Critter Time http://www.crittertime.com Make Budget OF Your Time Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:13:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 en Personalizing Your Dorm Walls http://www.crittertime.com/personalizing-your-dorm-walls/ http://www.crittertime.com/personalizing-your-dorm-walls/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:37:28 +0000 admin http://www.crittertime.com/?p=24 Your walls are usually where you have the most freedom in expressing your personality in your dorm room so you want to make the most of it. You should really think of the walls of your dorm room as a canvas. Before you get started take a little time to do some asking around so you know about the rules regarding putting holes in walls, painting, or using tape on walls (the wrong kind takes paint with it). Professional poster adhesive, which can be purchased fairly inexpensively at most decorating stores can save you a lot of trouble later on when it’s time to move.

Usually posters are the most common thing found on the walls of dorm rooms, so much so that some universities even have poster sales at the beginning of each semester, but there are several other creative ways to put your mark on your room. If you have an inner artist that’s just waiting to be unleashed consider purchasing colored chalk and going to town on a wall or two in your dorm room. Colored chalk washes off easily on most surfaces so if you decide you want to do something different you should be able to change your look without too much work.

Photographs put up in frames that you either purchased or made yourself can definitely give your side of the room a unique personality. Most campuses have an art supply store or two nearby and you can pick up a few inexpensive frames and then customize them to your heart’s content. A laundry line is a very creative way to display photos, ticket stubs and other collectibles. Laundry lines are very easy to move around in the room and changing pictures simply becomes a matter of unclipping one and replacing it with another.

A dry erase board can perform several duties, help you to keep your schedule organized, give you a place to leave notes for your roommate or friends, and with the many accessories now offered for dry erase boards an excellent place to put pictures and other mementos. Mini-lights aren’t just for Christmas anymore, stores sell them in a variety of colors and styles and by stringing a few along a wall you can creates a really unique and interesting display.

How about this for thinking outside the box, consider putting a decorative area rug up on the wall. Area rugs come in so many different varieties these days you should have no problem finding one to match your decor. As a bonus if you have noisy neighbors an area rug can help dampen out some of the noise. Make sure to ask a professional at the store about the best way to hang an area rug on the wall so that it doesn’t damage the wall or fall off.

Dorm rooms usually don’t give you a lot of space to work with but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make it feel like home with a little planning and effort.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com


]]> http://www.crittertime.com/personalizing-your-dorm-walls/feed/ The Right Ways to Clean Your Window Treatments http://www.crittertime.com/the-right-ways-to-clean-your-window-treatments/ http://www.crittertime.com/the-right-ways-to-clean-your-window-treatments/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 12:58:05 +0000 admin http://www.crittertime.com/?p=3 You’ve been looking forward to new window treatments for months! And now they are up and you love them! A few weeks go by, you love them even more, and so does your family. But wait, what is it that you see accumulating on them? Dust?! What! Already?!

That’s right. Everything gets dusty. It’s just a fact of life. Like gravity. And although dust can be annoying and unsightly, there are a few simple steps that you can take to make it disappear, so that you can enjoy great window treatments for many years to come.

Feather Dusting. Regular dusting is really all you need to maintain a fresh appearance of your window treatments. As you dust your coffee table, sill, mantle, etc, just run the feather duster gently through the folds of your drapes or right on top of the blinds. Voila, your cleaning is complete.

Vacuuming. Your vacuum cleaner came with a brush attachment (or several). You can use it to gently vacuum your window treatments. Ok to do if you feel that your treatments need a slightly deeper cleaning.

Compressed Air. Certain window treatments form cells or cavities. The most common examples of those are Honeycomb Shades and Silhouettes. Dust particles and even various criters tend to get trapped there, making it difficult to get them out. The solution is very simple. Buy a can of compressed air at a local Office Depot, point the spray into the cavity, position the can a few inches away from the shade, and gently press. Shooting air through the opening will force anything that’s not supposed to be there out of the shade.

Hair Dryer. Not under any circumstances. Although this happened to me personally many years ago, I remember it vividly. It was Tuesday morning before an important meeting. I discovered a spot on my favorite pair of pants. Hurriedly, I spot cleaned it with water and decided to save time by drying the wetness with the hair drier. Within seconds, in front of my eyes, the fabric disintegrated. Melted away as I stood there. Left a big gaping hole. I was devastated. Don’t let it happen to your window treatments - chances are you invested much more than I did in that pair of pants. Sure you can use a cold setting, but why take chances, let things take their natural course and soon enough, your drapes will be dry too.

Spot Cleaning. If you accidentally spilled your drink and it splashed onto a window treatment, there is something you can do to clean it up. Act fast (just as you would if it were your clothing). Use soft cloth or sponge moistened in lukewarm water with mild detergent. Blot gently and don’t rub - rubbing can cause damage.

Machine wash. If your curtains are custom-made, please do not wash them yourself at all. If your curtains are store-bought, it is not recommended that you wash them. But if you insist, please only do it by hand and only in lukewarm water. Be careful as the fabrics may shrink, stretch, or get damaged.

Dry cleaning. Every 10 years your custom curtains should be dry-cleaned. Most of your neighborhood dry-cleaners will happily do it for you.

Ultrasonic Cleaning. This is a special service that uses ultrasound and an appropriate solution to clean delicate items (i.e. medical equipment, watches, window treatments). When it comes to window treatments, these services are usually performed on sight - in or right by your home.

So you see, cleaning your window treatments, custom or store-bought, isn’t difficult at all. And just as all other cleaning, it has to be done regularly. If cleaned and taken-care of right, your window treatments can serve you a life-time.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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