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Home front: Light up your life for the holidays
By Judy Stark, Times Homes and Garden editor
Published November 10, 2007
Here it is, the book all you creators of elaborate lighting displays have been waiting for: Holiday Hero: A Man's Manual for Holiday Lighting (Chronicle Books, $9.95), by Brad Finkle. A professional lighting decorator for more than 20 years - read all about him at www.creativedecoratinginc.com - Finkle starts with Electricity 101, proceeds to the tools you'll need, and explains the mysteries of outdoor timers, blackout caps and net lights. Then he tells you how to create a dozen decorating schemes. Leave your mark on food containers Tip from the November Woman's Day: Use a permanent marker to number plastic food-storage containers and their lids (#1 tops go with #1 bottoms, and so on). End the desperate searches and the frustration of finding that one manufacturer's lids don't fit on another brand's containers. Paper goods you can be thankful for Thanksgiving will be here in just 12 days. Consider these glamorous paper goods from the Isabelle Party collection by Isabelle de Borchgrave for Target. A tablecloth is $5.99; eight-packs of salad plates, dinner plates and place cards are $2.99 each, as are 16-packs of napkins. A word to the wise in the kitchen Two utility-related cautions as Thanksgiving Day nears: - Avoid running the self-clean cycle on your oven within one week of a holiday dinner. Ovens have a tendency to fail during or right after a self-cleaning cycle. - The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest day of the year for plumbers, who are called to repair clogged disposers that are jammed with Thanksgiving leftovers. Tips: Don't put grease, fats or fibrous food down the disposer - celery, banana and potato peels, pumpkin pulp. The disposer should be running when you place food debris into it. Don't wait until it is packed full to turn it on. Run cold water before and after you use the disposer. Tell us about your holiday decorations Speaking of lights, it's time to let us know about your holiday decorating plans. A coupon appears today on Page 2F. Let us hear from you by Nov. 23. The list will appear in the Floridian section on Dec. 1.
[Last modified November 8, 2007, 18:15:51]
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