Organize (and Decorate) Your Home on a Budget with Baskets

What's an item that can help you organize every room in your home, helps create the appearance that you're a tidy housekeeper (even if you're not), and perks up your decorating scheme?Need another hint?It comes in all shapes, sizes, colors and materials and can be found in many local retail stores, including craft stores and discount retailers, and at flea markets and craft shows and well basically it's a universal item found all over the world. You probably have one right now in your home.It's a basket! So the next time someone gives you one filled with anything from sweets to colognes, don't discard it once you've used what's in it. Once the items are gone, the basket's job has only just begun. Read onward to find out how to use this wonderful item in every room in your house. For instance, in the kitchen, you can use hanging wall pocket baskets, which have flat backs, to store dry sponges and scrubbers as well as pot holders, oven mitts, dry dish rags and spare kitchen hand towels.And in your family room or den, you might use a deep, round or cylindrical shaped basket on the coffee table to hold television or other electronic remotes.

A basket made of rags will slide without scratching (or put a doily underneath). (Imagine never losing the television remote again because you have an assigned place to put it in full view--that blends in with your home decor.)And in the bedroom, a wicker hamper with a lid in the closet can store extra pillows and keep them dust-free. If you see openings in the wicker slats or don't like your linens snagging on the inside of the basket, line the hamper with a sheet or large gallon trash bag.The ideas for using these globally designed and sold products that have been around for decades are infinite. And probably no product is so practical and useful as well as beautiful. (And modestly priced too!) Baskets are handmade works of art that are functional.

Imagine serving drinks on that glorious one-of-a-kind painting you have hanging on the wall. Not! But with baskets you can literally put your most unique artwork into daily usage and daily view.Baskets come in many sizes, shapes and materials such as willow, rattan, bamboo, rope, palm leaf, wire and rags. And many are adorned with metal garnishes, dried coco flowers, gugo vine handles and more.It's that variety of qualities that make baskets so easy to organize AND decorate with simultaneously. And you don't have to take a basket as it comes. Dress up any of your baskets by gluing on your own garnishments.

For example, craft stores sell all types of trinkets you can glue on your baskets. Be creative. Try personalizing your baskets with anything from buttons to plastic candy canes to miniature toy figures or mini cloth stockings. You could also buy miniature toys and figurines from typical large discount retailers or smaller dollar stores. (What fun to do by yourself or with your children).

And when you're done, you can still put that basket to work in an organizational function in your home---only it will have twice the value to you (the purchase price plus the priceless sentimental value).(c) 2004 Karen Fritscher-Porter.

Excerpted from the book entitled How to Organize and Decorate with Baskets by Karen Fritscher-Porter. Learn how to get your own copy at http://www.OrganizeWithBaskets.com.

Paris Soap Company Finest Quality Natural Skin Care Products For 100 Years

Finest Quality Natural Skin Care Products For 100 YearsA selection of handmade natural soaps and other natural skin care products to pamper your skin Paris Soap Company's line of natural products focuses on handmade herbal soaps and body products.
All of our handmade soap recipes contain pure, food-grade quality oils of coconut, olive and vegetable, pure essential oils and
organic herbs & spices. We use the superior cold processing method to insure a long lasting and gentle natural skin care product.
If you are serious about your skin care, natural skin care products are for you.Today, commercial soap is manufactured in a process known as the continuous method which is completely different from a handmade natural soap recipe. The commercial soap is produced in huge containers where the ingredients are continuously added at one end of the vat while soap is continuously removed from the other.

During the process, glycerin is removed and sold as a byproduct...

Paris Soap Company Finest Quality Natural Skin Care Products For 100 Years
Baskets > Paris Soap Company Finest Quality Natural Skin Care Products For 100 Years

The Fans of Star Trek: Enterprise are in a Word...ENTERPRISING

Fans of the show have long felt the network's promotion has been both meager and haphazard, making it more difficult for the series to find and retain an audience. Talk on various fan boards expresses particular disappointment about what some perceive as minimal advertisement of the new time slot. (Fridays 8pm ET/PT)
Not content to sit idly by, various fan groups joined together under the banner of
Enterpriseproject.org to herald the Season Four premiere and show support for the cast and crew.
No strangers to offering encouragement in clever and productive ways, some of the groups have shown individual character support through such measures as making a quilt to represent the "interesting" shirt choices of actor Connor Trinneer, creating scrap books for the show's principal cast members, and contributing to those actor's favorite charities.
Past endeavors have involved raising funds for a variety of good causes in the actors' honor;
Save the...

The Fans of Star Trek: Enterprise are in a Word...ENTERPRISING
Baskets > The Fans of Star Trek: Enterprise are in a Word...ENTERPRISING

Local Garden Designer Discovers The Garden Link To Britain

In early February, the BBC headline read "Town Bans Hanging Baskets: A group of flower enthusiasts has been hit with a ban on some hanging baskets after fears they posed a public risk"-for the townspeople of Bury St Edmunds, it looked as though the town's annual summer floral display, "Bury in Bloom," would be compromised when the Suffolk City Council issued a warning that the town's lampposts could not withstand the weighty, hanging baskets of geraniums and fuchsias that summer, and posed a safety risk despite Bury in Bloom's enjoying a seventeen-year history without incident. Leeann Lavin, garden specialist, landscape designer, and garden historian of Duchess Designs, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, acted quickly upon hearing news of the ban. Lavin promptly located the town, contacted Michael Ames, committee chairman of Bury in Bloom, and donated a selection from The Garden Pendant Collection??, her innovative and artfully designed lightweight hanging planters from Duchess Designs...

Local Garden Designer Discovers The Garden Link To Britain
Baskets > Local Garden Designer Discovers The Garden Link To Britain

Virgil's Fine Soaps Announces New Men's Gift Baskets that Appeal to the Average Guy

Troy, OH (ContentDesk) August 12, 2005 ?
With the holidays fast approaching, one common problem persists. What do you buy your favorite guy? If a plasma TV is a bit out of your price range, and he already has a lifetime supply of golf balls and sports jerseys, Virgil's Fine Soaps offers a solution by
announcing the launch of their one-of-a-kind Fisherman's Friend Soap & Gift Baskets. The baskets are an extension of their popular line of hand poured soaps for hardworking hands and provide an alternative to the "blah" holiday gifts guys usually get under the tree. Women love the baskets because Virgil's premium handsoap fights strong odors of fish, garlic and tobacco while it scrubs and moisturizes hands. Guys love the bakets because the soap isn't flowery and they have a lot of useful fishing tools inside.

Virgil, the President (and avid fisherman) oversaw the development of the baskets and made sure that everything in the baskets was legitimite and useful. "Average...

Virgil's Fine Soaps Announces New Men's Gift Baskets that Appeal to the Average Guy
Baskets > Virgil's Fine Soaps Announces New Men's Gift Baskets that Appeal to the Average Guy