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Family Financial, Health, and Recreation News
Candle Accessories for Your Home
February 28, 2007
Posted in General Family @ 1:00 pmQuickly bookmark Candle Accessories for Your Home at:
Do you like decorating with candles in your home? Almost any room in the house or an apartment can accommodate candle use, as long as you set it up safely and don’t leave candles unsupervised. Although you may think of candles primarily as table ornaments or birthday decorator items for a cake, there are many uses to which you can put candles, and their accessories, to make your home more warm and inviting.
Consider adding wall sconces along your central staircase. Use the electric kind to prevent fire hazards. These candles may run from batteries in their base or by electric plug-in cords. Wall candles add a lovely, romantic feel to a stairwell, creating a sense of intimacy and perhaps an old fashion look to blend with your decorating style. Wall sconces work well outside oft-used rooms, like the bathroom, as well as home offices, dens, and family rooms. You can get faux candles for your sconces just to be sure no one accidentally lights them to create a potential fire hazard.
Votive candles add a decorative touch around the holidays, especially. Set out a candle ring of plastic, vinyl, or fabric flora, taking care that it is fireproof before lighting the candle at its center. Smaller candles can be placed around the main one as accents in color-coded arrangements that emphasize certain holiday or pastel shadings for purposeful design. Votive candles may be white, but then are placed inside colored glass holders. These make great Advent or Easter centerpieces, as well as table decorations for religious celebrations like First Communion, baptism, or church membership.
Large, round candles help to create attractive centerpieces for holiday themes, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or even Memorial Day. Trim the candle base with related decorator craft items, albeit it fabric, flowers, or a basket, and add whatever else helps to make the candle fit the occasion.
Special dinner celebrations can be commemorated with candle centerpieces or candelabra in the center of the table or on a side area, like a buffet. The candelabra may represent spiritual significance for events like Passover or Christmas, or they can simply add a romantic touch to the evening. Use a flame quencher to put out each candle when you are ready to extinguish them.
Candles do not need to be lit to become part of an attractive centerpiece or decorator item. For example, you can attach a candle to the center of a wreath without lighting it. Candles at either end of your fireplace mantel make a nice touch, as do a cluster of varied size candles in the hearth when your fireplace is not in use.
Use candles to add intimacy, romance, or mysticism to your next gathering for guests or just for your family. Few decorating objects add so much ambiance as a candle, especially one that is scented. Small and tall, or large and wide, candles that are wisely used can bring any room to life.
About the author:
Let CandleCase offer helpful decorating tips when you stop by their website at The Candle Case
Read more about candles at our website.
Tell-Tale Signs of Chronic Bronchitis
Posted in General Family @ 10:00 amQuickly bookmark Tell-Tale Signs of Chronic Bronchitis at:
Bronchitis is defined as a disease with acute inflammation of the respiratory tract. The term is basically coined from the Greek words bronchos, which means windpipe, and itis, meaning inflammation. Bronchitis takes place when the trachea or windpipe and the bronchi (both small and large) become inflamed which is likely caused by an infection or other factors. Bronchitis has two types, acute and chronic. Acute bronchitis is mainly caused by viral or ba… Please see our site at Bronchitis for more information.
Aromatherapy Favorites - Beautiful Rose Oil
February 25, 2007
Posted in General Family @ 7:00 amQuickly bookmark Aromatherapy Favorites - Beautiful Rose Oil at:
Ah, Wonderful Rose Oil If there’s an aroma that more individuals find deeply moving than any other, it is the oil of rose. The scent is divinely sweet, rich, and deeply floral - exclusive to the extract of history’s most revered flower. Though the rose is renown for it’s fragrance, the flower actually contains very little aromatic oil by weight. Some 60,000 roses are needed to distill a single ounce of oil, or about 60 roses PER DROP, a fact which brings the seemly high cost of rose oil into perspective. The Flower of Love The hardy nature of the thorny rose bush and the flower’s magnificent beauty make it a horticulturalist’s dream. The genus Rosa has some 150 species spread around the globe, being cultivated in your grandmother’s backyard garden, in vast fields in Bulgaria’s Valley of Roses, and everywhere in between. Roses have somewhat of a unique past, peppered with interesting stories and extravagant displays of affection. The flower’s association with devotion was perhaps most wonderfully expressed during the Roman empire, with banquet halls being carpeted with petals. Cleopatra once received her beloved Marc Antony in a room literally knee-deep in rose petals - how’s that for greeting? Roses are the unrivaled symbol of love, given dear ones through the ages as an affirmation of true affection. It’s no wonder the flower’s oil has great healing properties, both physically and emotionally, for the human heart. Rose’s health Benefits With it’s considerable therapeutic and aesthetic value, the ‘queen of the flowers’ had a special place in medicine and perfumery in the ancient civilizations of Persia, Egypt, India, Greece and Rome. The modern healing tradition of the extract of rose began in the 17 th century with the writings of English physician Nicholas Culpeper. The herbalist described the use of red roses to strengthen the heart, it’s cooling and astringent actions, and its effect on headaches and tired eyes. Perhaps inspiring it’s use as a beauty tonic ‘par-excellence’, he went on to suggest it’s use as a remedy for a variety of skin complaints. In aromatherapy, the psychological effects are wondrous for those with a broken heart, or other emotional wounds. Rose oil calms and supports the heart center, inspiring a sense of happiness and well-being. When rejection or loss has injured one’s ability to love and nurture, either themselves or those around them, rose oil can bring sweet and gentle comfort and allow an emotional ‘re-opening’. Use in Aromatherapy It is the Bulgarian Damask rose, or Rosa Damacena, most often used in aromatherapy. The oil of this 36-petaled beauty is available in two forms: the ‘otto’, or true essential oil, and the ‘absolute’. Harvest of the flowers occurs in the early morning, before the sun’s rays has warmed away the aroma. Rose otto is made in a two step steam-distillation process; the first distillation yields an essential oil and a large amount of ‘rose water’. The water is again distilled, producing an oil which is combined with that from the first distillation. The absolute is made with a different process entirely. Similar in a way to ‘effleurage’ (the pressing of petals in fat to produce an extract), the flowers are processed in a solvent, with a wax-like ‘concrete’ being produced. Through a second extraction of the concrete, rose absolute is yielded. This method is significantly more efficient than steam distillation, producing nearly 7 pounds of oil per 10,000 pounds of roses (distillation yields 1 pound oil per 10,000 pounds of roses), with a corresponding lower cost. Does one produce a better oil? There is certainly debate; while some argue that traces of solvent are likely to exist in the absolute, others claim the heat of distillation does not result in a true representation of the flower. And as with either method, the quality and effect of the oil varies greatly with the experience and care of the manufacturer - the answer truly lies with the individual and the application. Using Rose Oil of rose can be utilized in a number of ways; it is very gentle, being suitable for use on the skin ‘neat’, in massage oil, and in a bath, as well as in a diffuser. As a perfume, the absolute can be worn directly on the skin - it’s ‘tenacious’ quality will have the aroma slowly released for many hours. For therapeutic use for the emotions, a dilution of 10% of otto or absolute in jojoba oil is often used, being massaged into the heart area - a diffuser is very effective for this purpose as well. The absolute or otto can also be added in small amounts to any skin cream, though using a home-made natural recipe is often the nicest. Rose water, or hydrosol, the water resulting from the distillation process of rose otto, can also be used directly on the skin, with it’s mild astringent and toning properties. A rose and lavender facial cream can be made using the following recipe: Melt ounce of beeswax in 4 ounces of jojoba using a double boiler. Add 3 ounces of distilled water in a thin stream while stirring vigorously with a wire whisk. Remove from heat and continue stirring while adding 20 drops of rose oil (absolute or otto) and 15 drops of lavender. Allow to cool, then enjoy this wonderful homemade cream for sensitive skin. There are, of course, many ways to enjoy rose oil’s benefits. It is revered on many levels, from its pure aesthetic aromatic beauty, to its physiological healing and emotional uplifting. True rose oil, with its great depth and sweetness, is easily appreciated by almost all who experience this natural wonder. About the Author Misty Rae Cech is a Naturopath in Boulder, Colorado. She enjoys Rose oil for it’s many applications, along with other aromatherapy essential oils.
Read more about rose gardens at our website.
Baby Boomers Year Born Events in the Year When Baby Boomers are Born Shaped Their Lives
February 24, 2007
Posted in General Family @ 12:00 amQuickly bookmark Baby Boomers Year Born Events in the Year When Baby Boomers are Born Shaped Their Lives at:
The U.S experienced a birthrate that was exceptionally high from 1946 to 1964. This is known as the baby boom generation. Because of their large population, they created profound impact on the economy and society all throughout their lives. What shaped their mentality and perception of the world was the situations and issues of their time. All of these has shaped what we know the world today.
<... Please see our site at Baby Boomers for more information.
Giving Your Cat A Pill
February 23, 2007
Posted in General Family @ 8:00 pmQuickly bookmark Giving Your Cat A Pill at:
Giving a cat a pill can be a nightmare. No cat wants something shoved down his throat, and he will fight you tooth and nail to prevent it. Although most cats are small in size, you’d be quite amazed with how much power they actually have. There are ways that you can get your cat to take his pills, which we will cover below. The easiest way to give a cat pill is to crush the power into a powdery form by putting it between two spoons. Once the pill is powder, mix… Read more about cat care at our main article.
