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Laura Ashley Launches the Quintessential Lifestyle Blog, to include crafts

Laura Ashley, the label who has shaped a long history of home furnishing, has just launched an exciting new blog.

The blog has fast become the go-to destination for lifestyle inspiration, creative musings, style advice, interior tips and much more.

Currently gracing the blog is a blend of posts to inspire, educate and communicate all aspects of the brand.

Olivia Gregory, Deputy Decorating Editor of House and Garden bestows her pearls of wisdom on this high-quality blog, imparting some helpful suggestions for turning a House into a Home. Her 'lived in lux' approach advocates simple and stunning furnishings, pioneered by Laura Ashley.

Their ranges of candles, boldly upholstered sofas , lamps and throws, are key design features referred by the blog as home furnishing style choices that can bring character and texture to the home.

The Laura Ashley blog also sees them utilising their extensive back catalogue to create an authoritative hub of information for their advocates, to further enforce their dominance in the clothing and home decorating space.  Bursting with fun and engaging ideas, the blog boasts everything from arts and crafts to delicious recipes and artisan interviews.

The Laura Ashley brand is ripe with history and innovation. The blog exhibits all of its fine qualities, brightly communicating them to customers through a thoughtful and illuminative platform. With customer guides ranging from Kid's Corner to Make and Do, Laura Ashley offer an extended sense of community for their customers, while inspiring a rich lifestyle and tapestry of inventive ideas.

Laura Ashley is a quintessentially British lifestyle brand founded on a rich design heritage and on the traditional values of quality and originality. We use prints and designs that evoke the English countryside, for the way you live today.

As an innovative global brand, Laura Ashley extends to encompass the broader lifestyle concept, from fashion to home decorating, furniture and accessories.  Lauraashley.com

Japanese Design for your LCD or Plasma TV

We all like to stylize our homes with most recent gizmos and electronic gadgets which add to the general ambiance and feel of our rooms. Plasma and LCD Television sets can be excellent equipment to spruce up your home. We obtain furniture for so many reasons and your TV furthermore calls for furniture like TV stands, which is fashionable, manageable and can also maintain your highly-priced TV set securely.

 

Acquiring a TV stand, particularly designed for plasma and LCD, really needs to be broad and powerful to be able to prevent avoidable deterioration to the TV set. The plasma stands are also a wonderful means to aesthetically combine to your home entertainment setup based upon the layout you opt for which subsequently will depend on the existing room's interiors. You can find countless possibilities readily available in the market to make a preference. However, before you decide to spend your hard earned money on a full entertainment center, there are few essential points to be kept in mind about plasma stands and LCD TV stands.

 

Many plasmas and LCD TVs require wide TV stands which are obtainable in different types and thus you need to be sure you are opting for the one that best fits your necessities. The primary stage of creating the perfect entertainment center is to consider the space or room available. Calculate the area of living room or bedroom where you would like the plasma stand to be positioned. This will help you estimate how wide the stand needs to be, staying away from the chance of purchasing Plasma stands or LCD stands of more than or below size.

 

Another thing you want to take notice of is the dimension of the LCD TV or plasma TV you have. You undoubtedly don't need to purchase a wide TV stand just centered on the measurement of the room's area.

 

Once you are crystal clear about the measurement of the TV screens and space, think of the type of wide TV stands or consoles you will require. Know what you want and decide on it. There are stands which provide easy flat surface where the LCD and Plasma can be attached with ease. In case that you want a storage area underneath the surface to fit in your DVD player, cable boxes, tape collections, home theater system, etc, there are stands which come along with spare cabinets under the surface.

 

These TV stands are additionally readily available in different colors made from numerous resources. They likewise also come in wood in order to match them up with your room interiors like the ones in Greentea Design, making your room look elegant and stylish. So, decide what you want and enjoy the process of completing your own home entertainment center.

Easy, Affordable Last Minute Gifts From Michaels

Free workshops and one dollar stocking stuffers make holiday shopping easy

Putting the finishing touches on Holiday '09 is easier this year, thanks to free workshops, last minute gift ideas and hundreds of stocking stuffers starting at one dollar at Michaels, North America's largest arts and crafts specialty retailer.

Michaels has expanded its selection of unique stocking stuffers to help shoppers stay within their holiday budgets with one, three and five dollar gifts for kids and adults, including holiday-themed soaps, playing cards, puzzles, candles, socks, note cards, pens, stamps, stickers and much more.

Ready-to-wrap gifts under fifteen dollars include kids' activity kits like Bead Pets, 3-in-1 Jewelry Designer, Moon Sand and Creatology(TM) art sets that will keep kids busy through the winter break. Other gifts to inspire creativity include the new American Girl Crafts(TM) line available exclusively at Michaels, and the widest selection of Crayola(R) products of any store.

"Our ready-to-wrap offerings cater to the whole family in order to help our customers save time and money during this hectic season," said Philo Pappas, Michaels Executive Vice President of Category Management. "Our workshops, webisodes, Handmade Holiday Gift Guide and online ideas continue to be extremely popular as people look for quick yet meaningful gifts to give this holiday season."

In a recent survey of Michaels customers, 65 percent said they were planning to make gifts this year. Michaels will introduce two more free gift-themed webisodes on Michaels.com and host in-store workshops this season: a free bookmark making event on December 12 from 1-3 pm and a free demo on gift wrapping and creative packaging for holiday baking on December 19 from 1- 3 pm.

Additional easy homemade gift ideas are available at Michaels.com, including last minute gifts to make for three dollars and up, such as wine charms, bottle stoppers and decorative candles. Hundreds more ideas and instructions submitted by customers for Michaels' first-ever "Handmade Holidays" contest are available at www.michaelscontest.com. The contest runs through December 20.

Michaels gift cards, as well as other top branded gift cards from the Gift Card Mall, recently introduced in all U.S. Michaels stores, can be tucked into a stocking or mailed in a holiday card to loved ones far away.

SOURCE Michaels Stores, Inc.

Transform Photos into One-of-a-Kind Works of Art on Metal

This season, spring style is all about metallics. Fashionistas have dubbed metallics "the new neutral" and, as trends go, home decor is following suit. Artist Ginger King, however, would stop short of calling her own work with metallics "trendy." She combines her expertise in digital design and her work with metals to create custom, timeless and surprisingly affordable fine art pieces for the home. Her company, Impel Ink, stands alone in the photo reproduction market because of its sophisticated approach to printing materials and frames that move beyond traditional canvases.

At impelink.com, King works closely with her customers to develop each work of art. "My customers provide the photograph, and I provide the technique and the artistic vision," she said.

What makes her process different is Impel Ink's signature photo reproduction on fine art metals -- satin gold, satin silver and satin white. Also available is a clear film overlay option, in which an image is printed on glossy clear film then overlaid on matte foam board in the customer's choice of five colors.

Yet it's the range of visual effects, from contemporary to abstract, that offers the most options -- 20 of them, to be exact. The art and design world has seen the increased use of digital photo technology in recent years, and King has been ahead of the curve.

Another option that sets Impel Ink apart is its custom acrylic frames with innovative mounting options. These frames are available in clear, opaque black or white, or pop colors: watermelon, periwinkle, gold and orange. For a dramatic finishing touch, the acrylic frames also come with one of six vibrant edges: blue, black, green, red, orange or yellow.

"We offer the convenience of online shopping," said King, "with the personal service of a local studio." She explained that a customer simply emails the photo to be reproduced and later can proof the finished product online.

"I'm especially proud of Impel Ink's work with unconventional media -- particularly fine art metal," said King. "With the surge in popularity of metallics, we are answering consumer demand but also showing that an image inspired by the moment can have staying power."

Impel Ink prints only on high-quality, fine art materials, including the unique fine art metals, using archival, water-resistant inks. Every step of the process is carefully controlled and inspected.

For more information, visit http://www.impelink.com.

SOURCE Impel Ink

Light Crafts Introduces Aurora for easy Photo Management

For many, photography is a very popular hobby and plays a big part in many crafts projects.

Now available for download, Aurora simplifies the complexities of getting to great photos...

Light Crafts today announced the introduction of Aurora, powerfully simple photo editing, organizing and sharing software that answers the need of consumers who are looking to bring out the best in their digital photos. Aurora is intuitive to use, enabling anyone to go from download to expert in a matter of minutes.

"We believe everyone's photos should look great, and we are proud to introduce Aurora as a powerfully simple solution to help photographers of all stripes achieve amazing results for their digital images," said Fabio Riccardi, founder and CEO of Light Crafts. "Aurora makes it possible, for the first time, to easily edit photos so that they reflect what you saw in real life when you captured the image. We spent years studying how the human eye processes images, and we built Aurora to mimic that ability so that edited photos reflect the actual memory you captured."

Aurora's visual photo editor is powered by sophisticated algorithms that simplify the complexities of advanced photo-editing by presenting suggested improvements to photos in an intuitive what-you-see-is-what-you-get fashion. A pop-up image selector lets users see a range of improvements and pick exactly how their edited photos might look simply by clicking on the desired improved image.

Aurora's powerfully simple solution not only edits photos, it also has sophisticated tools to help organize photos, has online back-up services to help keep photos safe, and makes sharing photos easy with photo publishing tools and photo sharing capabilities with sites like Flickr and Facebook.

Aurora's key features include:

• Visual photo editing: The strength of Aurora lies in its intuitive, powerful, visual editor which presents suggested improvements in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get fashion. The unique relight tool essentially "turns on" the light inside the image, creating better, more realistic photos. Users can also straighten, adjust color strength and warmth, crop, zoom and adjust red-eye in a simple, intuitive and visual way.

• Organizing and viewing of photos: Aurora allows consumers to easily import photos from their camera or computer, re-arrange and re-name them, then tag and rate favorites for easy viewing and retrieval.

• Sharing and publishing: Aurora enables consumers to email, print, and connect directly to their photo sharing, social networking and accounts from within Aurora making it easy to share select photos online on sites like Flickr and Facebook.

• Online back-up: Photos are one of those truly irreplaceable items. Aurora's optional online back-up service is powered by Amazon.com and stores photos to keep them out of harm's way. Online back-up plans are available for $4.95 per month. Users can simply hit "online back up" from within Aurora to sync directly with their Amazon storage account.

"Aurora is the answer for intuitive photo editing," said Tracey Clark, photographer (www.traceyclark.com), mom and founder of ShutterSisters.com. "I love its unique way of presenting editing options. In my experience using the software, Aurora makes it easy for anyone to improve and beautifully enhance their images."

Aurora is available for $19.95 and can be purchased for download to a PC at www.lightcrafts.com.

SOURCE Light Crafts, Inc.

Michaels Re-Launches Their Popular Do-It-Yourself Website

Michaels' how-to webisodes featuring Creative Expert Jo Pearson received nearly a million views on the company's creative inspiration website and on YouTube.com as the current do-it-yourself trend took off over the holidays. That's why Michaels, the world's largest arts and crafts specialty retailer, will introduce a whole new series of the popular how-to webisodes this month with the re-launch of WhereCreativityHappens.com.

Beginning March 30, Jo Pearson, who has created thousands of projects for Michaels, will share more of her tips, techniques, ideas and inspiration to help people save money and have fun creating decor and gifts in seven new webisodes. Each webisode will feature easy, step-by-step instructions for do-it-yourself projects like designing one-of-a-kind jewelry, updating their outdoor entertaining spaces, and much more.

"Our customers are telling us that they want to spend more time on do-it-yourself projects not only to save money but as an inexpensive activity the whole family can enjoy," said Michaels Chief Marketing Officer Stuart Aitken. "We will introduce a series of new webisodes in 2009, along with in-store events and hundreds of project ideas, to provide inspiration and value to our customers."

The webisodes and the relaunch of WhereCreativityHappens.com continue Michaels' "Endless Creativity, Endless Savings" campaign which began the 2008 Holiday season. The creative, value-driven message connected with consumers looking for ways to spend less in a down economy while still enjoying the holidays. An impressive 3.9 million unique visitors logged on to Michaels.com in December, a double-digit increase over the previous year.

"With the economy, people are really getting into do-it-yourself projects again and learning that they can be creative, make cool stuff and have fun doing it," said Jo Pearson, Michaels' Creative expert for more than 20 years. "I hope people will join me throughout the year as we introduce projects for spring, Easter, summer, back to school, Halloween and into the holiday season again. We're going to have a ball!"

SOURCE Michaels Stores, Inc.