Cards Cut

Many of the silk flowers available for bridal bouquets today
look so real only the bride knows for sure whether they are.
Using silk flowers in the bridal bouquet may not be for every
bride, but many are taking a second look at the advantages.

One of the best reasons for choosing silk flowers for the
wedding bouquet is that the beauty of the flowers will remain
the same for many tomorrows as it looks today. Too often with a
fresh cut bouquet, saving it means drying the bouquet. If you
are not adept at drying flowers, they may even end up with mold
spots. Even if they are dried appropriately, the colors will be
faded. You can get a fresh cut bouquet freeze dried to
perpetuate the true colors, but it must be done by a
professional and can be expensive. Silk flowers will not wilt,
mold, or fade on your wedding day or over the years that pass.

If you choose to have a silk flower wedding, you can plan and
order your bouquets far in advance of the wedding. Most brides
are very busy in the month before the wedding. Having to
coordinate with a florist to have fresh cut flowers delivered to
the wedding venue is just one more pressure point on the
countdown. Also, if the fresh cut flowers do not look like you
envisioned, when you get them it is often too late to change
anything. When you order your silk flower bouquets as far in
advance as six months before the wedding, you have plenty of
time to ask for changes or to order extra pieces if other
honored guests appear on your list.

Finally, in terms of the wedding budget, a silk flower wedding
can be more economical than fresh cut flowers. The flowers you
like are always “in season.” Prices are not bumped by seasonal
changes. Also, because you will be able to order at a time that
you wish to, you can pay for the flower expense months ahead of
other expenses that will necessarily come right before the
wedding.

Whatever choices you make about your wedding flowers - silk
flower or fresh cut - a good wedding flower designer will help
you create beauty in your wedding bouquet.

Once you have figured out your what your focus should be,think of ideas on how you would like to see your site and sketch out each page. Start with the home page; this page should be about 3-5 paragraphs long. It should state who you are and what you do and guide the viewer to the rest of the site.

Keep in mind that the average web browser will decide whether to leave or stay on your site in the first 6 seconds! So get their attention, but don’t scare them away! (See our other article on how to write good copy)

Your website doesn’t have to be fancy to be great, it should just be clean, informative and easy to navigate. Remember the 6 second rule. Here are some basic guidelines for content to include in your site:

- A complete description of your products and/or services “Services page” The more information you give your visitors, the more informed they will be when they contact you.

- Pictures, everyone loves pictures! Every page on your site should have at least one picture or graphic. But be sure they are related to your business. Depending on your industry, you might even want to have a “gallery” or “portfolio” page.

- Have a “Packages” or “Pricing” If you don’t list your prices, your prospects might go somewhere that does. Ever been in a store with no price tags? In cases like this, many people think that the products are too expensive or that the company will try to get them to buy something they don’t really need. At the very least, you should list a starting range and maybe a description of your average or most popular package.

- Testimonials. People want to feel that you can actually produce what you claim. Get testimonials from past clients and put their names on it and where they live, as not to seem like you made them up. i.e. Bob Smith - Hampton, Virginia

- Give a brief history/bibliography. This is usually the “About Us” page. State your experience, why you got into the business, etc … Why should one hire/buy from you? It is OK to embellish a bit for readability, but don’t lie! If you are a member of any professional organizations, list those here too.

- FAQ’s … Answers to frequently asked questions is another good thing to have on your website …. This will add valuable information to your site and save you time in having to answer the same questions to every new client.

- Links to friends and colleges in related fields is another great thing to have on your website. This makes you appear to have greater experience to the prospective client. And offers valuable information to your visitors. Of course, you should not trade links with your competition Look around, I would be willing to bet that in most cases, your competition has some sort of a link referral system.

- Finally, the “Contact” page … make sure your contact information is easy to find … it doesn’t hurt to have the phone number and/or email contact at the bottom of every page and then have detailed info on the “Contact” page. Always, have a phone number AND an email contact. You would be surprised how many people surf at night and like to send email requests. You should also have your location somewhere on your website, so people know where you are, even if you work from home and don’t want to advertise your home address, you can put the city you are in. Or you can get a local P.O. Box. Most people like to work with local businesses.

Once your site is up, you are only half way there, now you have to market it! What good is this great site that you have spent so much time and money on if no one can find it?!

Website marketing can be difficult and time consuming. Here are some tips to get you started.

List your website address in ALL your printed promotional materials. Business cards, postcards, brochures, flyers, etc … And list it in your email signature so that you will be advertising your website with every email you send.

Posting on Message boards related to your industry is another way you can promote your site and establish yourself as an expert in your field. (boards that will let you post your website address/url in your signature)

Then you will want to submit your site to the search engines. Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves are the ‘top dogs’ right now.

Consider hiring an SEO expert to do monthly search engine submissions for you and try to update your site often so it doesn’t become stale. It also helps to optimize at least your home page for your most relevant keywords and phrases. (See our other article on how to write copy search engines love)

You will also want to try and get your site listed on other related websites that may already have established rankings with the search engines. The more ways a potential customer has of finding your website, the better. This is “Link Popularity”.

Writing articles related to your field and submitting them to related websites and article bank sites (such as www.EzineArticles.com and www.Article99.com) is another great way to build inbound links to your site.

Again, all this can take time and effort and sometimes money but it will ultimately pay off in the long run.

© Plush Designs - 2005 All Rights Reserved

Plush Designs offers affordable website and graphic design and search engine marketing services.

Check out our website for more details. http://www.PlushDesigns.net

Don’t get left behind! Isn’t it time to get your business online?

It’s wise to remember how easily email — this wonderful
technology — can be misused and misdirected, sometimes
unintentionally, with serious consequences. Unless you are using
encryption, the privacy of your message cannot be guaranteed nor
the authenticity of your correspondent.

Consider the case of a man who left the snow-filled streets of
Chicago for a vacation in sunny Florida. When he reached his
hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email, who was
planning to meet him there the next day.

Unfortunately, when typing her address, he missed one letter,
and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher’s wife
whose husband had just passed away. When the grieving widow
checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a
wail, and fell to the floor in a faint.

At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this email
note on the screen:

“Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your
arrival tomorrow. P.S. Sure is hot down here.”

What actually hurts here is that the email was not being
intercepted but rather, inadvertently directed to the wrong
location. The nickname feature in many mailers can cause
accidental emails being sent to co-workers instead of family
members, or vice-versa. It’s a strange new kind of
miscommunication, where you can misdirect emails a dozen times
before lunch. At least with misdialed phone numbers it becomes
apparent after a few moments and you usually stop before saying
too much. With email, it is now possible to quickly send a
completely coherent message that is nonetheless nearly
incomprehensible to a mistaken recipient.

Bigger mistakes can come from an accidental “reply” or even
worse, “reply all” instead of “forward”. A recent example would
be when a congressional staffer accidentally hit “reply all”
when intending to forward a comment to fellow staffers on a
“Support the Captive Primate Safety Act” email he’d received
from an animal rights group. The original email was supporting
legislation to prohibit the keeping of primates such as monkeys
and great apes as pets, and asking for co-sponsors to protect
not only animals but humans as well, as there are inherent
dangers in keeping such pets. The staffer’s comment was meant to
be funny, and read: “Does this deal with those kids out in
Ohio(?) who were kept in cages?” However, this email went out to
the legislators behind the Captive Primate Safety Act instead of
being forwarded as an inside “joke”, leading to a very sticky
political exchange.

Other instances of email misdirection puts organizations In
legal and/or financially risk, causing a number of compliance
issues. A 2005 Harris Interactive® for Fortiva poll, shows that
68 per cent of U.S. employees who use email at work have sent or
received email via their work email account that could place
their company at risk.

While all these examples may be a good arguments as to why you
should disable the “reply all” function altogether, the fact
remains that the way a standard, unprotected email is sent out
is very akin to the mailing of a postcard. With the wrong
address attached there is nothing, not even an envelope, to
dissuade an unintended recipient from reading about, for
instance, the naughty things you did while in Vegas. Even worse,
the mistaken recipient can in turn “reply” and you could be end
up with unsolicited correspondences for the lifetime of that
email address.

Use it wisely, and email is indeed a wonderful tool. Email is
fast, easy to use and has become a cultural method of propelling
personal and business communication. The bottom line is this -
do not trust confidential information to email unless you are
using security such as encryption or rights management. Whether
it’s due to misdirected email or breach of email etiquette, your
email could be exposing yourself to more than you know.

Among some of us who deem ourselves spiritual, the use of the word “spiritual” causes blushing and anxiety. What a pale word it is in the face of what earned spirituality actually provides. No single word, however potent, can tap the pure light and color of a cosmic mindset. The green vistas and pinkish sun rays of such a mind lie beyond the reach of labels and terms.

Ironically, despite my hesitation in applying language to elevated states of consciousness, I reached such states through language itself. To explain: I discovered my “spirituality” through the pure act of writing. Since I’d grown up under the impression that divinity could only be tapped in churches or temples, my own arrival was quite surprising.

As I said, writing is a pure act. It’s borderline immaterial. I say borderline due to the necessity of pens, paper, keyboards, monitors, staples, ink, bindings, and the like. Despite such material pinnings, writing remains an endeavor to ethereal spaces. Said spaces can swell with warmth or bend with terror, but they’re always …Other. The forceful charge of authentic inscrutability cannot be denied when composing language.

Prose calls up imagery, emotion, sound, and fire. When reading (or writing, which requires reading as it occurs) we recede into ourselves, we re-enter the womb. Our senses are at the mercy of an intricate arrangement of tiny symbols– letters and punctuation marks– that open corridors within us. We find ourselves amidst strange faces and rooms. As the journey deepens, so does the reader’s inner texture. The prose has refined our very selves. And when said refinement advances, something resembling the “spiritual” might emerge.

Again, I have no strong terms with which to label this process. No formal religion summates my findings. The realm of the spirit is fleeting and slippery, and can at best be viewed through squinty eyes. But I know I see something. And I intend to keep looking.

About The Author

Eric Shapiro is the author of “Short of a Picnic,” a collection of fictional stories about people living with mental disorders.

shortofapicnic@aol.com

Owning a house is part of the American Dream. Depending on where you live in the US - home ownership can be around 70%. That means that 70% of people own their own home. That is very high compared to other countries. Owning a home is usually a nice piece of independence and also part of building a nest egg for retirement. Home ownership is considered an investment. But then it is surprising how many home owners treat their own home as if it would be something they don’t own.

Imagine the case of a lady in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. She bought a ranch-style home in late 2004 for $265,000.00 - mainly financed through a mortgage. She owes about 95% of the house value to a mortgage company. Highlands Ranch, Colorado is a covenant controlled neighborhood. Strict rules are in place of how to maintain a certain level of landscaping and to keep the property in shape (+ many more things). The covenant rules give a development a more standard appearance, and control some of the activities that take place within its boundaries. When enforced, covenants protect property values. When buying a house in Highlands Ranch the new owner agrees to obey the covenant rules by contract.

The lady from our example above decided to let maintenance of her landscaping slip. The grass was growing out of control. Then summer came along and as she did not have an automated sprinkler system for her yard no watering was done at all. This took care of the fast growing grass in a certain way. The grass started dying in the dry Colorado summer. The outside appearance of the former $265,000 home took a toll. Currently a real estate agent estimates the value of this house in question at $250,000.

The lady from our example took her home and did not treat it as an investment. If she would have to sell her home now she will have difficulties to receive her invested money back. If she would continue to treat her home not as an investment she will eventually turn the investment into a liability and risk her credit history. Especially as her home is in a covenant controlled area she faces extra cost associated with her house. The covenant community association can even put a lien on her home and enforce the covenant rules by sending in a landscaping company to fix the problem - at the owners expense.

In our example the Highlands Ranch Community Association has started the initial process of getting the property back on track. A dated notification has been send to the home owner to bring the property back into compliance with the rules.

Overall - if investing money and letting interest in maintaining the investment slip, means the person involved is throwing money out of the window. If you have enough cash this is not a problem but who has enough cash to do this? Buying a house means to take on the burden to maintain it. Failing to do basic maintenance means to lower the value of the property.

About The Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful Entrepreneur and international book author.

Websites operated by Christoph Puetz are Web Hosting Guide and Highlands Ranch Information and Reminder Service.

This article can be published by anyone as long as the resource box (About the Author) is posted on the website including the links. These links must be clickable.

Most affiliate program owners say 80% of their affiliate sales come from 20% of affiliates. Here is the difference between top 20% affiliates and the rest.

–Normal Affiliate–

Most affiliate program owners tell their affiliates how to “sell,” such as providing templates of sales copy and saying where to advertise. Unfortunately, “selling” isn’t the best way to promote affiliate programs. You can convince people to buy affiliate products at your site; however, your affiliate link sends people to the affiliate program owner’s sales page, where they will get another sales pitch. This is how to send people away.

–Good Affiliate–

Rather than selling the products, write articles related to the products. If your articles are good enough to make people think you know what you are talking about, you can send a lot of people to the affiliate program owner’s site by just mentioning the products. (You don’t even need to recommend the products.) On top of that, you will have a better conversion rate. Ken Evoy of SiteSell.com calls this “Pre-Selling.” You can learn more about Pre-Selling by reading the e-book, “Make Your Content PREsell.” You can download it free from http://www.thatswise.com/free/e-books/presell.html

–Super Affiliate–

There is an even more effective way to make money on affiliate programs. Maybe you’ve already heard about Rosalind Gardner of sage-heart.com. She is probably the most successful affiliate on the Net. She is an affiliate of several dating sites. Instead of selling or recommending any of them, she writes reviews of each site, good and bad. So, visitors can find enough information on which service is the best for them. She is helping visitors to make good decisions, rather than selling. Once people find the service they like, there is nothing to stop them from buying. This is how she gets high conversion rates. Also, because she is an affiliate of all reviewed sites, no matter which site visitors pick, she will get commissions. High demand of dating sites has contributed to her success, but why don’t you mimic this winning technique for other products or services?

About The Author

Though his Web site, http://www.thatswise.com Akinori Furukoshi has been providing e-commerce related information since 1998. His unique way of thinking has helped online businesses to improve their performance. More detailed bio is available at http://www.thatswise.com/about_us.html

As a precious metals investor, you may heard much about numismatic and “semi-numismatic” coins, particularly the St. Gaudens $20 double eagle gold coin. While coin collecting can be an interesting hobby, it is not necessarily related to metals investing. Coins of this type vary in value with the ebb and flow of the collector market and are not strictly tied to metal value. Also, these coins often go for much more over spot price than bullion coins.

One of the concepts that gets bandied about quite a bit is the idea of U.S. government confiscation. While it is true that the U.S. government did have a gold recall in 1933 by executive order of FDR, gold coins of a significant value over gold value were not subject to this recall. Many dealers use this to imply that in the event of another confiscation these older coins would fall in this category in order to sell these types of coins to the unsuspecting or newer metals investor. However, the confiscation issue is a red herring for several reasons:

• The dollar was backed by gold in 1933 and the recall was designed at least in part to stop the run on banks; the dollar no longer has any metal backing.
• St. Gaudens $20 coins in almost uncirculated to mint state conditions are still very common even considering their age due to decades of mass storage in European bank vaults.
• There is nothing that states that numismatic items could not be confiscated in the event of another recall; the original executive order no longer has any force of law.
• Gold is no longer used in regular-issue U.S. coinage (the American Eagle gold coin, although it has a face value, does not count) and is typically used only in jewelry and privately-held investment vehicles such as bars and bullion coins which would be harder to recall and account for. The majority of recalled gold coinage in 1933 was housed in bank vaults.
• As gold is no longer used as a monetary instrument by the U.S. government, confiscation is unlikely in any event.

Now, you may be wondering about silver in regards to this as well. Silver held sway as coinage for longer than gold, and some silver coins can still be found in circulation. However, silver has never been subject to confiscation, and its status as an important industrial metal gives good reason to believe that there will never be a silver recall.

90% and 40% silver U.S. coinage is still widely available, and although it sounds contrary to what I stated above, these coins are a good value - as long as they can be bought at near silver spot or less. This is an important distinction to make, as old silver coinage (often referred to as junk silver) often carries very little to no value as a collector item over the metal value. These coins, if anything, are semi-numismatic, but don’t bank on collector value.

In short, if you approach this from the perspective of a metals investor never look at a coin for collector value. Collector markets are often hard to get a pulse on, and numismatics are much more illiquid than their bullion counterparts. If you’re paying more than spot plus a modest premium, you’re paying too much.

Find more articles on gold and silver investing at Gold and Silver: The Future of Real Money.

More than anything, even your dress,and accessories,
the right formal hairstyle will say: You look absolutely
fabulous! Learn just two attributes about your facial
features and you will never again have a problem finding
the perfect hairstyle, for prom, homecoming or any special
occasion.

Why does knowing your face shape matter? As a general rule,
duplicating the face shape with the hair shape, will create
an ordinary look with no pizazz, or style. If you have a
round face, don’t settle on a round poufy or curly hairdo;
it will only make your face look unusually round. Create
interest with an angular and/or blunt hairstyle. Likewise,
complement balance for a longish face is easy to do with a
short full cut and style, rather than long and straight.

Proportion is the relationship between the length and the
width of your face. Choose your hairstyle according to your
facial proportions. Follow the guidelines here to find whether
your facial structure is oblong, oval or round.

There are actually several methods for finding the proportions
of your face. The method we will use now is the mirror method.
Get the help of a trusted friend, who can assist you with the
calculations.You can also use a photo of yourself facing straight
into the camera. It won’t matter if it is a small photo, what
we are looking for is proportion and that does not change with
the size of the photo. You will need, however to take an accurate
measurement, so the larger the photo the easier this will be.

The average perfectly proportioned face is 1 1/2 time longer
than the width. What we are trying to determine here is to what
extent does your face vary from the norm. Remember, a perfectly
proportioned face is very rare, you need to know your structure
only for the purposes of enhancing your features with the very
best formal or casual hairstyles and the right accessories.

Directions:
Stand directly in front of a mirror, so you can see your entire
face and hairline. Remain very still, so you can take an accurate
measurement. Do not sway forward or backward or from side to side.
Pull your hair back totally away from your face and neck so you
can determine your true bone structure.

Length
First, place a dot onto the mirror, at the uppermost point where
your hair meets your forehead. Next, place a dot onto the mirror

where the bottom of your chin show in the mirror.

Width
Now, place a dot onto the mirror where each of your cheeks are at
their widest point. This is usually at the same level as the top
of your ears.

These two measurements are very important. Write them down.

Length ______
Width ______

Now, we are going to make a simple but very important calculation.
Take the width and divide that number by the length. What number
did you get? Write this number down. ___________.

Your face is OBLONG if you are between .60-.69
Your face is a bit longer than average, you may have a high
forehead or a longer chin.

Your face is OVAL if you are between .70-.79
Your length is at or close to 1 and 1/2 times the width.
Your shape is average.

Your face is ROUND if you are between .80-.89
Your is considered round if your length is shorter than average.

This is not to say that you must follow these guidelines, but by doing so you automatically complement your natural features, which creates balance and excitement, making you more attractive.

About the Author:
Ginny Beres, the webmaster of SHOP4PROM, has helped thousands of
teens prepare for their first formal: Prom. Visit her site
to find out how you can get a free online makeover at
http://www.shop4prom.com or email ggflower@shop4prom.com.

Business owners often contact us requesting an introductory meeting. They are contemplating the near to intermediate term exit from their business. The meetings generally have two major themes: 1. The beauty contest - they want to interview merger and acquisition firms or business brokers to evaluate their qualifications and process in comparison with other competitors and 2. Preparation for Sale - what should we be doing in anticipation of putting our company on the market?

One of the questions I ask on their first phone call is, “What is your Web Site address?” As a potential advisor, I want to go to their site and find out all I can about their business in preparation for the first meeting. If they respond that they do not yet have a Web Site, I already know what my top priority recommendation is in response to their questions on preparing their business for sale.

The spectacular growth of the Internet powerhouses Google, Yahoo, and Ebay should convince you that the Internet is dramatically changing the way America does business. Think about your own buying habits. It is so convenient to type in a few key words and have a world of choices presented on your computer screen. Try this simple exercise. Do a Google or Yahoo search of some key words or phrases that a potential customer of your business might use if they were searching for a vendor of your products or services. Does your web site come up? Click on some of the sites that come up on the first page of the search. Look at their Web Sites. Do you think they are getting additional business based on their search result success? Bet on it!

If you had asked me three years ago if I thought that a business owner would hire our firm based on finding us on the Internet, I would have said no. In the last quarter we have gotten two new engagements based on a client’s initial Internet search. It does not matter what type of business you run, you simply must have a Web presence. At the very least your company should have a Web Site consisting of “brochure ware”. That is very simple and inexpensive to implement. Brochure ware is simply taking your company’s collateral material and putting it up on a Web Site. If a buyer is evaluating several potential acquisitions, the absence of a Web Site will be perceived as a negative.

If you are able to integrate your Web Site into your customer service, ordering, order status, documentation, training, etc., (eCommerce) your investment could pay huge dividends when you sell your business. The new reality is that it is considerably more cost effective to conduct eCommerce than traditional commerce. The big payoff comes when potential buyers perceive your eCommerce initiative as scaleable. My translation of this over used term is that a large increase in sales can be accomplished with a small increase in fixed costs. Buyers pay for the potential you create in your business. Buyers make acquisitions to grow and if that growth can be accomplished with improving margins, your selling price will go up.

In real estate, the largest dollar for dollar return on investment for the home seller is their expenditure on landscaping. As a potential business seller, think of your investment in a Web presence in the same light.

Dave Kauppi is a business broker and President of MidMarket Capital. We help business owners with all aspects of Mergers and Acquisitions.

If you are like many women (and not a few men) in the 21 st century, you regularly are on the hunt for effective antiaging products. Each and every week, there literally are a number of different antiaging products being introduced onto the marketplace. As a result, as you search for antiaging products, it can be a rather confusing and complicated process in many instances.

If you are seeking an effective antiaging product at this point in time, there are a number of factors and pointers that you should keep and bear in mind. First of all, products that contain antioxidants are valuable for their antiaging properties. Therefore as you seek an antiaging product for your own skin care needs, be on the alert for those antiaging products that do contain antioxidants within their makeup.

In addition to looking for antiaging products that contain antioxidants, you need to keep some other facts in mind as you seek antiaging assistance. In this regard, you need to remember that you will need to develop an antiaging regimen if you really want to reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles. To this end, you will want to obtain a number of different types of effective antiaging products.

You will want to ensure that your regimen includes cleansers that are designed to include antiaging properties. In this regard, you will want to avoid cleansers that dry the skin or that are too harsh.

In addition to cleansers with antiaging properties, obtaining an effective exfoliating product is also in order. If you want to keeps your skin as youthful looking as possible, it is important that you remove accumulated dead skin cells with regularity.

As part of your antiaging, you will want to include a moisturizer. Keeping your skin supple is a vital step in combating the effects of aging. Finally, you can avail yourself of some of the other antiaging products that are available on the market such as toning and firming gels and creams.

By adopting a thorough skin care and maintenance program that you utilize on a daily basis, you will have developed a true antiaging routine. Further, you should start such a routine early in life for the maximum benefit. In the long run, your skin will be far healthier. Additionally, you will be able to better control the look and appearance of fine lines and wrinkles through such a regular skin care regimen.

Of course, in the end you need to understand that there is no Fountain of Youth. There are no skin care products that have antiaging qualities that will reverse the sands of time. Rather, the best you can hope for when it comes to the antiaging products that are available on the market today is to reduce some of the appearances that are associated with the aging process. Specifically, and has been mentioned, through a comprehensive antiaging regimen, you will be able to reduce the look of some fine lines and wrinkles.

More information on Antiaging Products