Koozies are sheaths designed to insulate a can or stubby bottle. The insulation helps keep the cold beverage from warming due to body heat or ambient temperature. Koozies also prevent condensation from forming. Today, koozies are usually made of neoprene, but other materials such as leather and cloth can be used. While koozies can be used on most standard size cans and stubby bottles, they are most often used on beer cans and stubby beer bottles. People that love beer really love their beer, so having a koozie can be very important and having a cool custom koozie can be even better. Customized koozies have become very popular gifts, party favors, wedding favors, and promotional items. Koozies are cheap to produce, so having a custom koozie made can be very inexpensive. Let’s consider some various koozie designs you may want to use as gifts or promotional items.

If you are going to be throwing a party and would like to have some custom koozies made as party favors, you can have the koozie design relate to the theme of the party. For example, let’s assume you are hosting a Halloween party and you have your costume in advance. You can have a custom koozie made with you in your costume printed on it. Your friends will always remember that party whenever they use the koozie to keep their beer cold. In the picture you use for the koozie, you may want to be holding a beer in a koozie or be doing something otherwise humorous.

If you are involved in the planning of a wedding, you can have custom koozies made as wedding favors that help people remember that special day. If the wedding cake is made in advance, you can have a picture of the wedding cake printed onto koozies. Guests will think it is very unique and creative to have the actual wedding cake on the koozie that are using at the reception. If you cannot get a picture of the wedding cake in time, you can use a picture of the couple, or maybe a humorous picture of their parents mock fighting.

If you have a friend of family member that loves beer, you may want to make them a custom koozie that says "keep your hands off" or "property of ______" and have their name printed on it. You can even include a picture of them on the koozie so that everyone who sees it knows exactly who the beer belongs to.

If you know someone that has a strong dislike for the taste of beer, you can play a joke on them by having a koozie made that makes the can appear to be something else. You can have a generic term like "Grape Soda" printed on the koozie with some grape-related artwork to make the can appear like it has grape soda in it. Of course the cozy should be of a tall design to help mask the can. Offer them some grape soda and watch their reaction.

If you don’t mind doing a little scissor work yourself, you can make a very unique koozie by having a picture or design printed on it, and then cutting the top of the koozie to shape. For example, you can take a picture of a picket fence and have it printed on a koozie, and then cut along the top of the fence in the picture and produce a koozie with a unique shape.

Children’s art paintings are fun to look at.  They bring me good feelings.  I have had a lot of jobs the last couple of years buying children’s art to hang in various places.  I have enjoyed every single job.

I bought two children’s art posters for the children’s hospital to hang in one of their waiting area.  They were both from Maurice Sendak’s book Where the Wild Things Are.  I loved that book when I was a kid and this art brought back some good memories.

I found a Jim Daly children’s art print to frame and put in the physical therapy lounge at a local rehabilitation center.  They wanted to put together a friendly feeling place that would help keep kids entertained.  I put the painting where parents can read.

I was asked to hang children’s art along a long hallway in a home I was decorating.  I thought that this was an odd request because there weren’t any kids living there and the home had a very stark and cold feel to it.  It was definitely the minimalist style this homeowner had that left me puzzled.

The children’s art paintings that I ended up choosing for the hallway were all from the same artist.  The artist specialized in mini paintings and they were all so simple and beautiful.  They actually fit with the owner’s style.  I had each painting put into a simple frame with no matting and hung them all along the long hallway.

I actually liked this artist so much that I purchased twice as many children’s art paintings than I needed to complete the hallway job.  I plan to give these paintings as gifts to people that I know with either a child or a whimsical spirit.  I even liked the artist’s name, Lollipop Art.

I was asked to add some decorations to a family’s daughter’s room.  The family was extremely active and bicycling seemed to be the primary family exercise.  I thought it would be fun to find some children’s art painting that depicting cycling in a fun way.  I found an acrylic signed by the artist of a woman on a bike with a child and a yellow balloon.

I had a client call me asking about buying a children’s art painting by artist Stephanie Bauer.  The painting was called Dragonfly.  I did find the painting and also found that it was not for sale.  Fortunately, there is a fine art print made from this painting.  My client was more than happy to purchase the print and have it framed in an extremely nice frame.  It hangs in her daughter’s room now.  She loves it because it is pink!

I was hired to find a painting for the waiting room at a local dance studio.  I found that all of the classes were for children, so I looked for a children’s art painting to hang there.  I found one called Little Girl Ballerinas.  It was very colorful and whimsical.  The owner of the studio loved it.

I was hired to redecorate three girls’ bedroom.  The family had three daughters that all wanted children’s art paintings on their walls.  Each had a distinct personality and interests that didn’t overlap with the other two.  The first girl received an acrylic painting called Sports Girls.  This sister is the one that is very athletic.

The next sister is very interested in entomology.  She is very shy and quiet.  I found a children’s art painting for her that she really liked.  I could buy the actual watercolor from Pily Torres, so I bought a reproduction that looked great after it was framed.

The third sister was completely immersed into dancing.  I found a gorgeous children’s art painting of a folk art ballerina that had several different pinks in it.  It looked great without a frame and she was really happy with it.

The most recent job I had wanted something really unique.  They wanted a children’s art painting, but they were more interested in an extremely large mural.  I found one that the family really liked that depicted a fantasy scene.  It looks like there is a castle in the background and a unicorn in the foreground is leaping.  I liked what it added to the room, it was the perfect choice.

Funny Love Poems

When most people think of love poems, they think of serious and soulful expressions of passion. Long sonnets by Shakespeare or romantic poems by Browning and Lord Byron are the norm for love poetry. However, funny love poems can be good for a laugh. They may not be romantic, but they do give your friends something to enjoy.

Some of the best funny love poems are limericks. Limericks started in Ireland and follow a standard form of five lines and a rhyme scheme of aabba. Here are a few limericks written by anonymous authors:

There once was an old man of Lyme
Who married three wives at a time
When asked "Why a third?"
He replied, "One’s absurd!
And bigamy, Sir, is a crime."

There was a young fellow named Hammer
Whose had an unfortunate stammer
"The b-bane of my life"
Said he, "Is m-m-my wife
D-d-d-d-d-d-damn ‘er!"

She made friends with a young undertaker;
Her last boyfriend had forsaken her.
But she started to curse
When he turned up in a hearse.
She said next time I’ll date a baker!

There was a young lady named Constance,
From boys she wouldn’t stand any nonsense.
If her partners grew deft
She would lead with her left;
The results would not weigh on her conscience.

My sweetheart and I are just wed.
Already I wish I were dead.
Two weeks she’s been spending.
It was time never ending.
We are thousands of pounds in the red!

Limericks are fairly easy to write if you can rhyme well, so you might try writing a limerick yourself that includes the name of your friend or loved one. This is a good way to make a funny love poem that is personalized.

It’s funny, being a songwriter myself, I always find that writing songs can sometimes be a chore. But why does it feel this way? Isn’t this supposed to be my passion? Isn’t this supposed to be something that I never get bored of?

… well, not exactly. Everything gets boring once in a while, even the things that you’re most passionate about. So every so often I like to take the lazy man’s route to doing things. And surprisingly, I often produce some very good results!

So listen up. If you newbie at songwriting, or even if you have been at it for a while — I’m going to a couple of simple tricks that will help you start the writing process within minutes.

Here we go…

1) Review a particular situation in your day. It could be at work, during your travels, or at home. It could be with your workmates, your family or your friends. Just any situation that affected you in either a positive or negative way.

An example of this would be "when you’re at work, your boss just keeps hounding you. But, the only thing that keeps you going throughout the day is that you know that somebody in the office has a crush on you"

(the above is a very dry example… but try to work with me here!)

2) Write down as many words as you can think of that relate to your situation.

Let’s follow the example from earlier on:

anger, pain, sad, happy, excitement, nervousness, anxious, misery, impatience, relaxation, goofy, sophisticated, annoying, frustrating, antagonising, fancy, sexy, cool, pretty, smile, etc, etc… you get the point

3) Write down random short sentences about your situation including the words that you mentioned him step 2. So let’s continue in our little experiment…

“ the way he talked to me really angers me”
“ if only he knew the pain I suffered inside”
“ when I see her pretty eyes light up it makes me smile”
“ I have to act cool and sophisticated — don’t want to get frustrated”
“ he doesn’t know what makes my day go by”
“ don’t want to be in this misery for much longer”

Etc, etc. at this point it’s important to note that you don’t have to use all the words that you mentioned earlier in step two. As you can see I’ve even started to make up my own lines *without* any of the words too! Sometimes, I’m rhyming the words without even realizing. And this is exactly where the magic starts to happen…

You can easily turn this idea into a full-fledged song. Use rhymezone.com to help you find words that rhyme… and also other related words as well.

My example was very average and simplified — but you can use an example that’s a little more dramatic. You should really get wild with your ideas! Really, just let loose.

4) Listen to a ‘backing track’ (an instrumental of a song) that you have NO CLUE about. While it’s playing, make up a melody. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just create a melody on the fly. You don’t have to sing any lyrics either. Just ‘humm’ or ‘laaa’ a tune out until you’re hearts content.

Why do this? This is an exercise that will subconsciously preparing you to create melodies for you’re own chord sequences in the next step.

5) Create a SIMPLE chord progression on the guitar or keyboard. When I say simple, I mean *simple*. Maybe TWO chords for the verse and TWO chords for the chorus. Now create a melody on top of that chord progression. Record the song on tape. There you have it.

NOTE: if you don’t play an instrument, then hook up with someone who does. After all, you pretty much have half the song now

Still think it’s difficult conceiving an idea? Want to know more? I have *plenty more* that I want to share with you…

My wife loves to watch the show, A Baby Story, everyday. She starting watching it a year ago when she was pregnant with our son, because she wanted to try to get an idea what labor would be like. Now she watches, because she wants to reminisce about the birth of our son, and look forward to having our next child. Personally I think that this show is boring, but recently I heard a baby story of a different kind. Here is how the story went.

The girl was nineteen years old with no boyfriend in the picture anymore. She was working full time to try to make ends meet, and she was getting very anxious for the baby to be born. One morning before she had to be at work, she went to the doctor’s office for a checkup. The doctor checked her and told her that she was in labor, and she needed to go to the hospital to be delivered. She said cool, and then she asked do I need to go to the hospital now, or can I go after work. The doctor politely told her that she did not have to go to the hospital immediately, but that she could only go home and get her a bag ready for the hospital stay. She asked if it would be ok if she got something to eat, and he said he did not advise it. Next thing you know she is in the drive-thru line at Whataburger trying to get something to eat, and a guy backed into the driver side of her truck. Remember now that she is in active labor. She can not get out of the driver side door, so she drags her big, nine months pregnant belly out the passenger side door. The man saw her condition, and got so worried he fainted. Now a nine month pregnant women is sitting in the parking lot at Whataburger, in active labor, fanning a man trying to revive him. Once she got home, her mother rushed her to the hospital. After a few hours of labor a beautiful baby boy was born, and both mother and baby were healthy. I don’t know about you, but if A Baby Story was this interesting everyday, I think I would tune in a lot more often.

The reasons for collecting antiques can be as varied as the people who collect them.  Some people first become interested in collecting as children, collecting anything from baseball cards to dolls, coins, stamps or even insects.  Others don’t begin collecting until their adult years. That interest may be prompted by some significant event, being given a family heirloom or from a desire to preserve elements of our past.

But the one thing all these people have in common is that no matter what they have chosen to collect, it’s fun!  Enjoying the pieces one has collected can be very satisfying, but it can’t compare to the thrill of the hunt and the fun of finding a treasure.

Collecting can be a great hobby, but there is an advantage to collecting antiques over something like matchbooks or souvenirs.  Antiques appreciate in value.  By learning to buy, sell and even trade wisely some people have been able to turn a hobby into a successful business.  But how can someone move beyond collecting for fun and begin to build a collection that has value?  The key to building a collection that has value, especially antiques, is knowledge.  Learn everything you can about the antiques you are collecting.  Not only will it add to your enjoyment, but when you learn to buy, sell and trade from a position of knowledge you will be able to build a modest collection into one of real value.

When starting a collection, it’s important to do your homework.  When you begin shopping for antiques armed with knowledge, you are in a better position to spot a bargain or avoid making a purchase you may regret.  Because the world of antiques is so broad, it is advisable to limit your collection to a specific area.  No one can be an expert about every type of antique. That will allow you to learn about important manufacturers, recognize rare specimens, and most important for beginners, know how to spot reproductions.

Beginning to learn about antiques can be as simple as making a visit to your local library.  There are a multitude of excellent books available about every conceivable category of antiques.  However, two sources of information novice collectors may overlook are antique dealers and collectors.  People who deal in antiques for profit or for pleasure enjoy talking about them. Antiques are one of their passions.  Visiting antique shops and antique shows will not only allow you ask questions and learn from experts but it can be a fun way to spend a day or a weekend. 

Once the “collecting bug” has bitten you, how do you decide what to collect?  Simply collect something you love – something you are interested in.  That makes learning about the items you collect all the more enjoyable.  As you learn more about these antiques and their value, you will begin to learn how and where to shop for bargains.  Being able to buy and sell to make a profit may not be your primary goal for collecting, but it may help you finance your hobby and enable you to increase the value of your collection.

In your hunt for antiques it is also important to buy quality, not quantity.  Owning a few truly fine pieces is always preferable to owning many mediocre pieces.  That may mean you may have to start small and gradually build your collection, but quality pieces appreciate faster and will build the value of your collection more quickly.  When buying antiques you should avoid pieces that are damaged or repaired.  They may be cheaper but they won’t appreciate as much or add value to your collection.

When you search for the unique rather than the common, you will find that the more rare the antique the more it appreciates.  This is another reason knowledge is so important.  With enough skill, you may be able to recognize rare or valuable pieces less knowledgeable collectors might overlook.

Although they can be excellent sources, antique shops and antique shows aren’t the only places where you can find valuable high quality antiques.  People have made some great finds at flea markets and yard sales.

You may also find a wide range of antiques at auctions.  But remember, if you go to an auction it’s doubly important to know the value of the pieces you’re bidding on.  It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the auction and end up spending way too much.

Finally, in your search for that special piece you have been searching for don’t forget about internet auction sites like Ebay. Thanks to the internet it’s possible to find just about anything.

Whatever you decide to collect for whatever the reason, enjoy the hunt.  Bargains and interesting pieces can be found everywhere.

There are several factors to consider when choosing art for the home or office and often these factors interrelate so I thought it best to break these up into categories for the sake of simplicity.

#1 The Composition and the Room: This is a great place to start. There are certain types of compositions that are best fitted to certain rooms. For example, when I think of the kitchen I think of fruits and vegetables, chefs, wine bottles, etc. When I think of the bedroom I think passion, softness and perhaps botanical, like a large rose picture. When I consider the bathroom I might visualize images that portray a clean, fresh, good smelling idea. Yes, it is ideal when the images we choose help the mood of the room. Another consideration with composition involves the application of more than one image in an area. When several pictures carry a common theme a very different feel is given to the room.

#2 Color: Color considerations include the walls, furniture, carpeting, window treatments or draperies, trim molding and other room enhancements. The colors in a room should complement one another. An art piece with a well balanced array of color can tie a room together. If a room is empty I like to choose the art first and then the furniture. Usually, people do the reverse, however, choosing the art first makes sense when you think about it. To illustrate, how often does someone walk into a room and say, “That ottoman is majestic! It just takes my breath away!” However, that can happen with a well chosen piece of art. Often, art will be the show piece of a room. So, rather than let the furnishings dictate what your art will look like, allow the art to dictate what kind of furniture you’ll choose.

#3 Space: This aspect can be tricky. Say, for example, you have a space above your stove that is a foot and a half tall by four feet wide. It could be hard to find one image to fill this space. However, you could use three images of a similar genre. I might choose three 8 x 10 sized images of grapes placed vertically. Another challenging space might be a very large sized wall or a room with a vaulted ceiling. A grouping of images often does the trick in both of these situations. I have also seen very large prints, 4 x 8 feet tall and larger, put to good effect. Art this large is proportionately more expensive, of course. Another option is to use a single image broken up into several gallery wrapped canvases spaced apart to cover a large area.

#4 Genre and Personal Preference: Perhaps there is an art piece that you are particularly fond of but it clashes with the style and architecture of your home, or maybe it just doesn’t match the color scheme of the room you want to put it in. I have seen people change wall colors and room accents to accommodate art. At the end of the day, I guess the real question when it comes to art is, does the art I chose put a smile on my face and on the faces of those who live here? If we can say yes, then everything else is just a rough frame work when it comes to choosing art.

Nonrepresentational or nonobjective art is not an invention of the twentieth century. A number of cultures, like the Islamic and Jewish, have developed over the centuries a high standard of decorative or non-figurative art forms. Today, abstract art is generally understood to be the form of art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses shapes and colors in a nonrepresentational or subjective way.

According to art experts, in its purest form in Western art, an abstract art is one without a recognizable subject, one which does not relate to something external. This type of ornamental art, without figurative representation occurs today in many cultures. As the modern abstract movement in sculpture and paining emerged in Europe and North America between 1910 and 1920, two approaches have been generally accepted to produce different abstract styles: images that have been "abstracted" from nature to the point where they no longer reflect a conventional reality, and nonobjective, or "pure" art forms, which do not share any reference to reality. A further distinction tends to be made between abstract art which is geometric, such as the work of Piet Mondrian, and abstract art that is more fluid, such as in the works of Wassily Kandinsky. It was Kandinsky who once said that "of all arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and of colors, and that you are a true poet; this last is essential."

Abstract art began in the avant-garde movements of the late 19th century -Impressionism, neo-Impressionism, and post-Impressionism. These painting styles reduced the importance of the original subject matter and began to emphasize the creative process of painting itself. As artists in Europe at the early twentieth century "broke free" from the conventional representational rules art forms had to follow, figurative abstractions, or simplifications of reality, where detail is eliminated from recognizable objects leaving only the essence or some degree of recognizable form, became popular increasing the variations of art forms and view points. With different abstract styles, like Synchronism and Orphism, abstract art emphasized on color over form, on feelings over logic. The action painting of an American Abstract Expressionist, Jackson Pollock, who dripped, dropped, smeared, spattered, or thrown paint on the canvas, is a good example of such a tremendous change in art focus and technique.

After the introduction of technology and the mass utilization of software programs that assisted people "play around" with their own photographs, paintings or other art forms, abstract art has gained more popularity than ever before. But although being able to draw well is not an issue anymore, as Kandinsky pointed out, being a "true" poet is what still separates the amateur attempts to create abstract art from the artifacts of a true talent.

If you do not want to spend a lot of money, but still enjoy art, you may want to consider what art reproductions have to offer. The nice thing about art reproductions is that they look just like the originals, but they will not cost you nearly as much money. But with that being said, not all art reproductions are the same. For this reason, you need to know the common mistakes that some buyers make time and time again.

1. Buying some items online is a good idea, but when it comes to art reproductions this does not always hold true. If you are going to buy online make sure that you have the chance to see the entire image in full size. Buying based on a small thumbnail is never a good idea. The website owner or artist should be able to email you a large file that will allow you to see the art reproduction in full. If they cannot you are better off buying your art reproduction elsewhere.

2. Do not buy an art reproduction just because it is for sale. Remember, they are not all the same. There are some companies and individuals that are much more reputable than others. You will want to find a company that is experienced in creating art reproductions, and can also back this claim up with testimonials from other buyers. If you are going to spend money on an art reproduction, you want to make sure that you get your moneys worth.

3. There are some people who buy art reproductions just because the original was produced by a famous artist. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is not something that you should do without reason. For instance, if you are using art reproductions to decorate your home it does not matter if the artist is famous or not.

These are three mistakes that you will want to avoid when buying art reproductions. Although there are many others to be aware of, these are the ones that the majority of buyers make when they are new to this industry.

Keep in mind that just because you can make mistakes does not mean that you should stay away from buying art reproductions. Instead of staying away you should actually begin your search for what is right for you. There may be some mistakes that could harm you, but the benefits of buying art reproductions outweigh them by quite a bit.

All in all, reproductions are perfect for art lovers who are looking for great pieces of work that do not cost nearly as much as the original. If this sounds like you, seek out one of the many art reproductions that are for sale.

There many ways for people to express their feelings and emotions. Some create drawings on canvas, some transform unshaped stones into figures and others arrange words so that they create some hidden and surprising meanings. All of those are some form of arts that are commonly known. The first is called painting, the second is known as sculpture and the last is known as poetry.

The art of poetry dated back into hundreds of years ago. One of the popular ancient poets is Homer an ancient Greek philosopher. He used some kind of method in expressing his ideas about anything. More recent poet and also very well known is William Shakespeare. His poetry has been translated into many languages and transformed into many other types of arts such as plays, movies, songs and many more.

The internet has given a perfect place for people who enjoy poetry to share their poems. There are many websites and also forums that discuss poetry. At the websites and forums, poetry goers can share their experiences, ideas and feelings in forms of poetry. They can also give each other poetry comments, suggestions and praises. The member of the discussion consists of people from all walks of life and from any group of age.