It could be one of the common house rules that small children like toddlers should not be allowed in the kitchen. Though it is common, it is probably the most frequently violated house rules simply because small children can not be controlled easily and preventing them from going into the kitchen an easy task.
The kitchen just seems to be not the place for toddlers to play or learn. But making your kitchen child-friendly can definitely change that belief and turn the kitchen to a safe and conducive place for learning for your small children.
Number one rule in creating a child-friendly kitchen is safety. Make sure that all containers within your child’s reach are replaced with clear plastic ones and with sealing covers. This is to avoid glass pieces littering on the kitchen floor. Another safety concern is the cutlery set and all those sharp and pointed materials. Keep these dangerous pieces to high storage places. Create a note and post it on the fridge’s door or at the storage place of the cutlery set to inform other people to always put back a knife or fork back to the cutlery set container. And for the learning part, the clear plastic containers should be especially used to store the toddler’s favorite food, fruits, and vegetables. Storing these things to such containers will allow small children to familiarize themselves with new stuffs by identifying their shapes and colors. And to keep your toddlers busy while you are being busy with kitchen chores, always prepare a large paper on the kitchen table or kitchen island where the toddler will sit. Together with the large paper, hand him coloring materials to encourage him to draw and make him busy.
Work and other sources of stress probably brought out the concepts of relaxation such as spa or yoga exercise. That people even try to have their own spa at home or a yoga gym to able to relax. And there’s that one form of relaxation which may not be as popular as the spa or yoga but is definitely easy to do and can effectively relax one – it is called color therapy.
Color therapy is act of viewing colors whose effect is either calming or stimulating one’s mood. For example, an angry person can try to look at soothing blue and green colors to calm himself or perhaps a bored person turn to warm and bright colors such as orange and yellow to stimulate himself.
One can turn one wall or room of his house to a color therapy room by just simply following these three simple steps – First, select a spot in your house where people can spend conveniently a few minutes. A good spot could be a wall near the living room or the house’s library. Second, decide the layout of colors. For this, one should of course group alike colors such as the warm and cool ones, then locate these by groups. The wall can be divided into two or three to accommodate these color groups or perhaps each side of a room can be assigned to one color group. Third, since these are group of colors, using patterns or themes in painting them would bring in more creativity. Themes such as under the sea for the cool colors or patterns such as ripples or circles for the warm ones could be used. Also, a color therapy room can be personalized according to the colors that the owner prefers as warm or cool ones.
A lot of people frequently visit a beach during their vacations to relax and enjoy moments with their friends and families. Going to the beach definitely sells the idea of refreshing and enjoying a relaxing time with water and bathing. And this could be the most obvious reason why most people want to turn their bathroom into a scene like the beach.
To create a beach scene in your own bathroom, one should have to have these two things found in a real beach – sand and shells. On your visits to the beach, try to collect good looking shells and some amount of sand that you can use as display in your bathroom or if not just buy from those aquatic shops that sell shells and sand.
Once you have the shell pieces and some amount of sand, start decorating the area around your bathtub by placing the shell pieces creatively. Never include a real star fish on your shell pieces as this will die and stink which makes it definitely not for display. Next, to create the sand effect, pour the sand on hollow transparent wide vases or containers. To accessorize your improvised sand boxes, one can put shell pieces on top of it or small scented candles that have scents like the ocean breeze. For more beach effects, tie the shell pieces on strings and hang them inside your bathroom to add beach-inspired wind chimes.
Book lovers definitely have a mini or walk-in library at their own homes. And that would probably look like a wall of so many levels and with overflowing books. Through the years, this walk-in library most likely had gathered so many dusts and the books colors might have faded already. And if that look does not please you anymore, a make-over for your walk-in library will be well deserved.
A new way to revive the colors in a walk-in library would be creating book covers made from fabric. Creating these fabric book covers is very easy and only requires four things – sewing machine, colorful fabrics, elastic bands, and scissors. First, survey the sizes of the books to be covered and create square templates for the most common sizes and do not forget to put an at least two inches allowance for the border. Next, select and cut the chosen fabrics according to the size templates. After which, sew the elastic bands on the border of the cut fabrics. Once this is done, you can already proceed putting a fabric book cover on each book.
But if you do not have the spare time to create your own fabric book covers, you can also try looking for tailoring shops and ask them if they can do that service for you. Just remember that this make-over will give you the power to choose what colors you want your library to have and as its new look.
Frequent trips to the grocery or shopping definitely mean more plastic and/or paper bags for a household. And perhaps, only a few people are practicing reusing these plastic and paper bags. But if one would consider reusing these bags, it will be of great help to use reusable bag sorter.
A reusable bag sorter is a simple improvised bin that sorts and organizes plastic and paper bags. To create one, only two things are needed – First is the bin and second are the hooks. A tall slim bin, not more than one foot wide, is more preferred than a very wide short one. This is for the purpose of accommodating big sizes of bags. And lastly, find four big circle hooks that have adhesives or can be bolted on the bin. To put up the reusable bag sorter, put one hook at the top middle portion on one of the long sides. This hook will hold the straps or strings of the paper bags put in the bin. Next, install the last three hooks at the remaining long side. The first hook should be aligned to the hook installed on the opposite long side. Then position the remaining two hooks at equal distances away from the middle hook. The hand holes of a big plastic bag shall use the two outside hooks while those of the small plastic bags shall use the middle hook and either one of the outside hooks.
By using a reusable bag sorter, reusing plastic and paper bags will be practiced more because the bags are sorted in a proper storage and piled in an orderly fashion. Of course, one should not forget that the best location for this improvised bin will be in the kitchen.
