Digital Scrapbook Designing Kit Tutorial

Instructional Designing Sample for a Scrapbook Designing Kit

 

School ensemble:

1. Let’s begin working on this school ensemble by taking out all the diecut pieces given. Ink the edges of all these pieces with a colour that is a shade darker. Next, take a black pen and make dots/dashes along the edges of all these pieces. Use a white and black pen to add little details on these pieces as pictured. Finish the red apple diecut by crimping it twice in diagonal directions using a crimper.

2. Now, let’s create the large apple design appearing in the middle of both the pages. Take a needle and the brown thread given. Working a running or straight stitch, create the design for an apple as pictured on both the pages. Outside its boundary, using a black pen, write words related to schooling and education like “I love to read”, “learning”, “outdoor schooling”, “education”, “I love libraries”, “home school”, “my mom is my teacher”, etc...each beginning with a hashtag (#) to add interest.

3. On the first page, aligning to the right side of the page, on the top of the apple design, work a running stitch with a green thread and to make a leaf. Adhere 1 tiny, 4 small and 1 medium dark green buttons on it. In between these buttons, adhere 5 triangle eyelets and 10 green beads.

4. Take the ruler diecut and place it in the middle of both the pages, slightly tilted upwards on the 2nd page, creating a seesaw. On top of the first page portion of the rule diecut, adhere the blue paperclip, crayola and the school bus diecuts. Adhere 2 small black buttons below the school bus diecut for wheels.

5. Below this, adhere the yellow paperclip, along with the diecuts for the pencil, red apple, blue and yellow books, and the letters “S”, “C”, “H”, and “O”. In between these diecuts, adhere 1 eyelet of golden, silver and blue each.

6. On the second page, aligning to the left side of the page, on the top of the apple design, work a running stitch with a dark brown thread and to make a twig. Adhere 4 small brown buttons on it.

7. To assemble the elements of the apple, adhere the diecuts for the scissors, 2 green books and a stapler on the top of the ruler diecut as pictured.

8. Below this, adhere the diecuts for the red and green books, pencil, crayola, globe, scissors, red apple, and the red and green paperclips. Also adhere th letters “O”, “L” at the bottom. In between these diecuts, adhere 1 golden eyelet, 1 silver eyelet, 2 red eyelets and 1 blue eyelet.

9. Complete this ensemble by cropping and matting your favorite school pictures of your child.

Why is strength training important?

Are you a person like me who resolves to lose a few extra pounds every year when a family vacation or a wedding is fast approaching? Do you want to give your best shot at firming up your sagging muscles and look amazing in a favourite old dress?

If you have been thinking of starting with just a cardio exercise schedule to achieve this and more, you must seriously give a thought to trying strength training or exercising with weights along with it. Though cardio exercises or aerobic exercises are one of the most propagated forms of exercises to increase the heart rate and metabolism that are important to shed fat, strength training helps you to gain muscles, improve balance, improve heart fitness, strengthen your bones and give your body a toned look.

It’s a myth that strength training makes women bulk up. High levels of estrogen in women make it difficult for women to bulk up. Bodybuilders have to go through rigorous training and maintain a protein rich diet to bulk up. Thus, if you think that only lifting a few weights a few days a week will make you bulk up like them, be rest assured that bodybuilding needs a lot more effort than this. So instead of worrying about this, let’s look at some of the benefits that strength training offers.

Shedding fat and maintaining weight loss: Strength training helps in replacing the fat loss by building lean body mass. This muscle gain helps your body to burn fat more efficiently and also helps in maintaining weight loss.

While performing cardio exercises, your body consumes oxygen proportionately to the amount of calories burnt, resulting in weight loss in the form of fat and water loss. Whereas, strength training results in afterburn as the proportion in which the calories are burnt and oxygen is consumed is not proportional. Hence, an oxygen debt is created which results in excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or EPOC. This helps in replenishing the body after the wear and tear post exercise in a resting state. Thus, calories are burnt even after you have completed your workout. The more intense the workout the more afterburn you experience. But, the exerted muscles require rest to repair themselves and hence, strength training of the same set of muscles should be done only after a day’s rest. Ideally, performing aerobic exercises and strength training on alternate days provides best results.

Preserving muscle mass and strengthen bones: As we age, your lean body mass depletes slowly and fat piles on. But strength training helps in preserving and enhancing muscle mass and keeps our body toned and fat gain at bay. Also, as we get older, hormonal changes result in loss of bone density that can put you at the risk of encountering osteoporosis and make the bones brittle. Whereas, regular strength training can slow the rate of bone deterioration and also help in strengthening bones by improving bone density.

Preventing and reducing blood pressure: Strength training exercises also help in improving the muscles of the heart because while during strenuous exercise our muscles required more blood and the heart needs to work extra hard to keep up with it. Thus, over time the muscles of our heart strengthen and its efficiency to beat blood goes higher.

Reducing back pain: Strength training exercises helps in strengthening the muscles that hold up your back bone and thus helps in reducing back pain.

Improving the ability to carry out everyday work better: Toning your muscles will not only improve the way you look but will also help you improve your posture, balance, flexibility and coordination. With the strength you gain, you can carry out your everyday chores easily. You can easily carry your groceries, pick up a heavy package, push your lawn mover, carry you young ones, etc.

If these aren’t good enough reasons for you to start strength training, one more of its benefits is that it acts as an anti-depressant as it increases the level of endorphin in your body and makes you feel happier. You feel energetic and fit. It also helps you sleep better and improves the overall quality of your life. So pack up your gym bag and get ready to pump some iron!

Baking Soda - Its uses in solving everyday health and beauty issues

Did you know that a simple ingredient in your kitchen can help in solving a number of health and beauty issues? Be it indigestion, gas, acidity or a pimple on your face, it works wonders in all these cases.

What is sodium bicarbonate or baking soda?

It is a soluble white powder called Nahcolite. It is a part of the natural mineral called natron that is found in different parts of the world as well as naturally occurring mineral springs. It has natural cleansing properties because of which it is used in most of the household cleaning products, but it has a number of amazing medical benefits too.

How does sodium bicarbonate in solving health issues?

It is important for the human body to maintain its acid-base balance to remain healthy. The bicarbonate in soda is found in all the fluids in the human body and also in the organs to help maintain its pH balance.  When taken orally, sodium bicarbonate turns into carbon dioxide in the stomach after reacting with the organic acids in it. This results in an increase in the carbon dioxide level of the blood and tissues, which in turn also increasing the level of oxygen in the blood. A gain in one gas does not result in the loss of the other. Carbon dioxide helps in forming the bond between the oxygen and haemoglobin and results in release of oxygen from haemoglobin.

Some doctors give their patients oral, intravenous and aerosol doses of sodium bicarbonate to treat diseases like prostate cancer, breast cancer etc. Cancer cells multiply rapidly and result in the breakdown of sugars and the production of organic acids in the vicinity of the tumors. This acidic environment around the tumor in turn helps the cancer cells to spread rapidly. Thus, by raising the pH level around the microenvironment of the tumor prevents the cancer from spreading by starving the cancer cells. It also protects the organs from the harmful effects of chemotherapy and other cancer drugs.

What are the other everyday health and beauty benefits of sodium carbonate?

Treating cold and flu: One of the first uses of baking soda for medical purpose was to treat cold and flu. Consuming it with water helped in prevention of cold and flu, and also its treatment by reducing its symptoms in a day or two.

Treating heartburn and indigestion:  To treat heartburn and indigestion, you can stir half a teaspoon of baking soda into half a cup of water and drink it an hour or two after meals. Avoid drinking this alkaline liquid too often as this can also weaken your gut and the digestive system in general.

Reducing allergic itching: Baking soda can be applied as a topical antiseptic agent that helps in reducing itching caused by allergic skin reactions. It helps in balancing the pH balance of the skin and sooth itching.

Preventing blisters and scarring: Since blisters are tender areas on skin that are filled with fluid, application of baking soda on them can help in drying them out. Since it sooths itching, it also reduces your desire to scratch and pick at scabs and thus helps in avoiding scars from forming. A paste of three parts of baking soda combined with one part water can be used as a scrub to remove dead skin and lighten scars.

Treating pimples: A teaspoon of baking soda can be mixed with a little water and applied directly on the pimples. It can be kept on for about 15 minutes and should then be rinsed off with water. The paste can be applied and kept overnight too but with precaution as it quickly dries out skin. You must apply moisturizer to the skin after the application of baking soda to keep it hydrated.

Removing splinters: Baking soda can be mixed with a few drops of water and applied to the affected area and kept for a few minutes twice daily. After a few applications, the splinter will come out on its own.

Busting plaque and stains from teeth: A mixture of six parts of baking soda to one part of sea salt can be stored in a container and used to clean gums and remove plaque from teeth. This mixture can also be used with a few drops of lemon and applied to remove stains from teeth. This should be done just once a week as using it more often and keeping it too long on teeth can damage the tooth enamel.

Deodorizing feet and underarms: You can add one-half cup of baking soda to bathwater to sooth your skin and also remove bacteria from it to make it odour free. You can also mix a little of baking soda and water to form a paste and apply it on your feet or on the underarms to deodorize them.

I’m sure that by now you are convinced to bring out the unused packet of baking soda lying in your kitchen drawer and try it out to see its magical properties work wonders for you!

Tabulating data easily - Creating a table in Ms Word

If your have a lot of data that needs to be put in form of a simple database or you just need to list different but related things together, you can create tables using Ms Word.

To create a table in Ms Word:
1. Click the Table menu on the Standard Toolbar and then select the Insert option.
2. Select the Table option to display the Insert Table dialog box.
3. Select the number of rows and columns required and whether the cells in the table should be of fixed size, should fit the size of the text inserted, or should fit the window size.
4. Click OK to create the desired table.

You can now proceed with entering your data into the table. You can further enhance how your table looks by selecting different borders and shadings. You can also add or delete the number of columns and rows in the table.

Cropping an image in Adobe ImageReady

If you have a picture in which you look very pretty but something in the background does not look that pleasing, you can crop the picture to highlight only that part and cut out the rest of the background. You can do so very easily with the Adobe ImageReady software.

Open the picture you want to crop and then select the Crop Tool icon on the Toolbar. Notice that the mouse pointer turns into a crop tool now. Start from the top of your image and highlight the part that you want to highlight. Keep your mouse pointer pressed as you select the desired part of the image. Once the area to be cropped is selected, double click it to crop the image. Now you only see the part of the image you wanted to show. Save this version of the image and you are ready to share it with your friends.

Scintillating Beauty of Cayo Guillermo

Cayo Guillermo is one of the most beautiful islands of the Jardines del Rey archipelago, with only 13 square kilometres of surface. It has three beaches out of which Playa Pilar is the most scintillating. It has a total length of four kilometres The greenery and stunning beauty of this sandy island has been described in the work of Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway, the ‘Islands in the Stream’. The sand dunes of this cay, that can be as high as 15 meters, are one of the natural elements that make it beautiful.

Natural Beauty of the Cays

Cayo Guillermo and the Santa Maria National Park are a part of the Sabana-Camaguey group of cays, situated to the North of the Ciego de Avila Province. The beauty of these cays is especially alluring to nature lovers as they have a very rich fauna and flora that is similar to that of the Bahamas. Numerous colonies of pink flamingos add to its scenic beauty. Apart from its endemic bird fauna, it also flaunts a large population of migratory birds that seek these cays for nesting. Hence, the best way to appreciate the nature of these places is by taking walk or horseback tours, or excursions.

Scenic Places Neighboring Cayo Guillermo

Tourists can select from different trips that the tour operators have on offer. These are mostly one-day or two-day trips. A one-day package tour to Havana offered by Thomas Cook would cost around £250 for two. It would include a coach transfer to the Cayo Coco airport and flight tickets to Havana. It would also include a tour guide, a walking tour of the place, part coach or driving tour and lunch. For the return trip it would include, the return flight tickets and a transfer to the hotel. In case you don’t have enough time to visit all the places that Havana has on offer in a single day, you can visit various tourist websites that are available on the internet and view its pictures.

Adventure Trip Options

To get your adrenaline pumping, this cay offers the Le Guillermo jungle tours and underwater snorkelling. The jungle tour is a two-hour trip where you get to explore the mangroves on self-driven speedboats travelling through a web of channels.

If you fancy swimming in between colourful fish, then snorkelling in the blue waters of Cayo Guillermo is a better option for you. During this trip, you follow the guide in a convoy until you reach the starting point. Once you are there, the guide swims deep into the water to annoy the fish so that they swim up to the surface and show their vibrant colours to you. So do make sure to carry your camera when you decide to take this trip. Another good part of this trip is that you get to keep the snorkel as a gift.

These trips can cost you around $39 USD daily and can be booked through the hotel you stay in. These trips take about 3 hours of time.

Attractions Offered by the Hotels

The packages offered by the hotels in the Cayos are all inclusive, with some entertainment activities, kayaking and pedalos in the day time and cultural shows every night. These hotels also provide you with pool and lobby bars, and night clubs.

These activities and the picturesque locales should be enough to keep you occupied during your trip. If not, you can also take various excursions on offer by the local tour operators to swim with dolphins or to visit neighbouring places.

For the Nature Lovers

If you are a nature lover, a horse ride around the island is highly recommended during early morning or late afternoon. It costs you around 5 Convertible Cuban Peso or CUC and takes about an hour. If you book it through the people at the Melia Resort it may cost you around 10 CUC.

Banana Boat Ride

At the beach, you can take a banana boat ride that will cost you around 5 CUC.

Catch Them Fresh

The Melia Resort has a pier extending 100m into the water that is used for fishing. The locals at this spot catch fish with only a wire and hook, so you need to carry a fishing rod with you. The rod need not be of the highest quality since the locals may ask you for it once you are done with fishing. If they respond to you in a friendly and helpful manner you may not mind giving the rod away.

Up, Up, Up in the Air

To get an aerial view of the island, you may take a flying boat trip of 10 to 15 minutes. It also has an operator onboard to guide you. It may cost you around 30 CUC. You can find the boat operators at the Cayo Guillermo beach.

Sun, Sand and Food

You can travel to the Playa Pillar beach from Melia CG by either train or taxi. It costs around 5 CUC each. You can book your travel from your Melia hotel or take the bus or train from a nearby place to the Melia and then get a taxi to the beach.

Since there is so much to see and experience at the beach, you must spend at least a day at this beach. Though there are huts available to take shelter from the sun, the recommended time to visit the beach is around 9 to 10 am. You may want to take a lounge chair for 1 CUC at the beach to relax. The beach also has a snack bar at which beer is available at 1 CUC and snacks such a as fillet of shrimps, fish and lobster are available.

You can go snorkeling around the Media Luna or the half moon island on a boat or a catamaran for 11 CUC. The island has the second largest barrier reel in the world and has an amazing display of aquatic life. You must get some bananas or bread with you to feed them. You may spend around an hour at the island.

Global Warming

Global warming is the change in the climate all over the world due to the rise in temperature of oceans and the air near the surface of the Earth. This in turn is impacting ecosystems, agriculture, and the spread of disease. Evidences prove that this global rise in temperature, in a matter of a few decades, could result in melting of the snow in the Polar Regions and glaciers all over the world, and could submerge many islands and low lying areas. It is a real threat to life on Earth that cannot be ignored by just wishing that it goes away.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies show that average temperature all over the world has already risen by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.8 degree Celsius since 1880. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report collected between 2000 and 2004 states that the average temperature in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia has risen at twice the global average. It is being predicted that by 2040, the Arctic might become completely ice-free. This will also have an adverse effect on the existence of Polar bears and similar species that need sea ice for their survival. Rise in the temperature of ocean waters also poses a threat to survival of coral reefs. In 1998, a large number of coral reefs experienced bleaching or death due to stress, as they are highly sensitive to changes in water temperature. In some areas, there was a loss of over 70 percent of coral reefs. Another alarming change that will happen as the years pass by is the increase in the number of wildfire, heat waves and tropical storms.

Of the factors that are causing global warming, some of the most dangerous are human activities like industrialization, deforestation, and pollution. These activities increase the content of water vapours, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the Earth’s atmosphere resulting in the green house effect that trap sun's heat in the atmosphere and cause a gradual warming of the Earth. These gases remain in the Earth’s atmosphere for many years and hence, even if the emission of thee gases is stopped immediately, global warming will not stop immediately. The other factors contributing negligibly to global warming are solar variation and volcanoes.

To save our planet and ourselves from extinction, we have to make ourselves and everyone around us aware of global warming and take concrete steps to curb it. The first step in this direction should be to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas, and make efficient use of electricity and water. Another simple change must be to start using compact fluorescent bulbs rather than the incandescent ones. Although the cost of compact fluorescent bulbs is more than incandescent ones, their cost is quickly recovered as they consume less energy, resulting in the reduction of electricity bills. Another startling fact that most people do not know about is that any appliance or electronic equipment that has a remote control, AC adapter plug, instant-on feature, battery charger, internal memory, permanent display, or sensor uses electricity even when it is switched off. Thus, the only way to stop the wastage electricity through these electronic items is to unplug them. Yet another simple method of saving energy and water, that has been mentioned innumerable times, is turning off the tap while brushing teeth or shaving. Likewise, fixing a leaking tap, dripping water every three seconds, can save as much as 110 litres of water a month.