Hobbies

Tips for Organizing your Scrapbook Photos
 by: Lisa Fleming

As winter turns to spring each year, many of us turn our thoughts to spring cleaning. Our lists of projects typically include mundane tasks such as sweeping the garage, cleaning the gutters and washing the windows. So why not add a little pizzazz to your spring cleaning this year by tackling a fun project like organizing your scrapbook photos? “Fun?” you say. Well yes, organizing your photos can be fun if you have some tips on how to do it. Read on to learn how to gather, sort, label and store your photos so that they’re ready for your scrapbook albums.

Gather your photos

JAPANESE DOLLS: Boy’s Day Festival in Japan
 by: Helen Vanderberg

Who wouldn’t be fascinated by the concept of having a whole festival dedicated to dolls?

Dolls are shown in Girl’s Day and Boy’s Day festivals in Japan, and cherished over the

generations. Boy’s Day dolls can consist of anything from a healthy-looking Sumi wrestler

to a samurai warrior or his armor.

The dolls are usually set up in a hierarchal arrangement in the family home, meant to show,

perhaps, the emperor and empress, courtiers, handmaidens, and warriors in a social

hierarchy in a way a child can understand.

The same approach may ring true with the carp-shaped banners ranged according to size

either on a pole outside the house. The big fish is daddy, next size down is mother, the

next smallest is elder son or daughter. In the countryside, on a rope across a river, the fish

banners represent the villagers. Everything has a hidden meaning.

Beside the obvious link with Japanese doll festivals, collecting dolls has a much deeper

psychological basis. It is believed that ancient Japanese samurai warriors tied cloth mascot

Scrapbooking
 by: Scott Bianchi

I never realized how big the scrapbooking industry was until recently. When researching hobbies for my website I learned just how big it was. My website is designed as an on-line shopping mall. Hobbies are a big part of many people’s lives so it made sense to me to have a hobbies page. Scrapbooking is easily the hobby I have the most information about on my site. This is not because I favor it, there is just a tremendous amount of information available for this particular hobby.

What is scrapbooking? It is essentially a much more extravagant photo album. A plain photo album is just that, an album with some pictures on some white pages. A scrapbook has different pages, stickers, themes, and sometimes even tells a story. If you go to your nearest arts and crafts store you will most likely discover aisles and aisles of supplies. They have stamps, special scissors to make different kinds of edges, other kinds of cutting apparatus, every conceivable kind of magic marker you could ever need with different tips, widths, and colors.

Making Fishing Lures: Basic Tools Required - Part 1
 by: Peter Rosienburg

Lets start with the basics, you need a clean solid work surface such as a bench, table, or desk, you will need a vise which will hold the various lures for drilling, filing, bending, and other operations. Almost any bench vise of good size will serve the purpose. Unless you have a permanent workbench, this vise doesn’t have to be fastened to the table or desk until needed.

A small anvil is also useful if you plan to make many metal lures or parts for such lures. It is used for cutting, bending, punching, and riveting. However, if you get a big bench vise of the machinist’s or utility type you can use the anvil surface found on such vises. Or you can use a small block of iron with a smooth surface as a makeshift anvil.

Hot Wheels Modified
 by: Scott Bianchi

I wrote and article about two months ago on the popularity of Hot Wheels. I did it because I found some sites to feature on my hobbies page and I had not realized how popular the toys were to collect. Do not let the title of this article fool you, I am not modifying my previous article. Out of the approximately thirty articles I have written in the past months the article about Hot Wheels was my most popular. I decided to look more into this hobby.

Part of my research consisted of trying to contact some webmasters focusing on Hot Wheels. I spoke with the owner of www.z-mods.com. I tried to find out what it is about these toys that drew such a following. The owner’s name is Steve Zalimas. He has been playing with and collecting these cars since he was little. He does not recall what drew him to it. He did not even know other people collected them until the last ten years or so.

Geraniums Galore - A Container Garden Delight
 by: Mary Hanna

All over the country, geraniums flaunt their red and scarlet, rose, pink, and white blooms with a gay abandon that few other plants can rival. In boxes on city fire escapes and rooftops, in window boxes on suburban and country houses, in tubs and pots on terraces and patios, and in hanging baskets of the porches of summer cottages, they are beloved and cherished plants

It needs sun to bloom; it tolerates shade, where it is usually handled as a foliage plant. What it resents is too much moisture and a rich diet. Kept too wet, the leaves turn yellow; given a heavy soil, one high in nitrogen plants go to foliage and flower sparingly.

Even if you choose no other plants, you could have a varied potted garden of single and double zonal, fancy-leaved or variegated, scented-leaved, ivy and Lady or Martha Washington geraniums (also called show or fancy geraniums), not to mention a few oddities of cactus and climbing types.

The zonal geranium is characterized by dark circular markings on the rounded green leaves. Double types dominate the trade and are offered by florists in the spring for planting in gardens and window boxes.

Oil Painting Tips - Organizing Your Palette
 by: Ralph Serpe

Having a clean organized palette is an essential part of good painting. If you are just starting out with oil painting, these tips will help you get a good start.

You should have the right kind of palette to start off with. Your palette should be non-porous to prevent absorption of oil from the paint. Palettes come in a variety of different materials from glass to wood. My personal preference is the BOB ROSS Clear Palette. I have found this palette the easiest to clean and best for mixing colors.

When you are first starting out, it may be a good idea to start with a fairly limited palette of colors. If you purchase every color under the sun, you may find yourself mixing too many different colors, which will result in a muddy painting. Start off slow in the beginning, then add more colors as you become more experienced. Color choices for a limited palette vary from artist to artist. Here are the colors of my palette: Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Orange, Phthalo Blue, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Red Medium, Phthalo Green, Titanium White, Ivory Black. I recommend purchasing 1.25 oz tubes of all colors except Titanium White. Purchase a larger tube of Titanium White, as you will be using more of this color.

Preserving Memories through Scrapbooking
 by: Emad Fakhoury

Hidden away at home, you may have a cupboard or drawer full of irreplaceable photos of your children, parents, old friends, grandparents and great grandparents. More than likely there will be a stack of 100 year-old sepia pics of elaborately costumed, austere relatives whose names and family associations have long been forgotten.

There is no way you could ever throw them away - but what do you do with them? You have a constant nagging feeling that you really should save them for future generations - create a link to the past that your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren can treasure.

You may have heard of a new craze called ‘scrapbooking’ which does just that. But it’s as much about preserving today’s memories for future generations as it is about preserving our past.

‘Scrapbooking’ is more than just organising photos. It’s about displaying them attractively, preserving other interesting bits & bobs like concert programs, tickets, newspaper articles and, most importantly, ‘journaling’ so that in years to come anyone who looks at your scrapbook will know who you are and where you were when the photographs were taken. You are capturing and storing a little piece of history about yourself, your life and your family.

How To Make A Candy Bouquet
 by: Peta D’Silva

A bouquet is usually made just from flowers, but that doesn’t have to be the case.

You can make your bouquet more interesting by adding other items, such as candy.

Yeah, you read correctly, I said, Candy!

Candy Bouquets are fun to make, look great, and they are a fantastic talking piece. I

promise that everyone that sees your candy bouquet will feel compelled to comment

on it. Young children in particular, will be absolutely delighted when they see your

candy bouquet!

To make a candy bouquet, you will need:

5 Silk Rose Buds

1 Bunch of pearlies

2 Thin Gauge wires

1 Thick Gauge wire

9 Lollipops.

Silk Leaves

Stem tape (green or white)

Ribbon

Step 1: Trimming the lollipops

Trim the lollipop sticks to about an inch or two in length, or just below the wrapper.

Later, we will wire and tape the sticks just like normal flowers. We do this so that the

lollipops can be moved around and positioned more easily.

Buying A Wooden Restoration Project Boat
 by: William Skalla II

How to find that perfect wooden boat restoration project. There are essential just

three simple steps to follow in order to obtain the a desirable brand and make of

wooden boat at a discount to market price. Things to consider, for instance within

the contentnental United States the value of money varies greatly. Where a job paying

$16 an hour in the midwest would be a respectable job, this same wage on the west

coast would barely support living conditions. Some key areas of the country to target

for boats in general is the midwest region surrounding the great lakes. Typically boats

are always going to be cheaper within this region then they would be in on the east

or west coast. Noteably though the size of the vessel your looking for might not be

available in these regions as ocean fairing vessels will be larger.

What are the three main considerations for finding a good wooden boat restoration

project, outside of boat condition, which might be a plus that is covered in another