If you are considering taking on a domestic cleaner then there are things you should learn about them before you engage someone to come into your house to clean.

1. Have they cleaned for anyone else? Experience in some previous cleaning should mean there is less of a learning curve to meet your particular cleaning needs. It should also mean they are comfortable in doing this sort of work.

2. Do they have references? If they have done some cleaning previously then it should be possible to obtain a reference from a former or current satisfied customer. If they have worked previously and there are no references then this should put you on enquiry and perhaps move on to the next applicant. However, there will be people applying for work who have not worked recently, perhaps due to having a work break whilst raising children. They may proove suitable depending on the impression they give you of their eagerness to work.

3. Are they legally entitled to work? With so many overseas visitors and people here for many different reasons from countries from around the world you should not assume that someone applying for work, is legally entitled to work. You may need to see a passport, and if it is not issued by an E. U. member country, you should note any work permit or lack thereof, or ask to see a national insurance number. If you are not sure if someone is legally entitled to work, bare in mind that a fine of up to £5000 can be imposed for employing a person who does not have the right to work.

4. Will there be a language problem? How will you make known your needs if you cannot understand each other? Perhaps just as importantly you need to be able to say what should not be done and what cleaning products are not to be used, for example on surfaces you know to be delicate.

5. Can they work during the school holidays? If your cleaner has children they may only want to work during school term time. However, you may want your home cleaned every week!

6. Where do they live and how long have they lived there? If you are going to give someone the run of your house it is advisable to know your cleaner has a stable home life at a permanent address. Do you want someone who is constantly changing their address and who may disappear at any time?

7. Will they work when you want? Many people find that they have to tidy up or in some way prepare before the cleaner comes, or you may need to stay in, to let the cleaner in. You may not find it convenient to have the cleaner change “their” day at the last moment.

8. Will they do the work you want? You need to be sure that your domestic cleaner will do the cleaning duties you decide on. Some cleaners have fixed ideas about both how things will be done and what they are prepared to do. This might not coincide with your requirements, so discuss these at the outset.

9. Can you meet them for an interview? Some cleaners will assume they can turn up and start. Ideally you will arrange to see a cleaner for a chat before they come round and expect to work.. This will then enable you to cover the points above in an informal way.

10. Will they do a trial clean? Whilst you may have satisfied yourself as to the credentials and apparent willingness to work, the final proof will be in the quality of their work. What is acceptable to one person, may be shoddy to another. Arrange for the cleaner to do a clean so that you can both see if your expectations coincide.

If all this seems too much to be bothered with, then there are domestic cleaning companies who specialise in providing cleaners. They should have carried out all the checks and will also be able to provide an alternate or replacement cleaner when you require one.

James Das is the owner of a domestic cleaning business and has been since 1993. Visit www.jj-cleaning.co.uk for more great articles.

Watching a glass of wine spill over your favorite rug is a sight that’s best forgotten. However there’s no need to panic, most stains when treated quickly will disappear in no time. Some stains if left untreated can ruin your rug, but by following the advice given here, getting stains on your rug won’t seem so bad after all.

Ready…Set…..Clean!

When a rug has stained, the first thing you should do is clean it as fast as possible. The sooner you start working on a stain, the better chance you have of removing it and saving your rug. If the stain is liquid based use an absorbent cloth or paper towel and wipe up the stain as best you can. If it’s food or dirt, scrape the particles with an object such as a spoon, and than start wiping.

Don’t actually rub the stain; instead blot at it so you don’t rub the stain deeper into the rug. With solid particles, using a vacuum cleaner is effective method of clearing the stain area.

Wet It After absorbing as much as the stain as possible, the next step is to get a cold wet cloth and blot at the stain again. Do this until you are sure that no more of the stain will disappear.

Use Cleaning Product

The next step is to use a cleaning agent to get to the core of the stain. If you don’t have any products from the shop, you can use several household products like vinegar, detergent or nail polish remover.

(Vinegar) – Mix 1 part vinegar and 1 part water

(Detergent) – Use a non-bleach washing detergent mixed with water.

(Nail Polish Remover) – Use a non-oily type

Wet It Again

It’s a good idea to rinse the stain just incase there is residue from the cleaning product used.

The Final Touch

You last step is absorb any excess moisture. Use paper toweling or cloths and use a heavy object to weigh them down. Leave the weight overnight and in the morning, your carpet should look good as new.

Good luck with your stain removing. By following the above guide your carpet should last you many years even if a few stains get in the way. Please remember to always test a tiny portion of your rug for color run before attempting any of the steps listed above.

Charlie Kaoud is a color and home décor specialist with www.RugSale.com To contact Charlie with questions on color matching, area rugs, and home décor, and to shop for the lowest area rug prices on the planet, head over to www.RugSale.com

Visiting with friends and loved ones is one of our most pleasurable pastimes. The first item on a good host’s agenda is to enhance their stay by making them feel at home. Prepare ahead of time by having adequate sleeping accommodations on hand such as a good, high-quality air mattress, preferably a queen-sized aerobed.

The new breed of aerobeds are setting new standards in luxury, providing your guests with unprecedented support and comfort at night while still remaining compact enough when deflated to fit in a duffel bag and store in a closet during the day. When you require extra bedding without the extra bedroom, they’re the perfect solution. Some raised aerobeds are as much as two feet in height when fully inflated, which can prove to be quite handy for your not-so-limber houseguests.

Set-up is quick, easy and automatic with the built-in pump and accompanying full-length extension cord. No longer is it necessary to contend with the flimsy air bag dinosaurs of yesteryear which required the lung capacity of the entire extended family to get them inflated. No longer must overnight guests spend restless nights tossing and turning as the air gradually seeps out of unseen pinholes, only to awaken sore, achy and tangled up in a pool of plastic on the floor. Today’s new and improved aerobeds are sturdy enough to keep their shape the whole night through, leaving your visitors to wake up in the morning feeling restored, refreshed and ready to greet the day.

Maintenance requires a simple swipe of a damp sponge, let dry and pack away until the next time. They come in twin, double or queen sizes, allowing your existing sheets to fit over the corners snugly and securely. Another excellent feature is the fabric top that keeps the sheets in place and prevents moisture build up.

Many of the more luxurious designs have incorporated air pockets, memory foam or other tempur materials into their designs, taking the place of inner springs or coils and providing added stability. By using the built-in pump, the firmness of the air cushion can either be increased or decreased depending on the preference of the user.

Keep in mind that aerobeds are not indestructible, that roughhousing and child’s play can cause damage to the rubber or plastic lining, resulting in air leaks, and that they should be placed on top of mats, carpets or blankets for added protection from accidental punctures or gashes. When used properly, aerobeds are many times preferred over traditional mattresses due to their cushiony softness and the majestic sensation of sleeping on air.

There are plenty of styles, features and options available when shopping for aerobeds online. Visit http://thecozyloft.com TheCozyLoft.com for a wide range of bedroom furniture including aerobeds.

No more loved ones sleeping on the couch or sprawled across the hard, cold floor!

Wonderful scrapbooks can be created with only four supplies; an album, adhesive, paper and a corner rounder.

I remember being invited to a scrapbook party. Inwardly I groaned. I still draw stick figures. I have never possessed artistic ability. I remember almost crying in school when we had to do an art project. I could envision great things, but I could not create them.

I’m a good sport and so I went to the scrapbook party. The gal giving the demonstration had a demo album. Inside were lots of pictures all beautifully arranged. Everyone was oohing and ahhing. Me, I was remembering those stick figures I was so good at drawing.

And then something magical happened. A light bulb went off and I realized that artistic was not necessary. Creativity was not even needed. All that was needed were some basic supplies and I too could create an awesome scrapbook.

Many photos were “framed”. This simply means cutting a square piece of paper a little larger than the photo and attaching the photo to the paper. I could do this. Cutting and pasting was something that did not need an artist. This was actually fun. There are so many papers to choose from. You can mount photos on cardstock or directly on scrapbook paper.

When I discovered a corner rounder, I was worried there would not be enough photos for me to round. A corner rounder literally slices off a sliver of paper making the corner round instead of square. You can use a corner rounder on both the photo and also on the paper you are mounting the photo on.

If you did nothing else but put photos on paper and mounted them, some with the corners rounded, you’d have a scrapbook that looked really nice. If you have a 12×12 album and you put 5 photos on one page, you can arrange them any way you want. You can overlap some of the frames. You can line them up. You can put one photo in each corner and then a rounded corner photo in the middle. Again, we are using nothing but the photo and a frame. You can mix and match colors of the frames to make a really interesting looking page.

I have always used double sided adhesive squares to mount photos to the frames. I find these very easy to use. You put one square on each of the four corners of the photo, pull off the tab to expose the tape and then press the photo on the frame. You then put four more squares on your frame and attach the frame to the paper. If the photo is extra large, I’ll put eight squares on the photo instead of four, and another eight on the frame.

My very first album used only these four supplies, an album, adhesive squares, paper and a corner rounder. It’s an album I still cherish very much. You too can create a great scrapbook album with the same four supplies.

Audrey Okaneko has been scrapbooking for several years. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://www.scrapping-made-simple.com

We recommend that windows which exceed 3′ by 4′ in size be reinforced to prevent breakage. If a window is 3′ by 3′, it might not need to be reinforced, that’s usually a judgment call based on where it is to be installed.

Go to http://www.betterstainedglass.com/Newsletter/Archives/2006Aug-reinforcinglargepanel/aug2006reinforce.htm to see the photos that go with this article.

In the old days, when a panel was large and needed to be reinforced, artists actually installed big pieces of rebar, no kidding rebar, in window frames and wired the stained glass to the rebar. This was an effective method of reinforcement, but it was far from attractive.

Now, I’m not complaining, but doesn’t the art of stained glass have enough restrictions already? Are you telling me that I’m going to have to work my beautiful design around chunks of concrete reinforcement? Fortunately there’s something fairly new on the scene to help in that area.

The secret? A thin strip of copper which is thin enough to fit between existing lead lines. You solder them in place and you’ve got a substantially stronger panel.

How can that be? It’s so thin and floppy? See how easily it bends. That’s part of what’s so cool about this strip of copper, it bends easily in one direction, allowing us to follow the most meandering lead lines, but it’s fairly rigid in the other direction, adding strength to the glass.

Before this new copper strip was available, we used to go to a sheet metal shop and have them cut 1/4″ wide strips of thin gauge copper on the shear. Then we had to bend it to follow our lead lines using needle nosed pliers. It was fairly complex and when done, you still had a piece of copper that stood 1/4″ above the surface of the window. It sometimes cast a shadow on the panel and soldering the back was a challenge as well.

When reinforcing a window (using this or any other method) it is important to remember that the reinforcement must run from one side of the window to the other to do any good. If a piece of copper is run to the middle and then it just stops, you will actually be creating a place where more stress will be applied to that spot and the window could break there.

The copper strip comes in a roll and will cover a lot of glass. The idea is to run the copper back and forth along lead lines so the glass will have more strength than it did before, and will transfer the stresses on it to it’s outer edge where it is stronger since it’s installed in some sort of rugged framework. This will prevent the glass from getting cracks either from being pushed on, or from the weight of the glass being pulled down by gravity over time and sagging.

This panel is so large that we need to reinforce it a great deal. I begin by running strips up and down the length of the window. I used some spray cans which were handy to weight the strip down in between the glass. Make sure if you use this method to remove cans before soldering because heat and pressurized cans can be hazardous.

At places where the copper strip intersects another piece of copper, I have to cut the new piece so I can continue on across the panel.

I bend a little “L” on the end so the copper won’t slide as I install it. Then I gently press it in between the glass, the foil and the other copper strips. I use something to weight it down, or it will pop out from between the glass.

I then string the copper out to the edge of the panel. When doing this, I keep the roll of copper in the bag it came in and gently pull it out as I need it. I use care not to let it tangle or slip out of the bag so that I don’t have to relive the disaster with my “Slinky” when I was a kid.

I use tin snips to cut the copper, about 1/4″ from the edge of the glass.

With all the reinforcement strips in place, I begin to tack the glass together. I make sure that the glass is pushed into the right place (on pattern), the copper has a tendency to push things around. Arrows point to all the places where copper has been installed to properly reinforce this panel.

After soldering the panel, I need to clean up the areas where copper extends beyond the edges.

Using the tip of my soldering iron, I push the copper strip over the edge, which bends it.

Holding the strip in place with needle nosed pliers, I solder the copper against the edge of the foil. When it’s done, you can’t even tell that the window has been reinforced.

Since this panel is being installed in a door, once it’s soldered, it gets sent out to be encased in tempered glass and insulated. The tempered glass adds an additional amount of strength to the panel.

David Gomm started building stained glass windows professionally back in 1983 and has become an expert at many aspects of stained glass building, design and repair. He writes a monthly newsletter at his http://www.betterstainedglass.com website. A gallery of his stained glass work can be viewed at http://www.gommstudios.com

Here, we are going to learn some important tips that will help us understand the concept of quilling at a far deeper level. By following these vital tips, we can use the concept of quilling with great expertise and efficiency.

To avoid the problem of different sizes with same measurement materials, ensure to pick spirals of equal dimensions. Make sure the coils are the same size before you glue them. Moreover, do not forget to apply glue on them afterwards.

If you are new to the quilling world, to gather any additional information select a standard art magazine or go to a recognized art shop.

Do not get confused regarding the quilling paper dimensions. Go for the standard dimension. In case of a spiral, it is 3 mm (1/6”) and in case of fringed flowers, it is 7 mm / 10 mm (3/8”)

Try to avoid using rice or handmade paper for quilling due to their extreme thickness. Making a spiral out of them is quite tough.

To increase the strength of the finished product, put a light layer of proper varnish onto it. Otherwise, adequately gluing is enough to have a firm grip over it.

In case of fringed flowers, choose a wider paper of 10mm and trim it appropriately on the one side of the quilling with the help of scissors. It is also available readymade on the market.

To make 3-Dimensional designs, begin by making the shapes and gluing them to each other on a Quilling mat (a cork mat covered with polythene or baking parchment is quite adequate). Using a quilling needle carefully separate the item from the mat. It will now be free-standing and the glue should make it quite firm. However, a light coat of Craft varnish will strengthen it further.

In order to quill a basket with beautiful flowers, create the figure and paste the glue onto them collectively on a single mat. To make it free standing, take it apart from the mat using a quilling needle.

Have a strong grasp over the strip of the paper to achieve equal tightness in all pieces. Avoid putting too much pressure, resulting into excessively tight spirals. Try to hold the strip being quilled firmly, without stretching too much as this will result in too tight coils.

Use a standard glue for affixing purposes. Craft PVA is the commonly preferred glue. Zig 2-way and Sailor are specialist types of glue. Some quillers think they work better because they are thinner and they dry faster. In my discussions with other quillers, no one could agree on which was best glue to use, but the most popular was PVA glue which is readily available from most craft shops worldwide. Always use glue sparingly.

You do not have to purchase expensive fringed paper from the market. Whenever possible you can use the scissors to cut the paper strip.

To quill jewelry items, such as earrings or necklaces, use the quilled objects like butterflies, animals, and flowers and attach them to pins.

If you are new to the quilling world, start with some easy techniques, like flowers for a gift tag.

To make folded flowers, use either tailor-made, fringed flower paper or the use scissors resourcefully.

You have the option of shredding the quilling paper to curtail its length.

When using ultra-fine metal glue tips, the best way to clean them is to soak them in extra-strong nail polish remover. This is much more effective than hot soapy water. Organic solvents work every time.

When pushing out grape rolls, I found it easier pulling it inward than pushing it out.

How to make loose coils uniform and the same size? Loose coils will get more uniform in size with practice. Try maintaining the tension. However no two coils will ever be exactly the same, very much like in petals on a flower.

You can make your own quilling board using some cardboard and some washers. Look for washers that are the size as what you want then glue them to a piece of cardboard.

What kind of paper is best used scrapbooks? (Cardstock, or regular weight quilling paper). Cardstock paper holds up very well, but I’d at least try regular quilling paper as it is very strong. Some people use “dots” or “pegs” on their pages to hold the pages up off of the quilling.

The best method for applying glue is to use an ultra fine glue applicator. Only use tiny drops of glue. A small glass with a wet sponge placed in the bottom will keep the bottle free flowing and stop the tip from drying up. Place the bottle upside down with the tip touching the sponge.

To put the strip into proper frame, place a light layer of craft varnish onto it.

For making a 3D design, create various shapes and affix them together with glue. This must be done on a special quilling mat. After that, carefully separate the pieces from the mat with a quilling needle.

To safeguard your finished object, place a light varnish onto it.

Do not forget to store the quilling strips in a constricted style or in a polythene bag. Store the small strips and miscellaneous items in a craft box with various compartments. Long strips can be loosely “knotted” and stored in small polythene bags. Short strips and odds and ends are best stored in a craft box with compartments.

For a step by step guide on how to do anything and everything with quilling how to, please visit Teresa Leys website www.quillingsuccess.com