Cards Cut

If you are planning to come over with your friends and family to the exotic tropical paradise of the Cayman Islands, the Grand Cayman, with its luxurious oceanfront villas and grand resorts, its spectacular underwater world, adventure water sports and authentic Caribbean culture is something you will die for. By far the largest and most active of the three islands, the Grand Cayman attracts 99 percent of the tourists who come over to the Cayman Islands, flocking to hotel-stocked Seven Mile Beach. With spectacular condominium properties along Seven Mile Beach, 42 diving operations, throbbing nightlife at nightclubs and discos, 7 full service underwater photography and video centers, Grand Cayman happens to be the nucleus of attraction for the Cayman Island tourists. At the same time, with a host of professional services offered, global investors have been vastly interested in doing business with the professional firms of the Grand Cayman Island.

Whether you are planning for a spectacular wedding amidst the coral island settings with perfect Caribbean hospitality and the delicious cuisine that the Grand Caymans has to offer, or simply for a great vacation adventure, you would be looking around for quality accommodations in the Grand Cayman island, with world-class hotels, condos, private homes and guesthouses available for rent in the Grand Cayman island.

At the same time, you may be a real estate investor or a business owner interested in investing money on Grand Cayman businesses. With its steady flow of global tourists, the Grand Cayman today has graduated from a mere adventure or vacation hotspot to a renowned offshore financial and tourism destination. Today, the World Wide Web turns out to be a great platform for global tourists to generate more information on the Grand Cayman Island. Over our independent search engine, professional services of the Grand Cayman are encouraged to place their websites, so that they get global coverage and eventually see a massive increase in their business.

With a steady flow of global tourists flocking into the Grand Cayman Islands, the five-star hotel industry with top-notch beach suites are flourishing each day. At the same time, with million dollar beachfront properties and lavish oceanfront estate homes, the real estate industry is also booming in the Grand Cayman. If you are interested in any of these or if you are simply a tourist or a plot buyer, you are sure to enjoy the enriching experience of exploring the Cayman Islands.

Lopa Bhattacharya is a content writer/developer working on websites for overseas/Indian clientele. Has worked for various corporate website projects, CD-Rom presentations, brochures, flyers and other communication materials on varied themes ranging from travel, hotel industry, photography, web design and software development to US-based clubs and network communities. Was previously an editorial associate for a news, culture and entertainment portal based on the life and times of Kolkata.

These are fun and easy craft projects that don’t cost a lot of money. Most of the supplies you will already have sitting around the house.

Bubble Photo Frames

Supplies needed: a short wide mouth cup, dish detergent, water, food coloring, paper photo frames, a straw.

You can find paper photo frames in the scrap-booking section of any craft store and some grocery stores.
Fill the cup with water and add a drop or two of dish detergent. Color the water with food coloring.
Blow into the water using the straw until bubbles form and start overflowing the cup. Press the photo frame lightly into the bubbles and pull it away.
You now have some nice designs transfered to the frame from the bubbles. Continue the process until you have the frame coated in a pleasing way. You can use more than one color on the frame by making cups with different colors in them.

Grass Basket

Supplies needed: basket with plastic liner, potting soil, rye-grass seed, gravel, charcoal(optional)

Line the bottom of the basket with the gravel this allows for drainage. Add a layer of charcoal on top of the gravel. The charcoal keeps things fresh smelling in case of over watering. Put your topsoil into the basket up to about 1/2 from the rim. Sprinkle the grass seed liberally onto the soil. Top the grass seed with a sprinkling of topsoil, just enough to cover the seeds. Sprinkle water onto the soil and keep moist. Set the basket into a sunny warm area away from drafts.
Rye grass seed usually sprouts in 4-7 days.
When the grass gets taller than one inch, you can trim it back with scissors. If you start the project early enough, you will have a nice basket to lay Easter eggs into for Easter.

Indoor Basketball

Supplies needed: styrofoam cup, tissues, tape, scissors

Cut the bottom out of the styrofoam cup. This is your basket. Tape it to the wall, onto a door or on the side of a bookcase. Wad up some tissues to use as your basketball. You might make three per person. Each person gets three tries at making a basket. If you make a basket you get a point. Play until someone gets 25 points.

For more fun crafts visit Easter Crafts.

Margaret Rench is the webmaster of Theme Party Palace. A mother of two and grandmother of one. They have taught me the joy of parties.

“At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.” -Thomas Tusser

OK. Thanksgiving was wonderful, visiting with family and sharing
fun stories and adventures; laughing around the dining room
table, enjoying favorite stuffing and pies; watching parades and
football games; and counting your many blessings.

It is now time to turn our attention to the many preparations for Christmas. Coming from a Christian perspective, I can speak for the anticipation which we all feel to celebrate the birth of the Christ-child. It brings us wonder each and every year, and the time and energy we put into its celebration never wanes. As I watch my Jewish friends prepare for Hanukkah, I sense, too, the joy with which they prepare celebrations with loved ones.

The gift of sacrificial love is the true essence of Christmas.

Teaching your children to give generously and to give cheerfully
models the life of Christ. Our God, who created each one of us
with more love than we can imagine, desires this same outpouring
of love to others, and it is at Christmas that we likewise share
our love through gift-giving and through acts of generosity and
hospitality. We are buoyed by the “Christmas spirit” because it
is through giving–rather than receiving–that we receive the
most joy. Pausing to think about others, about their needs and
desires, and extending yourselves to their benefit, brings deep
inner satisfaction not found any other way.

Have you made your list of those people with whom you want to
share the Christmas spirit?

Consider giving small, inexpensive gifts to a large list, rather than more extravagant gifts to a very few loved ones.

When Ithink of the model of giving I want to pattern for my own family, I cannot exclude from the list those folks who cross my path on a daily basis–in one way or another–who may or may not have yet reached into close friendship with me. And so I am always thoughtful for small yet kind ways in which I might extend generosity.

Extend your circle of concern.

Think not only of what members of your own family would appreciate at Christmas. Think of cousins and aunts and uncles, and of closest friends. And don’t stop there. Extend your circle. Think of your mail carrier, pet groomer, your pediatrician’s office staff, the folks at your gym, your neighbors, friends of your children, office workers at you
or your spouse’s place of work, your manicurist, the
landscaper….think through the flow of your typical week and
those people who enter your life on a regular basis. If they are
serving you in some capacity, isn’t it kind to remember them now?

Many people refrain from practicing generosity to those outside
their small circle of concern because of the lack of money with
which to do so. But inexpensive gifts can be handmade for pennies if we will only stretch our imaginations and put our hands–and those of our children–to good use.

Look to nature and to materials right outside your front door

Free for the asking and the picking: a fresh bouquet of greens–
evergreens, magnolia leaves, and berries, tied with a gorgeous
silk ribbon–would be cherished by any receiver.

Tiny bird nest ornaments fashioned from Spanish moss, filled with speckled beans and a silk butterfly, and with a wooden clothespin glued from underneath, make delightful gifts for children and adults alike. My own tree is filled with them.

Collect pinecones and make an arrangement with them. Your
thoughtfulness will be appreciated and it will have cost nothing
more than a walk in the woods.

Homemade candies or cookies wrapped in inexpensive cellophane
bags look elegant tied with ribbon and make perfect gifts for
virtually anyone on your list.

Miniature baskets filled with one tiny, simple gift, are perfect for your children’s friends.

Remember: children love exaggeration; anything diminutive (or enormous!) appeals to their sense of wonder.

Homemade “snow globes” make our list every single year

Simply use a baby food or other small jar and fill it with water and a small bit of glycerin (found at your local drug store) and white glitter; add a few plastic toys–Lego’s, Barbie doll shoes, jacks and balls, plastic bugs–and then squeeze a think line of silicone sealant around the lid before screwing it on to prevent leakage.

Homemade glycerin soaps filled with tiny plastic toys are
adorable

They’ll delight your children as well, for they’ll have created happy memories making them with you for all of their friends.

Consider making homemade wrapping paper or handmade gift tags.

I buy inexpensive tags at office supply stores by the hundreds.
They cost about a penny apiece. I also use twine instead of
expensive ribbon. One bolt lasts several years and costs a couple of dollars.

And mail those out-of-state gifts early to avoid long lines at
the post office as well as the extra expense of priority mail.

Model a generous life…at Christmas and throughout the year.
Give faithfully and give cheerfully. You will be blessed
beyond measure.

Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; ten years of homeschooling and raising four kids provide fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is widely available online, in bookstores or through 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via seminars, workshops, keynotes and monthly meetings of the ROCKET MOM SOCIETY, a sisterhood group she launched to “encourage, equip and empower moms for excellence.” Please visit http://www.rocketmom.com

If you and your family love having (or giving) a variety of home-baked cookies for the holidays, but you just don’t have the time or energy this year, here’s the solution: a holiday cookie exchange!

You can bake just one large batch of your favorite holiday cookies, take them to the cookie exchange, and come home with several different kinds of freshly baked cookies! You’ll be the family hero, with minimum effort!

Cookie exchanges can be done with friends and neighbors at home parties, or with co-workers at the office. Since the focus of this article is saving time and energy, we’ll discuss the office version. Hey, you won’t have to spend time cleaning up the house before and after the exchange!

Here’s how to have a cookie exchange at work:

1. Pick a date. Plan ahead so you can give people plenty of advance notice… at least two weeks.

2. Reserve a conference room or other area for the exchange. Book it for an hour. You’re probably safest to plan it for the lunch hour, when your fellow employees will be free to have some non-work-related fun.

3. Invite people to participate. Be careful how you do this at work. Some companies frown on sending personal emails or using the copier for unofficial fliers. Do what’s acceptable where you work. You’ll want a minimum of six people to make the exchange worthwhile, but less than ten so the amount of baking everyone will have to do is manageable.

Explain in your invitation that everyone will need to bake a dozen cookies per participant. So if eight people sign up for the exchange, everyone will need to bring at least eight dozen cookies (extras for sample tasting are encouraged!).

Emphasize that family favorites or traditional cookie recipes are preferred, so there will be less chance of two or more people bringing the same type of cookies.

Also ask them to bring copies of their cookie recipe for sharing. This is not only a great way for everyone to obtain new cookie recipes, it’s a safety mechanism for people with food allergies. They can review the recipe before trying the cookies.

4. Ask everyone you invite to RSVP at least a week prior to the exchange and specify the type of cookie they’ll bring.

5. Share the RSVP information with all participants, so everyone will know how many cookies to bake and bring (and how many copies of their cookie recipe). Ask everyone to bring their cookies already counted out, one dozen cookies per participant, packaged in sealable plastic bags (or other containers they don’t mind giving away). If eight participants, they’ll bring eight bags containing one dozen cookies each.

6. At the exchange (in a decorated room if you’re ambitious), it’ll be nice to provide coffee or water, and encourage people to sample the cookies. That way you can all rave about each others’ culinary skills and have fun swapping stories about baking adventures, cookie recipe development, or the biggest nuts in the company. Relax for a while, have a good time, and take home some new and delicious goodies for the family!

For some great cookie recipes for cookie exchanges, visit www.Cookie-Crazy.com.

Bonnie Lowe is crazy for cookies, and owner of http://www.Cookie-Crazy.com. Check it out for great cookie recipes, articles, tips and gifts!