Singers, perhaps more than anyone else, understand the power of the human voice. They use this instrument in their performances, like a violinist would use a Stradivarius, creating musical works of art with their voices. Like any fine musical instrument, the singer’s voice requires attention and care if it is to maintain the best possible performance quality.

Tip 1

Don’t smoke. Smoking irritates the lining of the throat and reduces your lung capacity. Remember the straining, guttural quality of Janis Joplin’s voice in the later recordings? That sound is the product of years of smoke damage to ones vocal chords. Even a few puffs before a performance can leave your throat feeling raw and your lungs short.

Tip 2

Dress appropriately. Your mother always told you to wear your scarf and jacket when the weather turned chilly. It turns out her advice is sound. If you plan to perform in less than comfortable conditions, dress appropriately. When the Backstreet Boys performed at the US Airways Center during the ice skating exposition, Kristi Yamaguchi & Friends, they were all dressed in winter coats and thick scarves. It wasn’t merely a fashion statement. It was an attempt to make sure their voices lasted through the whole performance in the ice cold temperatures.

Tip 3

Warm up. Just like any other instrument, the voice can find itself a bit out of tune before a performance. Running through a series of vocal warm ups, like the famous Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi, gets your vocal chords back in tune and ready for action.

Tip 4

Relax with a cup of hot tea. If your throat is feeling a bit scratchy, a cup of hot tea may be just what the doctor ordered to soothe the inflammation and restore your voice to its optimal performance levels. As an added bonus, the warmth of this liquid may also serve to break up any congestion that might impede your air supply during your performance.

Tip 5

Hire a vocal coach. The best musicians have learned to play their chosen instruments from excellent instructors. The human voice is no different. A vocal coach can guide you into reshaping your voice to meet its full range of sound. In addition, many vocal coaches will have connections within the music industry so you may find that the singing instructor you hire today is a former client of the music agent you have been trying to get noticed by.

In summary, the singer’s voice requires the same amount of care as any other musicians instrument. Failure to provide the proper care for your voice can result in the same devastating results as a musician not caring for their instruments, only with greater severity, as your voice cannot be replaced. By following the tips provided in this article, you can help to insure that your vocal recordings and performances will continue to be of top quality for years to come.

With the development of society, people spent more and more time on their physical appearance. Young girls and modern ladies both are conscious of fashion trends in every season and year, even in every single day. Accordingly, fashion accessories have become a way of life for most modern ladies because everyone is eager to stand out in the crowd.

Fashion accessories are those items that are in the same step with your clothing style as well as enhancing people’s fashion taste. It ranges widely from earrings, bracelets, scarves to rings and watches and so on.

As for reasons why women are fond of fashion accessories, have you ever considered about it? In my mind, there are 4 reasons I’d like to share.

Above all, right fashion accessories prove that you are updated with the fashion trends. That is to say, to some extent, they are signature of bearers’ fashion tastes. Any fashion lovers hate to be called out of style. If you are a true fashionable person, you must be very sensitive to style in popularity. Then you will not wear wrong ones.

They show its social status of owners as well. Rich people and celebrities prefer to ones produced by famous fashion companies, which are obviously not affordable for ordinary people. Meanwhile, when many common people can’t afford luxury ones, they love to make them by themselves with their wild imagination. Though these accessories share different values in business but both illustrate fashion attitudes.

As what is mentioned above, wearing right accessories make your style complete. There are various occasions for people to attend. It is not enough to wear fine clothes only. Glamorous stuffs really can make you look complete and appeal to others.

Apart from three reasons I shared above, the last but less important one is that fashion accessories show your personality. Nowadays, people love to show their special traits by what they eat, what they wear and so on because everyone wants to be different and unique. You may wear the same stylish dress with your friends. However, a piece of fashion stuffs tells you from them. Taking the way to wear a scarf for example, someone follows the traditional way to tie it around necklaces, someone prefer to use it as a headband. Moreover creative person will make it as belt to decorate their dress or tie it to ornament handbags. In short, different strategies to tie scarves not only show their fashion attitudes but manifest their various personalities.

In a word, fashion accessories are the best friends of ladies. No one can deny passions women put on them and fierce attractions they bring.

Interfacings are special fabrics that are used to give support to certain areas of clothing, such as collars, waistbands, pockets and cuffs. These are usually permanently attached. Stabilizers, on the other hand, will also support clothing fabrics as described above, but they don’t have to be permanent.

Stabilizers also will temporarily support fabric while it’s being sewn or embroidered on, and then removed. They prevent fabrics from stretching out of shape.

Permanent interfacings and stabilizers can be sewn in or bonded/fused onto the fabric by ironing. Using interfacings and stabilizers can be essential to some special projects. For example, if you’re making a handbag, it’s going to need that permanent support. Non-permanent stabilizers can be torn away or washed away in water.

Your choice of interfacings and/or stabilizers depends on how you need to use them and what type of base fabric you’re going to use them on. The weight of your fabric dictates what type of interfacing or stabilizer you need to use. A lightweight fabric requires a lightweight stabilizer. Medium weight stabilizers can be used on cotton or tightly woven-fabrics, as in quilting fabrics. Wools or other heavy fabrics are going to need a heavy weight stabilizer. If you’re using a knit fabric, you will need a non-woven stabilizer with its own stretch built in. In this case, you’re going to have to match the stretch of the stabilizer to the stretch of the knit fabric, making sure that the stretch is in the same direction.

Some other uses of stabilizers:

• Using a fusible web tape makes a no-sew alternative to hemming your garment.
• An easy fabric scrap scarf can be made by using a long length of wash away stabilizer. Lay the length out on a flat surface. Sprinkle scraps of cloth, yarn, ribbons and threads along half of the whole length. Fold the other half over on top of the scraps. Pin both sides closely together, carefully keeping the scraps in place as much as possible. Now sew in straight lines closely back and forth, trying to catch all the scraps at least once. When you have covered the length, wash away the stabilizer, following directions on the packet. You have now made your own “fabric” scarf.
• Instead of a hoop use wash away or tear away stabilizer to stiffen the fabric while you embroider or paint on the fabric. Any time you hoop a fabric, you may inadvertently pull the fabric out of shape.
• Use wash away or tear away stabilizer or permanent interfacing as a backing for applique. Whole books have been written on how to create a no-sew art quilt using double-sided fusible web. The stabilizer is sticky on both sides, allowing you to attach it to the back of one fabric and then attach that piece to the front of the second fabric, resulting in an appliqued look.

Interfacings and stabilizers are the key to better-looking clothing and fabric projects.

Shawls are made of different materials; some are simple while, others are delicate. Since they are also prone to deterioration, repair is a “must” thing to learn to save these priceless fashion accessories. Here are two ways on how to mend a shawl namely:

Do-it-yourself mending

First thing to do is to identify what type of fabric your shawl is made of. In this way, you can also determine how to fix it since each fabric requires different ways of fixing. Here are some steps on how to fix a tear according to the type of fabric.

Lace

For shawls made of lace, it can be repaired by simply using a fine needle and a thread that matches its cloth. Depending on the extent of damage, you can either sew it using one of the basic stitches or use satin stitch to close a large slit or hole.

Knitted and crocheted

If your shawl is knitted or crocheted, the method of mending is obviously not the same as that of the shawl made of lace. You need to locate which part of the shawl is shredded and from there you connect it using a yarn of the same kind and color.

Chiffon

Since chiffon is made of very fine fabric, mending it should be as less obvious as possible. Choose a color that has the nearest shade to make it indistinguishable. It is not advisable to use a patch to cover the slit especially if the shade and textile is definitely divergent from the problematic cloth.

Shawl shop repair

There are some types of shawl fabric such as satin and chiffon, which involve elaborated designs, require a skilled professional to restore its original condition. Because of the intricate style of the shawl, a simple mending is not feasible. Here are some shawl add-ons that needs some expertise when mending namely:

Swarovski stones

These are crystal glasses cut into various shapes and sizes used in jewelries, decors, and clothing lines as well. Since these are refined and sophisticated, it is almost impossible to fix it yourself.

Fringes

Fringe per se’ is not that difficult to mend; however, some peripherals have bead inclusions that make it complicated. So as not to create more damage, the best solution is to send it to a shop for complete restoration.

Beads

Adding beads on shawls is a very demanding task because you need to handle it piece per piece. Depending on intricacy of the pattern, you will need at least few days to weeks to finish it. If you want to restore its original appearance, hire a skillful person to carry out the job the fast and superior manner.

What captivating content are you sharing with the masses via your public speaking engagements? Do you have a message the world must hear? Or are you just sharing the latest company update? Either way, if your audience doesn’t hear it, you’re wasting your time…

Captivate the audience first –

Some speakers tell a joke or lighten up the audience by speaking about some notorious event that happened on the way to speak to them… But there are times when you really don’t have time for the EXTRA stuff that speeches are made of. What do you do then?

Sales Coach, Hugh Liddle, wears a red cap. A stark contrast to the rest of the world, his red cap and winter scarf take the listener off to another place in time. He keeps the listener entertained throughout his training with colorful, punctuating remarks.

When Retail Sales Rep and Team Lead, Bo Mackey pulls up a stool and sits in front of his team, they most likely notice the tatoo on his shoulder (even in winter this man wears sleeveless black shirts) and wonder who the biker dude is, and why he’s sitting in front of them. When he walks out of the training room, he pulls off the skull and crossbones do-rag to reveal a shiny bald head and pulls on his gray tweed jacket for the professional look they recognize.

Both men effectively grab their audience’s attention. Appearance first. You don’t have to do weird things to captivate the audience, but those two options work well.

MaKenna Turley, Sales Rep and Coach, drops her brief case on the floor with a resounding thud and kicks the tag that opens it. Like a jack-in-the box, up pops her podium with her papers neatly arranged on top. The first time I watched her do this, I nearly fell off my chair. The rest of her program was at least that cheesy, but her audience walked away with new knowledge and some great ideas for making their marketing plans profitable.

It’s a gimmick. Gimmicks work. Gimmicks attract attention. What can you do that will captivate your audience and compel your attendees to HEAR what you say?

I know speakers who hoop their way through a presentation, and speakers who DRONE, but their audience listens. Whatever you choose to do, it must suit your personal style and appeal to keep your audience’s attention. The point is, be original. Be unique. Be different. But BE YOURSELF.

A down economy should not take the fun out of dressing well. A sweater or dress that has been hanging in a closet for a while can receive new life with the right accessories. Accessories make the difference between dressed and well-dressed.

Scarves and jewelry are two popular accessories that add pizazz to plain clothes. However leather items like belts and purses can also bring a touch of class to an everyday ensemble. The following are a few tips for using accessories to develop personal style. Scarves can give a plain sweater or dress a sophisticated look. Whether flung or tied loosely about the neck, a well-designed scarf can make the difference.

Carefully chosen brooches or pins add just enough “bling” to make an outfit exciting. Even a wool winter coat can look special when a large pin is attached to the lapel. Don’t forget the power of a simple piece of jewelry. Today’s larger watches with contrast bands and faces say “look at me” and give a message of a confident dresser who knows how to select the best. A leather belt in rustic burgundy or light brown contrasts well with denim or tweed; and brings together a sort of country meets city classic look. Leather boots can make an equally powerful statement.

Choosing classic pieces of clothing that never go out of style makes it easy to accessorize. Pieces made of natural fabrics like wool, cotton and silk in neutral dark and light colors will be stylish for several years. This means that rather than buying a new wardrobe every year, inspiring and eye-catching accessories can be purchased that will transform last year’s plain black dress into this year’s classy holiday ensemble. The best part about accessorizing is that it can be done without breaking the bank and that is a win-win! For more information, go to: http://www.womens-fashion-accessories.me

Hair Weave on Vacation…

The snow has finally thawed and the summer vacation season is here. Whether you head south to Florida, cruise to a Caribbean island or travel abroad, fabulous hair is a necessary accessory to accompany your bikini-clad body. After working months to get your body perfect, why mess up your look with a baseball cap, a scarf or worse – a scrungie! (yikes!)

The beaches down south will be super hot and humid this year. You can count on 90Ëš temps with just has much humidity; this will be a killer for your relaxed hair styles. The best way to deal with this is to get a wet and wavy (sew-in) hair weave. The maintenance is surprisingly low, after you cleanse and towel dry the hair, you can just wear it wavy. If you want to look chic for a night of dancing, once the hair dries you can straighten it with a flat iron or use flexi-curlers for a bouncy spiral look. You can go from poolside to night club with minimal time spent on your hair, after all – you are on vacation!

I know what you’re thinking…after spending so much money on the travel arrangements – Who has money for a sew-in weave? Answer: You can order The Ultimate Hair Weave Guide from Amazon to get step-by-step instructions on how to properly install and maintain your own hair weave. It’s a life saver. I used this process last year while traveling abroad and I was the only one in my group who looked just as fabulous on the flight going to Europe as I did on the flight home. After day four of our ten day trip, everyone else was in baseball caps and scarves. And let’s face it there’s no way to look sophisticated in a baseball cap.

Check out the tips below to help maintain your vacation hair style:

1. Wet your hair before swimming. The best way to protect your hair from the discoloration and drying damage that salt water and chlorine can cause is to saturate your hair with water and add a coat of conditioner prior to entering the water. The hair can only absorb so much water, so it’s best if it’s not chlorine or salt water.

2. Cleanse your hair immediately after you take a dip. You can’t simply ring the excess water from your hair after swimming. Both salt and chlorine can strip the hair of essential lubricants. Be sure to wash hair with a conditioning shampoo, or sometimes I skip the shampoo and do a co-wash (cleansing with conditioner only) to prevent drying the hair out any further. I love Mixed Chicks leave-in conditioner, while I am not a “mixed chick” chances are the hair on my head is indeed “mixed”.

3. Air dry instead of blow drying. Frequent blow drying can be very harsh on the hair.

4. Sleep in a silk/satin scarf. This will prevent breakage and make styling easier the next morning.

Bon voyage!

Pregnancy is such an exciting time, but it is also a period when there are just so many things to think about and so many plans to be made. In addition, of course, it is a time when your preparations for the forthcoming event are inevitably going to incur expense. Especially if it is a first child and you are starting from scratch, with everything from cots and car seats to teeny tiny clothes and feeding bottles to buy, the costs can soon start to mount up, a fact which often makes expectant moms feel slightly guilty about looking after their own maternity needs.

Moms-to-be do not actually need much for themselves beyond a new set of clothes to accommodate their ever-expanding waistline and belly. Still though, they can sometimes feel uncomfortable about the idea of spending money on themselves when it could be spent on junior, and the fact that they are only going to get a few months’ wear out of their maternity clothes does not do much to encourage them either.

If buying maternity clothes for normal daytime wear feels like an extravagance though, then investing in evening wear feels even more so. The pregnant ladies of today, however, do not hide themselves away just because they are expecting (and nor should they) and so of course some nice outfits for those nights out are every bit as essential as their day wear.

As many moms-to-be will have learned through their own experience, there are a few tricks to keeping the costs of maternity clothes down while still managing to look at your radiant best. First of all, try to choose clothes of matching or complementary colors, because in that way you will be able to team up all the elements of your maternity wardrobe and still achieve a coordinated look. Secondly, if you do not find them too uncomfortable, aim to buy separates such as skirts, pants, blouses and tops, because again you will be able to mix and match and achieve a greater range of complete outfits. Thirdly, look beyond standard maternity wear towards items that you will still be able to wear after the birth. Although some women do put on additional weight all over their bodies during pregnancy, this is certainly not the case for most and so often it is possible to find tops and so on which will be perfectly wearable later on.

A couple of really great additions to your wardrobe when you are pregnant come in the form of long women’s silk scarves and shawls. Not only do these gorgeous accessories have no size restrictions so they can be worn before, during and after pregnancy, but they are also the ultimate way to transform a limited range of outfits. Fabulous hand painted silk scarves can be teamed up with just about anything for daytime or evening wear, and a stunning handmade silk shawl is just perfect for those special nights out. Because silk shawls tend to be quite long and cover a fair proportion of your clothes underneath, even if you do wear the same maternity evening dress throughout most of your pregnancy, with a different silk shawl over the top, no-one will even notice. Also, handmade silk shawls produced from 100% pure silk and with stunning hand painted designs add elegance and sophistication to any outfit, so dressing up your daytime wear to make it look really special is a piece of cake.

Although hand painted silk scarves and handmade shawls are not the cheapest women’s scarves and shawls available on the market, when compared to the cost of maternity clothes, they do represent superb value for money. Rather than just being worn for a few months and then stored away in the closet until next time, you will be wearing these exquisite items regularly and for years to come.

In my previous article I discussed the features and benefits of using DuraKore as a core especially for amateur boat building and why I chose to use this material over foam and western red cedar to build my Grainger 9.2M Trimaran.

In this article I will talk about how DuraKore is supplied and what work I had to do to make the strip planks for the project I was building.

DuraKore is supplied as planks, and for this project I ordered 13mm thick x 300mm wide x 2.4m lengths which had to be scarfed together to make planks longer than the length of the 9.2M hull.

The scarfs were made by machining a male taper onto the 1.5mm thick hardwood veneer at the end of one DuraKore plank, and a female taper into the hardwood veneer of the plank that was to be glued and joined to the male taper.

A 1 in 12 taper provides a joint stronger than if there was no joint if produced correctly.

The test to prove the finished joint is to scarf up a sample 50mm wide strip plank, and clamp one end of the plank to a bench with the bulk of the plank hanging out over the edge on the bench. The scarf joint should be a fair distance away from the edge of the bench also. Slowly add weights to the very end of the plank until it breaks. If the joint is a good quality scarf joint, the break will have occurred somewhere else along the plank.

A 1 in 12 taper means that the length of the taper will be 1.5mm x 12 = 18mm long.

The amount of balsa cut out of the female edge will be at least 18mm deep, and the inside edge of the hardwood veneers tapered towards the balsa cut-out 18mm depth inside the female joint.

The male edge is simply machined with a taper that runs out over 18mm on the hardwood veneers.

The DuraKore supplier sells an attachment that is fitted to a circular saw to do this easily. However a jig can be made to do the job. I bought the attachment.

Once I had prepared a long flat surface on which I could join 5 DuraKore planks together, I mixed the glue.

The Epoxy resin that I chose to use was 105 West System manufactured by Gougeon Brothers, Inc.

It is a clear, light-amber, low viscosity epoxy resin that can be cured in a wide temperature range to yield high strength, rigid solid which has excellent cohesive properties and also is an outstanding moisture barrier.

There are two types of hardeners formulated for use with 105 resins.

205 and 206 hardeners require 5 part resin to 1 part hardener mixing ratio. 207 and 209 hardeners require a 3 to 1 ratio, and solid state 6 to 8 hours.

I used 205 hardener which is mostly used for general bonding, barrier coating and fabric application. It was also formulated to cure at lower temperatures and to produce a rapid cure that develops its physical properties at room temperatures. Its pot life is 9 to 12 minutes at 22 degrees C. And solid state 9 to 12 hours.

The 206 hardener is a slower hardener and provides a longer working time especially when working in climates of higher temperatures. Its pot life is 20 to 25 minutes at 22 degrees C.

Special pumps can be purchased to dispense the correct amount of resin per 1 full stroke of the resin pump, and the correct amount of hardener per 1 full stroke of the hardener pump.

The temptation is to mix larger amounts, to save time mixing the stuff all day, but this resin generates heat once the hardener is added and stirred, and with larger volumes of epoxy in the container the greater the reaction and shorter the pot life. Before you know what has happened your hand is hot and the epoxy is hardening in the pot.

The epoxy needs to be thickened to glue the scarf joints so it would not run out of the joint before it cured, and West system provides additive powders to enable this. 411 powders are suitable for this.

I mixed about 4 pump strokes of Resin and 4 pump strokes of hardener together, and while mixing stirred in powder until I got a peanut butter consistency.

Mixing containers can be bought, however I preferred to put my money into the boat and not the rubbish bin. I had my wife and our neighbours saving plastic milk bottles and other suitable containers for me. My supply of milk bottles was insane at times. I cut the tops off those to make suitable containers.

Five planks were glued together and laid flat along a flat floor and straight edge jig to cure. This was important as the finished plank needs to be straight, or else the hull will have many humps and hollows to fill causing the fairing job to be a larger job than it should be. Those finished planks were just short of 12M long for the 9.M hull, which was fine because it is important to stagger the scarf joints as the hull is being planked, and wastage will occur because of that.

Those long planks then had to cut down to mostly 50mm widths so that the planks could be laid up over the male mould frames to form a round bilge core. In fact what you really have is many small chines’s, which are hardly noticeable, and disappear completely once the fairing is completed.

Around the water line area bilge areas, I had to cut the width of the planks down to 25mm and a couple to 12mm in order to get around the tighter radius.

Once I had a good stock of strip planks made it was time to start installing them onto the mold.

First I ensured that the hull could be removed from the mould frames at a later date by applying insulation tape to the edge of all the mold frames.

The first plank was important, as where it is placed along the hull would depend on how well the following planks laid up around the curvature of the hull. I screwed the first plank into the deepest point of the concave frame curve for each frame, and with a little bit of trial and error it became evident where the best fit was.

The edge of the first plank was coated with thickened glue so that it would not run off and also fill any gaps in the edge joints. The next plank was lifted and fitted into place, making sure that the scarfed joints of each plank were not aligned with each other, and only then screwed to the temporary frame.

I also found it necessary to screw plywood battens across the planks to hold the edges aligned in the areas between the spans of the temporary mold frames.

This edge gluing process was continued for about 6 to 7 weeks outside work hours until the entire DuraKore core was finished. A battery powered screw driver made this job easier for me.

As the planking progressed it became evident that I would have to stop on the area that I was currently filling in, because it became impossible to lay the long planks around the bilge curves as the plank was beginning to twist like a propeller blade and it would resist sitting flat against the edge of the mold frame.

I had to then lay a new 25mm plank along the highest point of the convex curve along the waterline, bow to stern and screw that plank on as my new edge to glue to. The next 25mm plank was edge glued and fitted to the lower edge of the new plank, and I continue to plank down towards the previous planked up area, slowly increasing the width of the planks to suit the curve therefore filling up the long elliptical void that was left. As the void was closed I found that I had to taper the end of the planks so that they could fit against the lower plank, and as the elliptical void was closed up each subsequent plank would become shorter. You can see the photos showing the planking on my web site.

Once the whole hull core was laid up, every screw was removed thousands of them and the hole filled. The glue joints were lightly sanded flat taking care not to remove any hardwood veneer. Hand sanding was the safest method as machines tend to dig in far too easily.

My next article will be about the fibre glass lay up on the main hull.

To stop shawls from shedding you must use only your hands and mild detergent when washing them, never wring them, and avoid rough surfaces when storing your shawls or when you’re wearing them.

The shawl has also made a place in the fashion world for quite some time. Aside from the scarf, it has also become a great fashion accessory for men and women alike. It can be worn loosely over the shoulders, arms or over the head.

Shawls come in different colors, designs, forms, and types of materials. Examples of shawls include Kashmiri /cashmere, knitted, pashmina, silk and cotton shawls. Cotton shawls are the types of shawls that are very delicate because they are very prone to shedding. To keep your cotton shawls from shredding, here are helpful tips just for you.

Use only your hands when washing the shawl

Cotton shawls are composed of delicate and very fine cotton fibers. Thus, it is a must that you have to wash them carefully. The best and only way of washing a very sensitive shawl is through your hands. Because you can basically feel and control how much cleaning it needs. You must also remember that you need not have to rub the cloth too much because this will only start and make the shredding worse. Also, remember not to wash your cotton shawl in the washing machine. The spinning and rubbing also precipitates the shedding.

Use mild detergent when washing

There are detergents that are just too rough on cotton fabrics. It may also be the cause to the shedding of your shawl. Replace your detergent with milder ones when washing.

Don’t wring the shawl

When removing extra water from the shawl after washing, never wring it. Wringing it will only break cotton fibers resulting to shedding. You only have to squeeze the cloth to remove the water and let it hang dry. If you really don’t want to add any damage, hang it directly and air dry.

Avoid rough surfaces when storing your shawl or when you’re wearing them

Rough surfaces are also leading causes why your cotton shawls start to shed. The fibers may tend to rub more often on the rough surfaces thus breaking some cotton fibers. It is best to store them in smooth drawers or containers and stay away from concrete walls or unpolished wood.