OneBlueOnePink: MoneySupermarket Home Improvement Hero ...

I really love a challenge, and recently MoneySupermarket asked me the question, Is it possible to change the look, feel and even functionality of a room on a low budget? A budget of ?50 to be precise. Well, knowing that I had a few ideas to make our living room feel more homely I accepted the challenge.

Here is our living room before (well to be honest part way through because I only remembered to take the picture after we had pulled the sofa and got the dust sheets at the ready!)

We have lived in our home (a new build when we brought it) for 7 years and a lot of the rooms are still magnolia, which, I think is really plain and boring. We had made half an effort with our living room and wallpapered a feature wall a couple of years back. But that is as far as we had got. As with lots of other rooms in the house, cracks had started to show between the ceiling and the coving joins. So first on my list was to ask Craig to kindly fill those cracks.
It was really easy to do, he just used some decorators caulk (we had some spare, so didn't need to buy anymore) and used a decorating gun to press it into the cracks. We then waited a couple of days for it to dry out before painting over it.

Whilst this was drying we painted a couple of tester pots of paint onto various parts of the wall, to see what the 2 colours we had narrowed it down to would look like in different lights. Wanting to keep it close to the flower colour on our wall paper we chose to go with Duck Egg.

So after carefully masking, the areas that needed masking we set to work painting the ceiling and coving white (using paint we already had) and then painting the walls Duck Egg. As the living room is a high traffic area and the children are still young we chose to go for Silk paint. Meaning that it can be wiped clean if necessary.

Next on my list to change the look and feel of the room was to change the blinds for curtains. The blinds looked nice when we moved in, but times have changed and I no longer like them. So I went and found some really nice curtains in the homebase sale. They are a cream colour with brown flowers stitched into the top. So go perfectly with the wallpaper. ?As our house in newish the walls are made of plaster board, which can be a real pain when it comes to hanging things, as the plasterboard is just not strong enough to hold in screws. So here is what we did....

1. Measure up and mark out where we were putting the curtain pole. We used a skewer to poke through the screw holes and mark the wall in the correct place.
2. Using some Black and Decker hollow fixings, which are specifically designed for plasterboard, Craig hammered them into the wall.
3. He then threaded the screw through the curtain pole fixing and screwed that into the hollow fixings. By doing this the hollow fixings would have sprung out from behind, clinging onto the plasterboard and making the curtain pole more secure.?
4. Finally, we threaded the curtains onto the pole and placed the pole into the curtain pole fixing.?

We repeated this process to put the curtain holdbacks up.

The final part of our effort to change the look and feel of the room was to put up a picture frame we had been meaning to hang somewhere for a long time. Again, because of the plasterboard walls this does restrict a little. However we have found a really great product that makes hanging pictures really easy!

1. Place 4 sets of large damage free hanging strips (they come in packs of 4) onto the back of your frame, two at the very top and the other two 3 quarters of the way down. Pressing down on each one for 30 seconds.
2. Measure up and mark exactly where you are going to place your picture.?
3. Take the backing off of each strip and carefully place your picture onto the wall. Again, press each one for 30 seconds.
4. Stand back and admire how lovely and flat the picture frame looks against your wall!

We also hung a white wooden heart onto the wall in between the window and the wallpaper and I think that looks great.?

Our room now looks like this...

Totally different and really calming. We also turned the sofa around so that it didn't block out so much light (it was against the window). I love that we have made it personal with the photo frame and also that just by putting up some curtains and a lick of paint its made the room look so different!

So this was our total spends:

Curtains ? ? ? ? ?- ?12.42 (These were a bargain as should of been over ?30!)

Curtain pole ? ?- ?6.78

Hollow fixings - ?6.99

2x holdbacks ?- ?7.98

Paint ? ? ? ? ? ? ? - ?11.99

Picture Strips ?- ?3.39

Wicker Heart - ?3.99

Total ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??53.54

Ok so I came in at ?3.54 over the ?50 budget, but its still an amazing transformation for only just over ?50!! Do I think I have succeeded with the challenge, YES!!! I set out to change the look and feel of the room and we have definitely done that! I feel so much happier sitting in our front room now, its a nice, cozy, welcoming room. Rather than a room that I was quite fed up with and embarrassed about!

Source: http://www.oneblueonepink.com/2013/07/moneysupermarket-home-improvement-hero.html

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Washington County sets aside acreage as buffer to protect trout-sensitive Browns Creek

A drive to save a natural area along a trout-sensitive stream in Washington County advanced last week when the county pledged money for its purchase.

The 17 acres in Stillwater Township, bordering Browns Creek, sit at the corner of a busy crossroads and would be attractive to anyone wanting to build a gas station, said David Johnson, a township supervisor.

?As a gateway to our community, we felt this was an inappropriate use of the property,? he told the County Board last week.

Commissioners voted to fund at least some of the purchase cost of the Palmer property, as it?s known, with money from the county?s Land and Water Legacy program. The purchase will be the latest use of the voter-approved $20 million bond referendum fund to preserve open spaces and protect water quality from commercial development.

In a related action last week, commissioners approved spending as much as $247,000 in Legacy funds toward the purchase of 30 acres along La Lake in Woodbury for preservation. This land is at 6655 Bailey Road, just north of the Woodbury?s La Lake Open Space. The city of Woodbury will pay the remaining $468,000 for the land.

The Palmer property, southeast of the busy Stillwater Township intersection of Hwy. 96 and Manning Av., holds significant importance as a natural area because the creek?s health is a high priority for the Browns Creek Watershed District as it attempts to reintroduce trout in the upper reaches.

Brown trout, a cold-water species, have been stocked yearly in Browns Creek since 1958. Long-term studies show that sustaining native brook trout and other species in the creek had been troublesome because of impairments, according to a recent watershed district report.

Browns Creek, as it meanders southeast, will parallel the new Browns Creek State Trail that is to be built next spring. Environmentalists have raised concern about harm to the creek with 75,000 people a year using the adjacent trail, but the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said it would limit access to the creek from the trail.

Portion may be a trailhead

The western portion of the Palmer property is envisioned as a trailhead for the Lake Links and Central Greenways regional trails, which intersect at the property, and the forthcoming state trail that is a third of a mile to the south. Trail development has gained considerable traction in Washington County in recent years.

Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/east/217317871.html

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9 Dogs Dead In 2 Separate Cases Of Animal Abuse

Associated Press Release

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Nine dogs are dead in two separate cases of animal abuse in the Tampa Bay area.
A St. Petersburg man was arrested Friday after police found two dogs and six puppies in a makeshift kennel.

Police tell the Tampa Bay Times that the animals were emaciated and suffered from parasites. One puppy died en route to Pinellas County Animal Services and all but one of the remaining dogs had to be euthanized.

In New Port Richey, Pasco County Sheriff's deputies found two dead dogs and one dog suffering from the effects of having been abandoned in a home for weeks without food or water. Deputies tell the Tampa Bay Times that a woman arrested Thursday said she "got freaked out" and left when one of the dogs died.

Source: http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/9-Dogs-Dead-In-2-Separate-Cases-Of-Animal-Abuse-217295931.html

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Video: Countdown to a debt ceiling debate, again

Pastor Warren: "My son was robbed of his life"

Pastor Rick Warren, whose son committed suicide at the age of 27 following a life-long battle with depression, has returned to his congregation with a message about the stigma of mental illness. Jeff Glor reports.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/cbsnews/feed/~3/VW07cUpgXSI/

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Scott: NCAA changes can come without confrontation

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? Larry Scott of the Pac-12 joined the chorus of commissioners calling for sweeping change in the NCAA, and said it can happen without confrontation and with the five most powerful football conferences still competing on the field with the other five.

Scott was the last of the leaders of the big five conferences to make a public push for NCAA reforms that will allow the schools with the most resources to have more freedom to determine how they use them.

"I don't think of it as much of an us vs. them situation as maybe is the impression out there," Scott said Thursday as the Pac-12 wrapped up a mini-media days on the East Coast that included their football coaches appearing on ESPN. "I'm certainly aligned with what you heard from my colleagues this week in terms of the need for transformative change, but I think it can be evolutionary and not revolutionary.

"I don't think it will be as confrontational and controversial a process as some of the reports I have heard this week."

NCAA President Mark Emmert told The Indianapolis Star on Thursday that he agrees with Scott and his fellow commissioners, and vowed significant changes to the way rules and policies are made.

"There's one thing that virtually everybody in Division I has in common right now, and that is they don't like the governance model," Emmert told the Star. "Now, there's not agreement on what the new model should be. But there's very little support for continuing things in the governing process the way they are today."

Emmert told the Star he will call for a Division I summit in January to discuss revamping how Division I is run.

Scott, Mike Slive of the Southeastern Conference, John Swofford of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Bob Bowlsby of the Big 12 and Jim Delany of the Big Ten have taken turns at football media days around the country over the past week calling for changes to the way the NCAA passes legislation since .

The most notable issue has been a $2,000 stipend that would be added to the athletic scholarship to cover the full-cost of college attendance. The big five conferences want to be able to give the stipend to all scholarship athletes.

"Schools that have resources and want to be able to do more for student-athletes are frustrated, concerned that we're being held back from doing more for the student-athletes in terms of the stipend," Scott said.

The stipend was shot down by some of the less wealthy NCAA Division I schools that might not be able to afford it. There are 349 schools in Division I, 125 at the highest level of college football called FBS.

"The idea that there is an even playing field in terms for resources is a fanciful and quaint notion," Scott said.

Scott compared the stipend being stymied to the delays in bringing instant replay to college football in 2000s.

"Instant replay took longer than it needed to get into college football because not everyone could do it," he said. "There are still some schools out there whose conferences can't afford instant replay. It doesn't strike me that the world's fallen in or that it's created some crisis just because everyone can't have instant replay."

Scott said university presidents that make up the NCAA board of directors will talk about reform when they meet next month. Proposals could come later this year.

Scott said he still wants FBS to have a "so-called big tent," with more than just the top five conferences being included.

"That's why the reports of a possible breakaway and things like that are overcooked," he said. "That's not anyone's agenda."

He said the move toward more nine-game conference schedules and an emphasis on strength of schedule in the upcoming College Football Playoff will naturally lead to fewer games between the big five conferences and the other five FBS leagues (Mountain West Conference, American Athletic Conference, Sun Belt, Mid-American Conference and Conference USA). But there will still be competition between the two groups.

What is likely to decrease are games between FBS and FCS teams and so-called guarantee games, when a school from a power conference pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to a school from a lesser conference to play a road game.

Some FCS and lower-level FBS programs, especially those in the Sun Belt and MAC, rely on those guarantee game payouts to fund their athletic programs and losing them could be a problem.

"I'm not very sympathetic. I just don't think the concept of buy games is a healthy thing for college football or for fans," Scott said. "It's been a quirk in the system that they've benefited from and good for them. I certainly don't feel like it's an entitlement or right they have. To me that's not a higher priority than creating higher quality college football matchups.

"There is plenty of socialized revenue distribution through the NCAA."

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/scott-ncaa-changes-come-without-confrontation-192803758.html

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Opposition leader Navalny joins growing roster of jailed opponents of Putin (+video)

The five-year sentence meted out to Alexei Navalny has deepened doubts among many about the Russian justice system.

By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / July 18, 2013

People gather in support of opposition figure Alexei Navalny who was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to five years in prison, in the center of Moscow, Russia, Thursday, July 18. Navalny was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison, a harsh ruling his supporters called an obvious attempt to shut down a top foe of President Vladimir Putin and intimidate other opposition activists.

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Enlarge

The conviction and sentencing today of anticorruption blogger Alexei Navalny?has focused minds around the world on something that's allegedly been going on in Russia since Vladimir Putin came to power and?accelerating over time:?the selective application of criminal charges and Kremlin-controlled courts to smear and immobilize political actors who refuse to play by the rigged rules of "managed democracy."

Skip to next paragraph Fred Weir

Correspondent

Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.?

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For many people, especially those who respect Mr. Putin as a leader who rescued Russia from a catastrophic downward spiral in the 1990s, it's not exactly obvious that is what's happening. After all, no one in Russia today is being explicitly prosecuted, Soviet-style, for their political opinions.?

The charges against Mr. Navalny, that he embezzled the equivalent of $500,000 from a state timber company while acting as advisor to a regional governor, sound plausible enough. And he was convicted, in a court of law. "Navalny. . . committed a grave crime," said Judge Sergei Blinov as he passed a five year prison sentence on Navalny?Thursday.

Yet increasing numbers of people insist that they have no faith in Russia's courts, nor in the law enforcement bodies that choose which investigations to pursue and what evidence to admit.?

They include US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who issued a distinctly undiplomatic Tweet?after hearing of the verdict: "We are deeply disappointed in the conviction of @Navalny and the apparent political motivations in this trial." Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who has repeatedly lambasted Mr. Putin for hijacking Russia's democratic experiment, posted a comment on his foundation's website?contending that the conviction of Navalny "is proof that we do not have independent courts" in Russia.

The key reason that many long-term observers of Russia have arrived at this conclusion is that Navalny, who is one of Russia's best-known opposition figures due to his highly-effective anticorruption blogging, is far from the only anti-Kremlin politician to have been targeted with elaborate criminal charges.

One of the first was oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky,?who may have made his fortune through dubious methods in the 1990s along with numerous other "oligarchs," but was only arrested and charged with tax evasion 10 years ago after he refused to stop supporting opposition politicians and funding critical civil society groups. Legal experts have disputed the state's case against Mr. Khodorkovsky, and a court clerk told journalists that his second trial in 2011 was thoroughly stage-managed by the Kremlin, but he remains defiant and ? some say therefore ? is kept in prison. Many recent signals suggest that the Kremlin's powerful Investigative Committee is preparing a third trial against Khodorkovsky?to keep the renegade oligarch in his Siberian penal colony after his second term expires next year.

A surprisingly large number of leaders lifted to prominence by the street protest movement that appeared after mass electoral fraud was alleged in December 2011 Duma elections have since found themselves charged with a variety of crimes. They include Navalny, who will probably have to drop his bid to challenge pro-Kremlin incumbent Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin in September elections.

The leader of the Left Front, which dominates the left flank of the protest movement, Sergei Udaltsov, is under house arrest and, along with several associates, charged in an elaborate foreign-funded conspiracy to overthrow the Russian government?using street protests as a springboard for revolution. At least two dozen people who attended a rally on Bolotnaya Square on the eve of Putin's third-term inauguration last year are awaiting trial for allegedly attempting to stage "mass disturbances"?planned by?Mr. Udaltsov.

Two parliamentarians who supported the protest movement, Gennady Gudkov and Ilya Ponomaryov, have faced endless legal woes. Among other things, Mr. Gudkov was expelled from the Duma?last year, while Mr. Ponomaryov has been named by the Investigative Committee in a still-developing corruption scandal that may expand to include government figures who failed to crack down on the protest movement.

Early this month Yevgeny Urlashov, the popular mayor of Yaroslavl, one of Russia's largest cities, was arrested and charged with soliciting a bribe of about $500,000. Mr. Urlashov, who had defeated a candidate of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, taking almost 70 percent of the vote, was planning to head an opposition slate for September regional elections.

No one assumes that liberals or leftists in power are necessarily any less corrupt than pro-Kremlin politicians, and Urlashov's case might not be remarkable if he were the only one. But according to a study by political scientist Mikhail Tulsky,?about 50 independent mayors, or over 90 percent of all non-United Russia mayors elected to lead Russian municipalities, have been arrested or removed from office on a variety of criminal pretexts over the past three years.

Kremlin supporters have two responses to all this. First, they argue, criminals always shout "political persecution" when they get nabbed. Second, they say, critics like Mr. McFaul and Mr. Gorbachev are motivated by political animus against Putin and Russia. It's in their interests to transform people like Navalny into martyrs.

Opinion polls show that Putin remains extremely popular, with public approval ratings that routinely top 60 percent. Opposition figures, including Navalny, have little name recognition among the Russian population ? at least outside of Moscow and other large cities ? and miniscule support even among those who know of them.?

Hence, Kremlin supporters argue, why on Earth should Russian authorities want to fabricate cases against them?

That question still can't be definitively answered, though grounds for skepticism are growing by the day.

But before anyone concludes that such skepticism about the state of Russia's institutions is the invention of ill-intentioned Western journalists and diplomats, joined by Russia's beleaguered liberals, consider this May public opinion survey?by the independent Levada Center in Moscow, which clearly shows that it's far-and-away the majority view among ordinary Russians.

When asked "Do you think that the trial of Alexei Navalny is the result of his political activities and his opposition views?" 59 percent of Russians answered "yes" while just 19 percent said "no."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/BpyCiwjcFow/Opposition-leader-Navalny-joins-growing-roster-of-jailed-opponents-of-Putin-video

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John Azabache, NY Math Teacher, Arrested on Wedding Day for Allegedly Raping Teen Student

Visit on your tablet, smartphone, or computer during the show for an exclusive feed LIVE from the ?Hannity? control room. The show?s producers will post videos, articles and slideshows related to what Sean and his guests are talking about in real time.?

This is the place to join-up with other fans nightly.?Test your knowledge in ?Hannity?s History Exam,? and take part in exclusive flash polls.?So, tune in at 9p?ET on Fox News Channel, and point your Internet browser to ?Hannity Live.??It?s fun, it's easy, and it?s free!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FoxNewsInsider/~3/dB7wMHTCHcc/john-azabache-ny-math-teacher-arrested-wedding-day-allegedly-raping-teen-student

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