Harvesting Tomato Tips - Summer and Fall Harvesting

Do you know when to harvest tomatoes? Tomatoes should be firm and fully colored. They are of highest quality when they ripen on the vine and daily summer temperatures average about 75°F.

Do you know what to do when it gets really hot or when it gets close to a frost? When the temperatures are 90°F or higher, the softening process is begins at a high rate of speed and color development stops, reducing the quality of your fruit. For this reason, you should pick your tomatoes every day or two harvesting the fruits when their color has started to develop and ripen them further indoors between 70 and 75°F.

On the day before a killing freeze is expected, harvest all green mature fruit that is desired for later use in the fall. If you wrap the tomatoes individually in newspaper and store at 60 to 65°F, they will continue to ripen slowly over the next several weeks. Whole plants can be uprooted and hung in sheltered locations, where fruit continues to ripen. You can also place them in a window sill or set them on the counter. I have even made green tomato relish that is to die for.

As a reminder, don't box them and forget them. I have done that before and it isn't a pretty sight. Just don't forget about your tomatoes sitting in a box in another room.

Another thing you can do is to let them quickly ripen inside and then freeze them. Don't wash them or pick off the stems. Just put them in a plastic grocery sack and put them in the freezer. When you have the opportunity, you can use them to can different items or to cook with.

How to Cash in From Scrap Copper Metal

As an important material in the automobiles, electrical devices and mobile phones industry, copper is unarguably one of the most in demand and valuable metals today. Given this, even scrap copper metal is indeed a business with potential especially now that the resources of such metal are scarcer. This is how to make money out of scrap copper metal.

First, you have to have sufficient resources of scrap copper. Create your own scrap yard and collect scrap metals from different sources. As a commonly used metal, copper can be found on myriad of places. It is available on household fittings, pipes and plumbing fixtures.

Also, your own home can be a good source of copper. Relinquish copper from most of your unused or damaged electrical appliances like television, microwave ovens, and air conditioners. Copper is also common in household decorative items like chandelier, and candle holders. You can also recover scrap copper from kettles, pots and automobiles. So, if they are of no use, don't just let this wealth sit at home!

Electrical wirings are the most popular source for copper wires which also can be sold at a good price. Stripping these wires using wire cutters and utility knife can be a boring and time consuming task. However, by incorporating this task in your daily activities like watching television, you are surely adding a little fun to your money-making task.

Roaming around your village can also be a good way to find scrap copper metal. While others consider these items a mess, they are likely to be more than happy for you to haul away these things.

Be friendly to machine shop owners, local contractors, electricians, plumbers and other establishments that deal with metals. Collecting metal scraps from them on a regular basis would help as it would mean a stable metal scrap source. Never forget also to inform the people in your locality by putting up sign boards on different areas. Putting your own bins on different locations is also a nice option to increase your products.

Then, sort these metals according to its type. Prices vary depending on the type and quality of your scrap metals.

Knowing the better price for your scrap copper metal is the most important factor in this business. Doing a research on the internet would help as there are websites providing relevant information with regard to copper prices. You can also call different local junk yards or recycling plants as they are the most accessible dropping centers that pay for these materials. Obtaining knowledge as to the fair price of copper metal scraps would allow you to maximize your income.

Buying a Shredder - What to Ask

Looking for a shredder? Here are some things to keep an eye out for.

1.What is the Shred Pattern? The first thing you will want to take into consideration when you are buying a shredder is the pattern into which it cuts the documents that it is fed. In the world of paper shredding, there are two basic shred patterns: strip cut and cross cut. In almost all cases it is highly recommended that if given the choice, you opt for going with a cross cut shredder. To put it simply, cross cut shredding means that your confidential documents will be reduced to confetti-like shreds, and thus offers you a much higher level of security than a strip cut machine, as documents that have been shred in a strip cut pattern are much easier to piece together.

Cross cut machines are no more expensive than their strip cut brothers, and these days, the difference in overall sheet capacity is less than what it has been in years past, making the choice of a cross cut shredder almost a no brainer.

2.What is the Capacity? This will depend on what you intend to use your shredder for and how often you plan on using it. If you are looking for a shredder for your home or small office, the standard these days seems to be somewhere between six to eight sheets at a time. For larger office use you can find machines that can shred upwards of 25 sheets at a time, and that can be used on a continuous basis. The latter is something important to consider, as the vast majority of shredders are meant to be used intermittently rather than continuously throughout the day. If you overuse a shredder, it may shut down for a time to prevent itself from overheating and damaging the motor. You can find a shredder's run time if you dig into its specs a little bit. A continuous use shredder will almost certainly use that fact as one of its main selling points.

3.What Does it Shred? Paper, of course, but what else? There are a growing number of shredders on the market that shred compact discs (confidential information comes in many forms these days) and credit cards. If you have the need to discard these items on a regular basis, this is definitely something you may want to look into. Also, there is no reason these days to settle for a shredder that doesn't handle staples and paper clips.

4.Is it Safe? Shredders utilize steel cutting heads that are razor sharp and intended to last for a lifetime, so it is always fair to ask what safety precautions a manufacturer has put in place. Most paper slots are far too small for fingers to get caught in, but one of the better brands has a sensor at the feed opening that detects hands that are too close and stops the machine automatically. Others use electronically controlled shields that keep foreign objects like ties and laces free from the cutting heads. There is no real way of determining which safety system is better than another. It is a choice you will have to research and decide for yourself.

Some Essential Supplies For Scrapbooking

With scrapbooking becoming such a craze there is no dearth of scrapbooking supplies and you will be inundated with the various items in the market to facilitate your scrapbooking experience. You should follow some basic rules in the beginning. We bring you some scrapbooking supplies.

Album

As you know albums come in various sizes you should choose the one that is best suited for your purpose. Usually a 12 x 12 inch album is good enough for your pictures and journals and you can choose the smaller sized albums for making mini ones. There are 3 types of albums. The post-bound ones allow your pages to lie flat without any separation between the pages. With the 3 ring albums you can rearrange your pages easily and also add new pages. The strap-bound has a strap hinge that is expandable and can be opened like a notebook.

Pencils and Pens

These are one of the scrapbooking supplies required for writing journals. You should choose pencils which are of archival quality which would not fade and are also waterproof. You can choose pens from among the 50 differing colors including opaque ones. You will get pens that give you the embossing effect or a 3D look.

Kits

Among the scrapbooking supplies available there various tools for your convenience such as the embossing and distressing kits and tag makers and many more such items. These tools help to give a personal look to your scrapbooks.

Use of Stencils and Templates

To draw and cut precise shapes and for alphabet lettering you need the help of stencils and templates which are mandatory scrapbooking supplies. You need to be careful in choosing clear templates for the proper alignment and the colored ones will make your designs stand out as they are different from that of the scrapbook color.

Paper

You need to choose acid free paper so that your documents last longer. The use of paper and cardstock is for adding color to your work, and helping in the setting of the theme and tone of the layout. They emphasize the areas that need to be focused.

Storing

Storing your work is a very vital point as carelessness can lead to damage of your property. You need to protect your supplies from damage caused by water and fading caused due to exposure to the sun.

Punches and Paper Cutters

The punches and paper cutters are an integral part of scrapbooking supplies as they are meant for beautifying your pages by giving round or scalloped edges. The punches help you to cut different shapes also, and these shapes of different colors create a wonderful amalgamation.

Decorations

The decorative items that you can use to make your pages beautiful and unique are buttons, charms, alphabet tiles, paper flowers, ribbons, stamps, eyelets, stickers, tags, sequins and several others. The use of these decorative items adds glamor to your scrapbook.

An Interesting Craft - Stamping

Stamping is a technique in arts and craft wherein an object, mostly a rubber stamp with some pattern on it, is pressed into ink and then pressed onto something like a sheet of paper so that the pattern on the stamp is conveyed to the paper. At first stamping was used mostly in business offices for stamping logos and addresses onto documents but more recently stamping has become an art form to itself and stamps are now made in countless intricate designs and used to decorate things. Stamping can really add another dimension to different crafts when they are placed properly. For example paper flowers made from tissue paper can be made more elegant and classy by stamping patterns onto the tissue paper you will use to make the flowers. You can additionally use the stamps to decorate sections of the flowers after they have been made.

Rubber stamping is moreover a good method of unifying various items. If for instance you are using two different items or two different colors for wedding favors, you can use a rubber stamp to decorate them and unify them so that they don't seem to be disjointed and disconnected. Stamping is additionally a good way of personalizing your wedding invitations, thank you cards, etc.

There are so many things that can be done with stamping to give different effects; other than using various designs you can use dark paper and light ink to do the stamping. The contrast is really outstanding and effective and looks very pleasing.

Stamping is additionally useful for themed events and various seasons; you can use stamps to appropriately decorate different items for Christmas parties, 4th of July, Halloween and various other holiday events. Stamping is additionally useful for baby showers, bridal parties, birthday parties, etc. Regular items and decorations can be made far more appropriate and effective by using a rubber stamp to decorate them.

Using various types and colors of dyes can give a whole new dimension to your craft stamping. Combining the stamping method with other elements can additionally be quite effective. You can use chalk, inks, paints, fibers and a variety of other decorations to enhance your different crafts.

You can make your own stamps if you are so inclined, out of the kind of gum used to make erasers, or you can purchase the stamps you need from a variety of stores; be sure to purchase a variety of patterns and sizes so that you can experiment with many different designs. If you want a stamp for one time use and wish to place your own design into it, you can carve the designs you desire into a potato and use it as your stamp.

Stamping is a very good way of keeping children occupied and teaching them a useful new skill that they can use to improve their own artwork and projects. Experiment with different mediums; rather than using just paper for your stamping you can also use cloth, or woodblocks.

Baby Scrapbook Ideas For You and Baby

Everyone knows that a scrapbook is a way for you to document your child's life and show off his many accomplishments but how do you make the scrapbooks appealing and exciting without spending a fortune?

I have spent the last 2 years going through 6 years of pictures and getting them all scrap booked so now I feel a little bit of an expert on the subject. Throughout those 2 years money wasn't always readily available, especially when trying to do 6 years worth so I had to get creative and it turned out great. Some of my favorite pages are ones I didn't spend money on. So what do you use?

You probably have a few pictures of your son in just a diaper or getting change or something of that nature. So I took those pictures and put them on dried out wipes cut the wipes to frame the picture nicely and had an instant hit, total expense: Nothing. Okay maybe just a few pennies for each wipe put I already had plenty of those on had.

After I had my baby shower or bought clothes I would keep any tag that had a cute little picture or world's like "Baby" "fun" or anything I thought I might use. Then I would use them to decorate my pages. I have one page that has on the top a tag that says "Baby's World" and then it has 2 picture of giraffes from tags on it.

I also loads of pictures of my son eating so with those I put a little spoon on the page, and used one of his old bibs to frame a picture. I used band aids and gauze on a page where we had pictures of his first goose bump right on his head. He also tore up a book of his so we used picture from that and cut out some of the words and pasted it on a page of him holding various books.

One last note is to cover a page in pictures. I took all of my favorite faces of him cut them out and then pasted them all to one page. It was really heavy but it looks adorable.

Making a Scrapbook is a Great Way to Treasure Your Memories

Most of us have shoe boxes or plastic bins filled with photos from the years of our lives. If we are lucky, we have managed to sort the boxes into various years or decades, and there is some semblance of order to these memories. Amid the photos may be ticket stubs, greeting cards, and various trinkets that we want to remember but we are not quite shore how to organize. Imagine leaving this legacy to your children. They would spend days sorting through the boxes trying to order the material, piecing together a life they want to understand, but just cannot get a grip on when it is stored in a box. Chances are there are photos of people they will not recognize, curious pictures of events they do not recall, and questions about why certain items were saved and others were not. Maybe you have saved all of your graduation cards but none from birthdays or anniversaries. Maybe you kept the ticket stub from the first baseball game you ever attended but did not save a wedding program. Your kids and grandkids deserve to understand your way of thinking and why you held on to certain things. A scrapbook is a great way to help them understand once you are no longer here to explain it. Compiling one now can be a lot of fun and it organizes your memories before it is too late.

You may want to ask your children or grandchildren for assistance. They may remember stories now they can share that can be included in the scrapbook and they can read about them in years to come. Maybe last Christmas was the best ever for your six year old granddaughter. She can share those memories with you, you can write them down in a scrapbook besides the family Christmas photos, and 20 years from now she will remember the day as told in her own words.

You can also document the time before you had children and grandchildren. Start with your earliest photos and label the people in each picture. You can include stories about your relationship with each person, or include a message directly from them if they are still in your life. Future generations will appreciate the effort you made to inform them and share their heritage with them. There may be stories you forget to share when you are alive, or these stories may not capture the interest of surly teenage grandchildren. However, a few decades into the future they will be fascinated with the time and effort put into chronically their family history. You can create a scrapbook for each member of the family so they can share them and piece together their common history, or you can create all-encompassing books with copied photos. Do not forget to include things other than photos in these books. Scraps of paper, swatches of fabric, important documents, and family recipes all make great additions to traditional scrapbooks. Your relatives will truly appreciate your effort in documenting the family history.

Mother's Day Crafts For Toddlers - Easy Bookmark Mother's Day Craft For Toddlers

Finding an easy mother's day craft for toddlers is not always that easy. I know that most people consider making bookmarks rather boring but, we must keep in mind that the toddlers probably haven't made any yet, so for them, making a bookmark for mom is new. This easy bookmark craft is also a fun way to teach the little ones what happens when different colors are mixed.

Remember, this craft for toddlers needs to be done under adult supervision and the little ones will need help with some of the steps.

This is what you will need for this mother's day craft:

A small piece of white poster paper
A decorative pair of craft scissors (called zigzag scissors by some)
4 Colors of thin watercolors (you can find watercolors powder to make these at any crafts store)
A medicine dropper
Thin ribbon in a color of your choice
A punch to make a hole for the ribbon

Method for this mother's day craft:

With your decorative scissors cut a piece of your poster paper to the required size for a bookmark. (Bookmarks do not always have to be the well known size, I have a very pretty one that my granddaughter made that is quite big and it is beautiful. A bigger bookmark also gives you more space to work with.)
Now you have to splatter a little bit of clean water on your bookmark. (Not too much because we do not want the bookmark to become too soggy!)
Draw one of the colors, of your paint, up into the medicine dropper and drip the paint on different places on the bookmark.
Wash the medicine dropper and repeat the procedure with the other the other three colors.
You will notice that the colors will flow a little and where they mix the colors will change depending on the colors you used. For the little ones it may be a good idea to use the primary colors.
Keep an eye on the kids so that they do not get over exited and use too much water and paint, as the bookmark will then become very soggy and the end result will not be satisfactory.
Let your bookmark dry completely.
Punch a hole in the bottom of the bookmark and thread the ribbon through the hole.
Make a not in the ribbon to keep it in place.

Kids really love doing crafts that can be used in some way. With this mother's day craft for toddlers they make a gift for mom that she will be able to use for many, many years to come. I hope you and your toddler will enjoy this easy mother's day craft for toddlers.

Scrapbook Defintions

Acid-free: Means the product has a pH of 7 or higher. Acid is a chemical used to make paper. This makes the paper break down easily. The higher the pH in the paper, the more durable the paper is. If the paper you are using contains acid, it can discolor, damage, and deteriorate your photos.

Adhesive: Glues or tapes that hold items together. Adhesives come in different forms, including, tabs, glue sticks, double stick tape, and glue dots. Some adhesives are removable to allow you to reposition them.

Archival quality: This term is used to describe the quality of the paper or material. This insures the product you are using will not discolor or disintegrate over time.

Buffering: This process is used in adding calcium carbonate to neutralize acids. Paper that has been buffered contains alkaline filler. This will protect the paper from absorbing acids in the future.

Cropping: To crop a photo, means to cut out the elements you do not wish to display. This will take away any distractions from your subject. There are several ways to crop your photos. The most common way is to use a straight edge. This can be achieved with a paper cutter or scissors.

Die Cuts: Die cuts are paper cut outs used to enhance your scrapbook pages. They come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. You can purchase die cuts in a craft store or other retail stores. You can customize your own die cuts using a die cut machine.

Emboss: A technique used to create a raised image on paper. Heat and powder embossing are the two most popular ways to emboss.

Journaling: This can be used to document your feelings, memories, or tell a story about the photo you are displaying. It can be as simple as writing the names and dates of the event in your scrapbook.

Inking: This is a technique to use to create a different type of image on your scrapbook pages. Inking can also give an antique or weathered look to your page.

Lignin-free: Paper that is lignin-free will not disintegrate or become brittle over time. You should use paper that is acid-free and lignin-free in your scrapbook.

Mat: To frame a photo with paper so there is a layer between the photo and the background. Cardstock is used in this process. You can use printed or plain background paper. Use a color that stands out in your photo.

Mylar: Mylar is a protective covering to use for your scrapbook photos.

Page Protector: A page protector is a plastic cover to insert your pages into. This can be removed to design your scrapbook page and replaced once it is done.

pH: pH is the amount of acid your paper contains. The pH in scrapbook paper should be at least 7. The higher the number is the lower the acid amount.

Photo safe: This label is used on products that are safe for scrapbooks. This term is used to indicate acid-free and lignin-free products.

PVC free: PVC stands for Polyvinyl chloride, a plastic used in sheet protectors. Scrapbooking products should be PVC free.

Templates: Templates come in acrylic or plastic sheets with cut out shapes. They can be used to crop photos or too cut your cardstock into the shape you desire.