Create Interesting Home Decor With Window Treatments

What type of window treatments Pandastraptank select for your home is limited only by your creativity, ingenuity and of course the amount of money you have put aside for the project.

Windows perform several different functions. They ventilate your rooms, provide natural lighting and by giving Summersetdress outside Fromhikemountain enlarge them. The best window treatment is multi-functional Nightsuittrouser Hikeoverstock as decorative. Draperies and curtains afford privacy, add beauty to the room and complement the dcor of your home.

In order to choose the perfect window treatment you must decide what you want to Pandastraptank Saleofbride the window. Does the window provide a Lastcampstory view that deserves to be framed like a piece of art or is there a brick wall or unsightly scene beyond the glass panes that you want to conceal? Are there structural elements surrounding the opening that you would like to minimize, or are the windows in the room different sizes that need to be standardized? These are all common decorating problems that can be camouflaged and corrected with the proper window treatment.

How much do you want to spend on your window decorating project? How much time do you have to get the job done? Determine these facts before you start to shop for ready made selections or fabrics and drapery hardware. If your time and budget is limited and you aren't dealing with windows in odd sizes, large discount stores are your best bet. Most discount stores carry a large selection of curtains, valances and draperies in standard sizes. If you can make their stock inventory work for you this is the best way to save time as well as get cheap, good quality window treatments. Try to avoid the process of having your curtains custom-made or special-ordered because labor costs can get out of hand in a hurry.

If time is not an issue and you are the crafty sort that likes to sew, making your own window treatments might be an inexpensive route to take. Here are some ideas on how to get cheap fabric for your homemade curtains. Take time to shop for last-of-bolt or end of season closeout sale fabrics. Buy extra flat bed sheets to make bedroom curtains that will perfectly match your comforter. Oversized Turkish towels might be less expensive than buying terry cloth by the yard. The only sewing necessary would be that needed to make your rod pockets.

Don't forget to book some time with your husband help you properly install your brackets and drapery rods. If you can skip paying a professional handyman, your dollars will stretch even further.

The combination of Jan Bay's love of interior Cyclingtravelshop and child rearing motivated the building of her site, Unique Baby Gear Ideas, Nursery Themes and Decorating Ideas which features decorating and how-to articles on nursery design, reviews of Runningtales baby gear and the creation of modern nurseries for babies.

Use of this article requires an active link to Unique Baby Gear Ideas, Nursery Themes and Decorating Ideas.

Better Portraits Part 2

In this 2nd installment about portraiture, let's discuss equipment.
If you haven't figured that out by now, photography like other creative endeavors has a technical side as Printedshortdresses as a creative side.

Before you can get predictable results with your camera, you need Betsey Johnson Sleeve master or at least understand your equipments' limitations. Without this mastery, your vision will not materialize as a still picture.

1. Camera and lenses. You should use equipment that you are familiar with. Never experiment with new untested equipment especially on an important shoot.

Test new lenses, lights especially flash units thoroughly before shooting the all important portrait session.

Always take good notes so you may learn from your successes and failures.With digital photography, if you have access to Adobe's Photoshop software, you can pull up the meta data Tracy Reese Halter File Info and learn all sorts of details about a picture.

Here is a typical example:
• _MG_3550.jpg
• Camera Data
• Make Canon
• Model: Ella Moss EOS 20D
• Date Time: 2007-07-25T08:00:03-07:00
• Shutter Speed: 1.3 sec
• Exposure Program: Manual
• F-Stop: f/8.0
• Aperture Value: f/8
• ISO Speed Ratings 100
• Focal Length: 17.0 mm
• Flash: Did not fire
• No strobe return detected
• Metering Mode: Average

2. Lighting. Simplicity is the key when you don't have a big budget or if you want to work fast without much fuss. Study carefully how light falls on faces during different Autumn Cashmere Tops of the day in different parts of your home.

If you don't have a willing subject, it might not be a bad idea to get a bust or life-size mannequin and place it in different places around your house at different times to study how the light falls.

The idea here is for you to take note of what lighting conditions work and what camera angles on the face flatters your subject. Once you've broken down the lighting and camera angles, take note of the time of the day and in which room of your house you see the quality of light that you like.

So supplementing available light with a simple reflector is a natural choice because it allows you to see the effect of your fill-light immediately. Those shiny silvery Tracy Reese Halter shades you use in your car to shield the interior of your car from aging prematurely is an excellent choice.

Giving that car shade some "body" by taping it a large piece of foamcore or cardboard gives you a way to aim the reflected light especially if you can enlist the help of an assistant.

If you have a tripod, consider using it especially if your lens is not a "fast lens." A fast lens is just one which has a wide aperture allowing more light into your camera so that you can shoot with a faster shutter speed. Camera shake resulting from using a shutter speed that is too low is probably one of the leading causes of failed portraits by beginners.

Bear in mind also, just because the camera is not shaking during the exposure, doesn't mean your subject is not flinching or blinking.

Also don't forget that most digital cameras have a magnification factor of 1.6x. If you were previously able to hand hold a lens at a lower shutter speed when shooting with a Cake Couture Dress camera, this doesn't hold true anymore. Every slight movement on your part or on the part of your subject is magnified accordingly.

3. Spend time getting to know your subject. If you're too pre-occupied with all the technical aspects like lights and lenses, and ignoring your subject in your preparations, when it comes down to the serious business of shooting pictures, your subject will be tensed and it will show. Engage your subject in conversation while you're setting up. That can go a long way in ensuring a successful session.

4. Above all, shoot a lot. In this day and age of digital cameras, there is no excuse not to. There is no waste. You maximize your chances by shooting a lot.

If you are a digital photographer, just because you can "chimp," or steal a glance of your pictures after you take them, doesn't mean you should. "Chimping" is a term often used by photojournalist for this practise of "cheat imaging." Concentrate on picture-taking and trust in your techniques and learn not to rely on that little LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitor.

Besides, if you "chimp" too much, you might miss a special moment. Best thing to do is to shoot a lot if you're shooting digital and leave the editing for later. By all means, check your exposures whenever you change the lighting in a scene, but don't let that little monitor on the back of the camera become your crutch.

Peter Phun is an adjunct photography instructor at Riverside City College. He is a freelance photographer, web designer and stay at home dad. He previously worked as a staff photographer for 18 years at The Press-Enterprise, Southern California's 4th largest daily Doucette Duvall Dress Peter is the webmaster for the Mac user group in the Inland Empire.

For more information about this Riverside based photographer, visit http://www.peterphun.com