Most people who are looking at building their own home always assumed that they would be able to have a fairly large place to live in. Unfortunately, the changing economy has put us in a position where many of us have to downgrade our plans. As a result, more and more people are forced to look at small house plans instead of plans for larger homes.
The key to getting comfortable with the idea that you’re going to be living in a smaller home than you had originally planned is to start envisioning yourself in a smaller home. Daydream about ways that you can use small spaces to show off your style and create a place that’s going to bring comfort to your every day life. Consider garage floor plans that will maximize storage and studio space so that your home has all you need even though it’s not as big as you once hoped.
There are places like Archway Press which have home plans for you to look at. Taking the time to review these can be a great way to start seeing yourself in a smaller home. You’ll get a sense of what you do like and what you don’t like and you’ll start picturing ways that you can incorporate your own personality into the small home. Being thrifty doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself in the process.
Scrapbooking is pretty hip these days. For example, a mother I babysit for keeps a scrapbook for each kid; each page is an artistic creation (even if it all did most likely come out of a kit).
I’ve gotten into scrapbooking a little bit, though for the most part I find that I just don’t have time for it. I started a scrapbook for my husband and I when we first started dating, and I’ve finished all the pages for our honeymoon — just need to find a book for them, and do our wedding album. Scrapbooking is just time-consuming, and I’m so busy as it is that I don’t have much time for it!
If you do decide to get into scrapbooking, here are some materials you will need:
A scrapbook. There are a couple of different kinds. I like the ones with clear plastic pouches that you slide the pages into. To add more pages, you take apart the binding and expand it by adding metal screw-on post expanders. The entire thing then screws back together at the binding.
Colored or patterned backgrounds. Scrapbook and craft stores sell pages that are already cut to scrapbook size (12 inches by 12 inches). These come in a variety of colors, patterns, and themes.
Die-cut stickers, shapes, and decals. Some of these come in kits that also include the backgrounds.
Paper cutters. For instance, Creative Memories (a Colorado-based company that makes and distributes scrapbook supplies) has small guillotine cutters that they call personal trimmers, which are used for trimming photos and cutting out shapes using die-cut patterns. When I worked at a preschool, we had electric paper cutters that created die-cut letters and shapes.
Decorative pens, markers, etc. I personally would rather do some of my own calligraphy than use the die-cut letters you can buy. Pens and markers are always handy to have.
Scrapbooking is tons of fun, so if you have enough time — or enough memories worth preserving — I highly recommend it. Just be aware that it is a time hog, and generally requires more time than most people have available for such a hobby!
I used to have a friend by the name of Chris, whom we called "Little Chris." We called him this because, well, he was little — only about four feet tall. We also had another friend named Chris, so we needed a way to tell them apart in conversation.
Little Chris had probably failed to get much height growth because of a growth hormone deficiency. He was older than the rest of us, so he would have been born in the early or mid-1960s. Back then, not as much was known about growth hormone deficiency; now they have growth hormone therapy, where artificial human growth hormone is used to replace what the child’s body doesn’t naturally make — kind of like insulin shots for diabetics (insulin being another kind of hormone).
Even now it might not be too late. Some sites recommend NOT continuing growth hormone therapy past when the growth plates have closed, but there are also companies that sell growth hormones to help adults grow taller — for example, a treatment system called Growth Flex. According to testimonials on the websites for these supplements, the actually do offer good ways to grow taller later in life.
Maybe all is not lost for those adults who had growth hormone deficiencies before growth hormone therapy was invented in 1985!
Setting up an online storefront is going to require you to make use of ecommerce software. This is the software that will let you set up a site that has shopping cart functions for your customers and organizational tracking tools for you. To determine which ecommerce software is the best ecommerce software for you, you’re going to need to do a quick assessment of your level of experience and comfort in working with computers.
Ecommerce software is typically marketed to one of two groups: website developers and merchants. The software that is marketed towards developers sometimes has more advanced functions and allows for more flexibility in creating a uniquely designed website. However, this level of ecommerce software is going to require the user to have some advanced computer skills.
Do a quick read-through of the features on any ecommerce software vendor’s site and you’ll be able to get a good idea of how strong your knowledge for this type of program is. Do you know what an asp shopping cart is? Do you understand the basics of search engine optimization? If these are things that you are comfortable with, then you can probably proceed with software that is designed for developers. If not, look to software that is geared specifically towards merchants so that setting up your site will be simple.