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Gary Lipton Media Relations Manager Phone: 1-(800)-222-5551 Fax: 1-(800)-990-4329 Web site: www. napsnet .com e-mail: printmedia@napsnet.com #2414 North American Precis Syndicate, Inc., 350 Fifth Avenue, 65th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10118-0110 Made In The U.S.A. (NAPSA)—There’s a growing interest in products made in the U.S.A. and one man is making it easier to find them. Low-Cost Home Improvement Tips (NAPSA)—It may be easier and less expensive than you realize to make your home more livable and more valuable. According to the Appraisal Institute, investing in a paint job and new carpets can easily increase the value of your home. Creating more living space, such as converting a basement into a family room, is also worth considering. The Institute adds that bedrooms and bathrooms are particularly important because they affect how many people can comfortably live in a home. Cook Up A New Kitchen According to Remodeling magazine, a major kitchen renovation can cost $54,000. If you’d like to give your kitchen a new look for a lot less, says home improvement expert Pat Simpson, host of HGTV’s “Fix it Up!,” you should replace the hardware on the doors and drawers. Lighting will easily enhance a kitchen’s appearance, too. Remove the fluorescent fixtures and hang pendant lights over islands. A Bathroom With Personality A bathroom remodeling project can also cost tens of thousands of dollars. Simpson has a better idea. For a few hundred dollars, install a new tile floor. In many cases, tile can be laid right over an existing floor. Consider replacing a large plated mirror with a framed one. Go to the Wall To Renovate Your Closet “Many homeowners who make You can have a new home at the old address with a few simple changes. improvements to their master bedroom closets spend thousands of dollars on unique shelves and drawers, in an attempt to get organized, but forget about the walls,” says Simpson. “You can really dress up your master bedroom closet with cedar planks. And don’t forget to line those drawers with cedar to protect your folded clothes.” A cedar closet not only looks and smells great, it repels and resists moths, roaches, silverfish and mildew. It’s also safer than mothballs. CedarSafe Natural Closet Liner planks are made of 100 percent Aromatic Eastern Red Cedar and line the walls of the closet. Learn More For more tips and information, you can visit www.cedarsafeclos ets.com. Flowers Add Cheer And Flair To Holidays One smart way to protect the nation’s future and create jobs for the next generation is to buy products made in the U.S.A. “America is exporting its ability to manufacture,” says Todd Lipscomb, author of “Achieving Prosperity” and founder of Made InUSAForever.com. “This hollowing out of our industrial base leaves our children with a lack of job security and will eventually call into question our country’s leadership status.” Lipscomb tracked down hundreds of made-in-U.S.A. products and sells them on his Web site. He says he’s all for fair trade but “The nation’s trading partners, particularly China, are not even close to ‘free or fair.’ There’s worker wage and safety exploitation, heavy pollution and exportation of products with poisonous levels of toxins to the United States.” He invites readers to send him their ideas at madeinusaforever ideas@yahoo.com, as well as visit MadeinUSAForever.com. (NAPSA)—You can make your holiday spirits bloom by decking your home with flowers—especially if you feel a little low in the morning hours. Participants in a Harvard study confirmed they feel least positive in the early hours but reported being happier and more energetic after looking at flowers first thing in the morning. “The morning blahs, it turns out, is a real phenomenon,” says lead researcher Nancy Etcoff, Ph.D. “Interestingly, when we placed a small bouquet of flowers into their morning routine, people perked up.” Festive Flowers According to Jill Slater, designer for flowerpossibilities.com, adding flowers all around the home this season is simple. She offers the following festive flower recipe and suggests placing flowers in the kitchen and other areas of the home where they can be enjoyed by everyone first thing in the morning and throughout the day. Ornamental Overture Ball ornaments fill a bowl of greenery, pinecones and berries. Fill some of the ornaments with flowers, too! Materials • 1 shallow bowl, 10 inches in diameter • 10 to 15 round Christmas balls of varying sizes and color • 3 to 4 Rubrum lilies, or substitute with white Casa Blanca or pink lilies • 5 to 7 stems of Christmas greens (if necessary, cut them from the back of the tree) Ornaments added to festive, seasonal flowers can add holiday cheer to any room in the house. • 3 to 5 pinecones and/or 3 to 5 sprigs of holly • Bubble gum, Play-Doh or floral clay • Flower food/preservative • Floral clippers Directions 1. Fill the bowl with ornaments. 2. Slip greens, pines and/or holly between the ornaments. 3. Remove the cap from 3 to 4 of the ornaments that are on top and dispersed throughout the bowl and fill them with water that has been treated with flower food/preservative. 4. Cut the stems of the lilies very short and insert them into the ornaments. 5. Use gum, Play-Doh or floral clay to secure floral ornaments in the arrangement. For more inf ormation and suggestions, visit www.flower possibilities.com.
