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Here’s Why Great Furniture Doesn’t Need To Break The Bank…

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Furniture is something that almost everyone will wind up buying at some point in their life. Even if you lead a spartan existence chances are you will still have a need for a few basic pieces of furniture such as a bed, a table, some chairs and the like.

While furniture can be expensive, you don’t have to break your wallet to buy it. There are a lot of things a savvy consumer can do to make sure they get high quality furniture without paying ridiculous amounts of money.

The truth is that no matter what you do, there is going to be some cost to buying furniture. It costs money to get the materials to make it and it costs money to pay the people who make it. However, while there is a cost to furniture, there are also ways to make sure you don’t pay more than you have to.

Search Online

As with most things, you can find great deals on furniture online. In fact a lot of people who do handmade furniture rely on internet traffic to make their business profitable. While you can find some great deals on furniture online there are two big problems with this.

The first is that you have no way to test the furniture. While you can see how it looks and generally read what other customers have said about the furniture, you can’t test it out. The second problem with buying furniture online is getting it to your house.

While there are many different ways to ship furniture, it can be pretty pricey to get delivered to you. So if you buy furniture online, keep an eye on what it is going to cost you to get it shipped to your house. Ideally you are looking for companies that make the shipping part of the sales price.

Look in Classifieds

The classified section of your paper is a great place to find good deals on furniture. While most of what is offered is used, some of it is actually still fairly new. Also because furniture can be expensive, a lot of people work really hard to take care of their stuff.

When you look in the classifieds for furniture you might also want to keep an eye out for estate sales or similar things since furniture is often a large part of these events.

Wait for the Going Out of Business Sale

If you have ever paid much attention to furniture store commercials, it seems like they are always going out of business. While there are actually some furniture stores that do go out of business, a lot of the times these ads are made simply to get you in their store for a big sale.

These sales are a great time to find excellent bargains on furniture. While most of the time these sales are actually clearance sales to make room for the new models of everything, the furniture is still worth having even if it is not the newest stuff out there.

In the end, it really is pretty easy to find good deals on high quality furniture. The main thing to keep in mind is that you need to be a little patient and willing to do some looking. Don’t give up if you don’t find anything at first, keep looking and keep waiting for a deal to show up.

There are lots of good deals on furniture out there and if you can be patient and put some effort into finding it, you don’t have to break your bank to get furniture.

Attached Images:
  •  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/15073

This article has been submitted by Jim Murray, a freelance writer based in Australia who’s written for FactoryFast as well as many other websites and businesses.

Make Your Green Thumb Sweetie A Gardener Gift Basket

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If you have an avid gardener in your life or just someone who likes to be amist the flowers and plants, give her a gift basket with a garden theme this year. A gardener’s gift basket is one of the loveliest and most thoughtful things you can give someone who loves to plant and nurture their garden.

The Basket/Container

Consider what you will put your basket in. It doesn’t have to be a true basket, just something that will hold all the items. Consider a bell jar. These glasses resemble upside down wine glasses without the stems. They are perfect for starting and growing seedlings or one perfect plant. You can include everything inside and tie with a nice fat ribbon.

What to Include

Start with a pair of gardening gloves. They can be any color, just make sure they are the size that will fit your friend. Then, include a nail brush and gardener’s soap so that she can scrub her hands clean after playing in the dirt. A garden tool set in miniature is perfect if she likes to work in a greenhouse or with potted indoor plants. They’re also great if she likes terrariums.

Other things you can include are seed packets. If you know she loves flowers, go with all flowers. Or do a mix of vegetable seeds if you know she loves to tend her vegetable garden. A gardening book tailored to her interest is a nice idea. If she’s talking about making a shade garden or a raised bed garden this year, there are books specifically on those topics. Or if you don’t know what she might already have on her bookshelf, give her a gift certificate to a garden shop or bookstore that sells gardening books.

Also include sunblock for when she’s out in the sun, a hat that rolls up would also fit in the basket. You can also include a lip balm in a nice fragrance. Anything she might use when she’s out gardening is perfect.  A gardening themed t-shirt can be rolled up and placed in the basket as well.

If you’re stumped for what to give your gardening friend, go for a trug. These baskets are made for gathering flowers or fruits and vegetables. Any garden catalog or store will have them. Then, you can fill it with flowers and a gift certificate to a nursery that you know she loves. Throw in a magazine subscription about gardening and your gardening gift basket is all set.

A nice set of gardening sheers can be a great addition and a kneeling pad will save her knees. If you know her shoe size, go ahead and include gardening clogs. You might include a wind chime or another outdoor decoration that she can use in her garden and think of you.

Gardeners are a special breed. They love what they do whether they do it as a job or as a hobby. You will show how much you care about their interests and how you really went out of your way to make a gift that they will enjoy. Start making baskets today and you may make baskets for all your birthday and holiday gifting needs. It can be so much fun!

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Barbara Petersen is a crafty writer with a special interest in gift giving and party planning. She regularly contributes to the All About Gifts & Baskets Idea Blog, put on by http://www.aagiftsandbaskets.com.

How to Make Moving Home Less Stressful

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Moving home is one of the most stressful experiences life has to offer, along with getting married and the loss of a loved one. As with everything, there are certain things you can do to make the experience go a lot smoother and reduce some of the stress. Try following these simple steps to help make sure your move goes to plan!

Have Back-Up Plans

You may have the perfect vision planned out for the day of your move, but life has its own plans, which will almost certainly throw a spanner in the works and veer something off course. If you’re lucky, your day will go exactly as planned, but it’s almost certain that at least one thing will go wrong – so be prepared and have a contingency plan for every step of the journey!

Hire Professional Movers

It’s tempting to try to skimp on costs and recruit friends and family to help you make the move, but with such a momentous and stressful task, it’s much easier to hire a professional removal company. Professional movers have moving home down to an art: they can supply you with everything you need to get packed up and ready to go, and then they’ll do all the heavy lifting and deal with the transportation of your stuff. If you really can’t afford to hire professionals, then you should definitely make sure you over-recruit on the friends and family front! There are sure to be things you’ve overlooked, or things that take longer than planned, so it can’t hurt to have extra people on hand to help – they probably won’t end up being “extra” after all!

Allow Plenty of Time to Pack

Packing is probably the part people dread the most about moving home. Just how exactly do you box up your entire life? Allow yourself plenty of time to get everything done when you know for sure that the move will be going ahead.

Organise Your Packing

By allowing yourself plenty of time to pack, you’ll have the leisure of organising your boxes properly, making the transition into your new home much smoother. Before you even get started with packing, you should declutter your entire home and get rid of anything you won’t need in your new house. Anything you haven’t used for months, or even years, can be donated to charity or sold beforehand – that way you’ll have that much less to pack! You should also pack by room and category so you know where to find things as you get settled into your new place.

Keep Essentials Close

The things you use regularly – at least once every day – should be kept nearby. Either keep these things with you when you travel yourself, or pack them last so they’re the first thing to emerge when you unpack. Having toiletries and kitchen utensils you use every day close to hand will mean your regular day-to-day activities such as washing and cooking won’t get thrown off track by the move. And don’t forget to pack the toilet paper last of all!

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Matthew Sanders, the author of this article is a very perceptive man. He is working with MetroMovers, a removal company in Sydney. They are known to provide the best service that too at affordable prices.

Christmas Flowers Advice

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As children, Christmas is a time when we can hardly wait to get the presents open, but as an adult the key to enjoying Christmas is giving before you get. Simple gifts are the best choice; flowers are one of the best options out there. They are beautiful, have a special meaning and are always appreciated.

The growth outdoors is fairly sparse at this time of year, but that is why we start bringing as much of the outdoors inside as possible. Our bright and decorative Christmas trees not only add warmth to the home but they also bring a bit of the mystery of the forest with them.

When giving Christmas flowers, you can go for a rustic style, if the arrangement has a few branches or pinecones as decoration; you will already have a bit of the Christmas spirit in the design.

Wreaths are also something that should not be left out at Christmas; they do not have to be simple branches with red and green ribbon. Floral accents can really bring a wreath to its full potential. There are many wreaths available now with dried flowers, that will last through the cold months of Christmas and will be the first beautiful accent to welcome your guests.

A favourite Christmas flower is the poinsettia, and this is not a bloom you should leave out during this season. These can be found in the standard bright red colour, but are also available in white or even pink.  These plants can really make a dinner table complete, and are never the wrong gift to give. One interesting fact about this plant is that the coloured ‘petals’ of this flower are actually just foliage, called ‘bracts’, the small yellow centres of this plant are the actual flowers.

This flower is native to Mexico, and it is common practice to use tropical flowers as a part of Christmas décor. For example, Christmas cactus is also a popular flower at this time of year.

Though you will soon see poinsettia blooming on every corner, be careful when selecting your plant. Often the flowers you buy in stores are set out on display for a long time and their quality tends to suffer. If you want to avoid this problem and the crowded shops, have your flowers delivered to friends and family. Some unexpected flowers at the front door are always a welcome treat.

This post is produced by London flower delivery company Flowers24hours.co.uk

I should go back to making jewelery

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I can’t believe how high the price of gold is. It just keeps climbing higher and higher. I wonder when the price will start going down again?

Did you know that I used to be a jeweller? Yeah … back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Yep. I made gold jewelery. I worked for a company that made jewelery from scratch – from wax mold, to castings, then polishing and assembling each and every piece.

When I worked in the jewelery trade Gold reached a price of about $800 an ounce and at the time that was the highest price it had ever been, but now that gold is at about $1338 an ounce that makes the jewelery that I was making seem like discount jewelry!

Hmmm Maybe I should get back into the jewelery trade? Nah … I left it for a reason – I enjoyed the work, but I hated the atmosphere. By the early 90’s I’d opened my own business and I worked 16 or more hours a day (like I do now as webmaster!) but my clients were extremely demanding, cheap and well … rude. I don’t want to go back to that again.

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