Nine Kitchen Update Options
If you are planning on a great new kitchen, you are not alone. An updated kitchen adds value and significance to your home. The kitchen is an important place in your house where you spend a lot of time. It is more pleasant and easier to work in an efficient, bright and modernized kitchen.Updating your kitchen ranges from inexpensive and quick to more complicated changes that will cost more. Find below several steps in updating your kitchen.1. The least expensive update is to change the appearance of your kitchen by applying new paint to the walls. Using your artistic ability, you can transform the walls into a plastered paradise or you can rub a few warm colored glazes for a spotted appearance. Add a border around the mid-wall or the ceiling if you prefer a more subtle look. Make sure that the paint color does not clash with your cabinets.2. Your kitchen cabinets are another great change to modernize your kitchen. You may try to consider RTA cabinets. They are ready to assemble and easier for you to install and are more affordable than custom made ones.3. A floor change can be done easily. Sometimes your flooring could be the major factor that makes your kitchen look outdated. There are numerous options for your do-it-yourself kitchen floor enhancement such as linoleum tiles and applying floor paint for a quick and cheap change. Make sure to do a research on any flooring change before you proceed.4. An outdated and stained countertop can spoil the entire look of your kitchen. Consider tiling over instead of replacing it, or if it does not fit in with your budget, you can re-laminate it instead. You can buy laminate sheets at most home improvement stores and they cost less than buying a new countertop. Laminate sheets are also lighter, easy to install and comes with various colors, styles and finishes.5. If you cannot afford to replace your fridge or the dishwasher, you can cover it. Trim kits and appliance panels are inexpensive and come in more than two-hundred colors and designs to choose from which includes stainless steel, chalkboard and sports motif.6. You can replace your outdated light features. You may opt to add track lighting. They come in different widths, prewired and quick to install. Many feature halogen spotlights that you can point to major areas in your kitchen such as the stove or the workstation.7. To replace and old and tired-looking sink, you might consider installing an undermount sink. This type of sink sits under the counter, which makes wiping the counter easier. You might also want to take into consideration installing cast iron or porcelain if you are tired of the stainless steel appearance. If replacing the sink does not fit in with your finances, you can consider replacing the faucet. With so many designs, shapes and sizes, it would be hard to decide with works best. A faucet with a high arch is best for filling up large buckets or pots.8. The backsplash in your kitchen are often ignored and unused. You can make it more useful by making it more practical and useful. You may add color by paint or tiling it. On the other hand, you can make or purchase small decorative prints to hang there. You can also add specially designed railings with shelves, hooks and other kinds of holder that will be able to hold often used items such as spices, utensils and cookbooks.9. Add plants in your kitchen. The kitchen windows can become instant greenhouses with an addition of glass shelves. Use glass clips in installing them directly on the glass and add a few potted herbs and voila, you will have an herb garden that is both handy and beautiful. Silk plants are perfect in the empty space above your cabinets.The kitchen upgrade that is right for you may be much less work and investment than you expect.
Two Digital Photography Tips For Newbies
There are many people out there offering you digital photography tips but the important thing is, you need to choose the best advice that will help you to achieve your objective and it doesn’t matter if you are in school for photography or not, this is a must for everyone – take only the right advice from the right place.To be successful, you should always be willing to follow through any digital photography tutorial no matter how much you consider yourself as a great photographer. Why? Because in the world of photography, the more know-how and experience you have, more people will want your service and willing to pay nice amount of money to get you.My two digital photography tips for youSearching at Google, I can see at least 400,000 digital photography tips offered across many websites. Out of all those tips, I wish to offer you few tips I am sure can help you to be more successful in this career. Learn these few tips and your portfolio size will increase and more clients will send you unsolicited testimonial for your photography business.Using these tips will make sure you have new skills under your belt and this will ease you when you are trying to apply for jobs in the future as you have so many pictures of different angles, using different tricks of trade to show to them. Your future employer will love passionate, curious photographer.One of the best digital photography I can give to you is that you need to make sure the lightning is correct before you take the picture. Remember, it is always better to measure everything twice because you don’t want to shoot so many pictures and not many you can show them. Yes, you can adjust it once you are done taking the picture, but nothing beats preparation before taking the picture. Remember that every battle is won even before it is engaged.When you are shooting an ad for a fashion magazine, I believe you realized that your job is to make the model and whatever she’s wearing looks great and people will crave it. That’s why you need to make sure the environment of the model has all the right lightning and you must pay special attention to her skin tone because type of lights you are using will impact how her skin will turn out in the pictures (fortunately there is Photoshop to fix the problem if you do screw up somewhere).Try to use horizon as a guideline if you lack of experience in shooting outdoors. Most photographers who take pictures outdoor often worry about their pictures are going to come out looking off balance but if you use horizon as your pointer to set your camera, then you know your pictures you take are going to take are going to be perfectly straight.
Let’s Talk Marketing Strategy
You’re a new non-profit and wondering how you’ll come up with money to support your cause, right? You’ve heard the hype about grants and loads of free federal money that are available to anyone willing to lend a helping hand in society, but have you done any serious investigation into the processes that sustain a non-profit in the long haul?Let’s start with a few pieces of common misinformation:Grants are sustainable.This is far from the truth. Grant funding is like a crutch. The whole idea behind setting aside a chunk of money is to help an organization establish a project or keep an impactful project in place when times are tough. Grant money isn’t intended to sustain an organization fully.Grants are available for everyone.Most grant money is available to government entities and non-profit organizations. If an individual or for-profit business, chances are your grant search is going to be grueling. Not to mention, probably spend more resource applying for the money than receive IF you get funded. Therefore, seeking grant money is a largely ineffective marketing approach for almost every non-profit organization.Grants are available for everything.Grant money for specific causes that advance a social mission. Federal money for very specific and foundation money is set aside to advance a specific purpose set forth by that foundation. Although true that a foundation may support minority-owned businesses, the competition is fierce. There are thousands of people just like yourself searching for that same money.So, does that mean you should give up? Absolutely Not.But, you should devise a strategic plan based on this information. Using a transaction cost analysis (TCA) framework, let’s look at some of the most cost-effective forms of marketing for ANY non-profit organization and then we’ll discuss how this all relates to your overall funding search. There are 6 major types of marketing for organizations with social missions:Direct mailMost of us associate direct mail with those little flyers we get stuffed between the newspapers or postcards offering 50% at the next department store sale. direct mail has proved to be valuable in capturing the attention of prospective donors and in following up with people who have previously donated money to a cause. Direct mail is relatively inexpensive but does not yield a huge response.Direct Response MarketingDirect response marketing constitutes a variety of techniques but is commonly associated with practices such as television, magazine, and radio advertisements where consumers are encouraged to take part in a direct call to action. Direct response marketing is expensive and relatively ineffective in reaching targeted audiences.Catalogue MarketingCatalogue marketing is generally an approach used by businesses that sell products or packed services but can be used by non-profit organizations that sell cause-related apparel. Although catalogue marketing has a low return rate, it has been found to increase among use of other marketing techniques.Telephone MarketingWe’re all familiar with telemarketers-primarily the reason telephone marketing gets a bad rep but if can be a very productive means of personal selling if done properly and legally. One of the main problems with telephone marketing is the training required to ensure that all phone calls meet regulatory requirements and that the sales people themselves do a good job at representing your organization.Personal SellingExactly how it sounds, personal selling is any face-to-face encounter that has the potential to turn into an investment in your cause. Face-to-face selling has a high rate of return however it requires the most resources of any marketing tactic because it requires research, scheduling, coordination, and often multiple meetings between executives.Online MarketingThere is no doubt that the internet has changed the marketplace and it is also one of the most cost-effective methods of marketing. The problem is have historically fallen behind with online trends and don’t make investments in online marketing processes, never mind an online marketing plan. For a social venture to be successful in the 21st century, it’s almost impossible to avoid investing in a website and social media.In a recent study published by Direct Marketing: An International Journal, TCA was used to measure the effectiveness of these approaches based on the level of control over direct marketing (DM) resources compared to the cost to implement each approach. Not surprisingly, the most productive forms of marketing were namely personal selling, telephone, direct mail, and online while the least cost-effective forms were direct response and catalogue. However, the findings presented in this study are consistent in that they support the use of multiple forms of marketing as the most effective approach.What does marketing have to do with fundraising?Most non-profits are small, and many of these organizations sustain their projects through donations from the public rather than grant funding. This means that marketing (or fundraising) is one of the most vital metrics that every organization should pay close attention to when planning how they sustain their operations, pay their employees, and build capacity. So, if we take grants off the table, we can first consider other forms of revenue generating pursuits, including:1. Individual Pledges2. Corporate Giving3. Sponsorships4. Fundraising Events5. Products/Services6. Major DonationsReferencesMallin, M. L., & Finkle, T. A. (2007). Social Entrepreneurship and Direct Marketing. Direct Marketing: An International Journal, 1(2), 68-77. doi:10.1108/17505930710756833