what you’ll be paying if you rent different cars. Make sure you’re aware of all the information before proceeding.

Look for affordable car rentals and see what you can do to save.

Important to save the contact number of a towing service in case of any car problems. Maui crane services have employees that are skilled professionals with years of experience in their respective fields.

You’ve gotten the wedding pictures, you may have ordered the large pictures through your photographer or elsewhere, now what?  Now, you can make a photo book!  As soon as I got my pictures on CDs I went to work on photo books.  They are not only wonderful things to have in your house, but they also make great presents for family and wedding party.

Picaboo

I had purchased a Groupon for Picaboo to get a few photo books because they offer the lay-flat pages that are ever so awesome for photo books.  I got to work and was incredibly disappointed by the lack of layouts for Picaboo.  For our wedding photo books, I wanted black backgrounds and just fill the pages with images and no text.  For some reason, this wasn’t really working the way that I wanted for Picaboo, but I had the Groupon and had several photo books I needed to gift.  I ended up getting: two 6×8’s to gift, two 8.5 x 11’s with lay-flat pages to gift, and a 12×12 with lay-flat pages for us, since those were covered by the Groupon.  Overall, I was satisfied with the final products, except one of the 8.5 x 11’s had some pages with ink smearing.  It wasn’t on the pictures, it was on the binding, so I didn’t want to deal with complaining since I was, by then, full swing in school.  I did get the books pretty fast after I ordered them with regular shipping.  The last thing I wasn’t a big fan of was the user interface and I don’t think it’s something I would get used to.

What I got: for each photo book, I got the Classic Custom with photos that can take up the front cover, spine, and back cover.  I didn’t want the leather or linen-bound.  I wanted a picture to go all over the front cover and that not only seemed like the most appealing option, but it was also what the Groupon covered.  There are many different styles, however, and you can go here for styles and pricing.

Shutterfly

As you all may or may not know, I am a huge fan of Shutterfly.  I receive those lovely orange packages a few times a year.  Though I don’t recommend them for the larger prints, I do recommend them for photo books.  I tried not having a bias going into the process, because I’ve used a bunch of different services for photo books in my lifetime.  But there is a reason I keep going back to Shutterfly.

The user interface for me is much more friendly.  There are two different ways you can create a photobook: the Custom Path or the Simple Path.  I generally use the Custom path because there is a lot more freedom to do your own thing, but I have used Simple Path for just throwing books quickly together.

As far as layouts, there are a plethora of options to choose for layouts and picture placement.  And with the Custom Path, you can go in an edit individual pages even more with the ability to resize, move things around, etc.  It’s a dream for people like me.

Shutterfly is always having deals and such that can really save money.

At the time of ordering my main wedding book, Shutterfly did not have lay flat pages.  I wish they did, but ordered my main book without lay-flat, simply because I just wanted to have more freedom to create our main photo book recounting our beautiful wedding.  I ordered over 100 pages to the book and they had buy one get one free for pages at the time of ordering, plus free shipping on orders of $30 (a frequent deal), a magnet for our fridge, and I purchased a few 5×7 photo books with BOGO pricing as well for international family as gifts, then I got a whole bunch of prints from them because they were having a 50% off large prints sale.  All of this is a win for me.

Lastly, Shutterfly has always had quick delivery for it’s the cheapest delivery option.  I would get the packages 7-10 days after purchasing (since they still have to do the processing and printing of the products).  If I’m just getting prints, I normally get my orange packages sooner than that.

Except like two weeks later they launched lay-flat pages.  So now, they have wonderful lay-flat pages for all your photo book needs!  I’m so upset about that personally because I already spent my budget for wedding pictures and photo books, but I am determined to get our main wedding album with lay-flat pages one day because we have several pages in the book with full spreads (that span across the two pages), another wonderful option that Shutterfly offers.

Again, I might be biased, but you can see why!

For photobook sizing and pricing, click here.

One major annoyance: they have to have barcodes on the back of their books.  Why, Shutterfly, why?  This is incredibly annoying.  I guess I’m just glad they are on the back, but if there is a photo on the back it just can be ruined!  You are the only one that does this to my knowledge!

Other Options

I would love to give all of you a fair review of all the different services for you, but I simply don’t have enough money in order to fully give the experience a fair review (which, to me, includes the quality of the printing).  But, if either of you uses the following, let me know and I would love to use your reviews!

• Blurb
• iPhoto
• Lulu
• Mixbook*
• MyCanvas
• My Publisher
• Picasa
• Smilebooks
• Snapfish
• Tiny Prints

* I have previously created photobooks using Mixbook and did enjoy the experience.  It has been a while so I can not offer an up-to-date review, but they seem to be adding more options for books, which I am excited about for you!  It also is apparently one of the best out there.

When I first started creating photo books, I used iPhoto.  I found they were pretty pricey and didn’t offer discounts and specials so I stopped using them completely.  If this has changed, let me know!

Lastly, here is a website that compared some of the photo book companies.

Disclaimer: other than my professional large print pictures, I do order my calendars, photo books, and prints from Shutterfly.  I also have a Shutterfly Share Site to share pictures with our family and friends from the wedding, family events, or other such occasions.  Shutterfly is no way in affiliation with this post, they are simply my favorite, go-to service for photo creations because they have always been easy to use, offer a variety of options, offer frequent discounts and special offers as incentives, and always produce quality printing.