Make a Smilebox photobook

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This past week I was in Vancouver taking a colour course.  It was fantastic to meet new people and brush up on my colour skills.

Colour is a beautiful thing, and it’s an essential tool for anyone working in the  decorating or design industry. What are some of the trends that we are seeing today?  According to Style at Home magazine, Black is back, brights shine, grey’s the new neutral and nature reigns in 2009’s hottest paint colour palettes.

So now is the perfect time to revamp your home’s decor. Giving your walls a fresh paint colour is the most inexpensive surefire way to instantly make over your living space.

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Send Out Cards is a wonderful new concept and service that is changing peoples lives one card at a time.

When was the last time you sent a “Thinking of You” card to someone you care about, or a simple Thank you or expression of appreciation?

Here is a wonderful way to send an unexpected card at an unexpected time!  Never forget special occasions! You can use this to motivate, uplift, encourage and truly make a differance!

Create a  client database for your business and send out your annual cards quickly and easily with no hassle or stress.

You can send a printed greeting card with your  own message in Less than 60 Seconds.

• Choose your card
• Write your message
• Click send

SendOutCards prints it, stuffs it and mails it, (with a real stamp on it)  all for less than a greeting card at the store.

You can even upload a picture from your own computer and place it in the card… It is a fun, easy and stress free way to put back the personal in sending a greeting card!

Test Drive before you buy!  Send one card for FREE!

Call 1-866-703-0809 and ask for my assistant Cathy to help you get started today

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A consultation is a powerful marketing tool which can be used as part of your listing package.

· Having access to a qualified, professional staging company on your team sets you apart from other agents who are not using staging consultations or stagers.

· Saves you the awkwardness of having to explain to your clients what needs to be done to prepare their home for sale. We are skilled at handling the emotions of our clients in a professional, calm, and rational way. We remind them we are preparing their house for the largest buying audience.

· Very cost effective and high yield on the return – for as little as a $125 one-hour verbal walk through and your homeowner will have the tools needed to prepare their house for sale.

· When your client receives a consult, it can become a “pride of ownership” issue. It is easy to follow the recommendations to get their home ready for sale. This allows the homeowner to be proactive – if they want to truly sell their home, they will improve the condition of the home. This is a key components to the sale of your listing.

· We create equity for our clients. The return on the investment of a staging consultation will ALWAYS pay for itself! Statistically, the better the condition and showing of the home brings a quicker sale and a higher sales price.

Realtors Know:

• How to get a listing
• The laws concerning selling & buying
• Contracts and extensive paper work
• Determining a fair listing price
• Extensive Marketing and Showings (and always smiling!)
• Closing the deal

Home Stagers Know How To:

• Create good traffic flow in rooms

• Neutralize a lived-in space

• Let the light in

• Create ambiance

• Use accessories to high light the space

• Prepare a property according to the market

• Use of popular neutral styles to appeal to the widest audience
• Apply the latest color trends

• Shop for owners, usually with discounts

• Maintain an inventory of accessories and furniture
• Create good curb appeal
• Accentuate all architectural details

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When I was ready to take my business forward, I realized that I really did not know where to start or how to juggle all the ideas and plans that were swarming in my head.  I was going to need some help so that I still had a life outside of my business that I didn’t neglect my family, my friends or myself.

I need someone to help me to identify priorities and develop strategies that focused on developing my business and at the same time allowed me to reach my goals.

So I hired a “personal coach”.  I wasn’t exactly sure of the whole idea at first, but learned that a coach is someone that takes you step-by-step as you work on your business, personal life, management and leadership.

I signed up for 3 months with Coach Cathy of Coaching with Cathy.  The 3 months were most extraordinary!  It felt good to know that I had someone in my corner that you could bounce ideas off of, who was not judgmental or critical.  Someone who could get you back on track, even when things looked like they were overwhelming and uncertain.

I highly recommend hiring a “personal coach” to help you tap into your inner voice, and stay focused on your priorities.  In doing so you will be able to pursue your passion, whatever it may be.

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Top 10 Reasons to Professionally Stage in Your Home:

“It was great fun coming home tonight to see our house. We felt like we were on one of those “Flip this House” TV shows without the camera recording our reactions. We think the house looks great! ”

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• Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to pick the little “stringy things” off of it. That’s how the primates do it. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

• Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

• Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

• Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

• To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

• Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

• Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simple chop them up with the food chop per. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream.

• Easy Deviled Eggs- Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

• Expanding Frosting- When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less Sugar and calories per serving.

• Newspaper weeds away- Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet Newspapers put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

• Broken Glass- Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can’t see easily.

• No More Mosquitoes-Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

• Squirrel Away! To keep squirrels from eating yo ur plants sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn’t hurt the plant and the squirrels won’t come near it.

• Flexible vacuum – To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your Vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

• Reducing Static Cling- Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will Not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with

• Slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and — ta da! –static is gone.

• Measuring Cups-Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily It comes right out.

• Foggy Windshield? Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser ($ store) and keep it in the glove box of your car. When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

• Reopening envelope- If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside , just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

• Conditioner- Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It’s a lot cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It’s also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn’t like when you tried it in your hair…

• Goodbye Fruit Flies- To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass fill it 1/2″ with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid, mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

• Get Rid of Ants- Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it “home,” can’t digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so,especially if it rains, but it works & you don’t have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

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