Make-Up Tips & Beauty Advice

Matthew Toone asked:

I remember it like it was yesterday. My sister (yes … that is her in the picture) had just arrived home from a long trip, and my family and I were all together just playing games as a family. Before my sister arrived home, we had all decided that we would pull a prank on my sister and play a trick game on her that we had never played before.

So, we got out the camera, got the lipstick, and we all tried to keep a straight face. The game was called: “Inchypinchywinchy.” Yes, the name says it all! There is no skill required in this game – it is not educational, intellectual, challenging, or competitive in any way. You simply have to try and not laugh and give away the ‘secret’ to the victim. To this day, it still is one of the funniest and most memorable games we have ever played as a family. It was just a trick/prank game – but it was a blast. Have fun playing it – but make sure you do it on someone who does not know what is going on!

INCHYPINCHYWINCHY

# of Players: 4 or more

Objects Needed: Lipstick

Those playing will sit in a circle around the room. The person who has never played before will be referred to as the victim. Then, the person who is sitting to the right of the victim will need to have some Lipstick. In preparation, this person will rub a small amount of Lipstick on their finger, and then hide the Lipstick so the victim can not see it (or smell it). Everyone else will keep a straight face and not laugh, look at the victim, or give anything away. The game starts by having one person turn to the person on their left and, with their index finger they will do some random thing to the face of their neighbor.  While doing this, they must say: “inchypinchywinchy.” Examples of some random motions one might do is: pinch their cheek, rub their nose, squeeze their chin, pull their earlobe, draw a line on their forehead, etc.

The only rule of the game is that the person who is doing the random motion, and the person receiving it – they both can not laugh at all (all the others can when it is not their turn). The random motion only needs to last a few seconds, but neither person can laugh. If a player does laugh, they receive a strike (3 strikes and a player is out of the game). It is important that the rule is enforced to make the victim think this is an actual game (as weird as it may be to them). But, as is obvious, you should be more lenient on the victim so that they do not get eliminated from the game. Play continues around the circle with each person doing some random motion to their neighbor on the left. (It may be helpful for others to play dumb and pretend that this is a weird game to them too so it is not only the victim who wonders what is going on).

Eventually it will be the person’s turn who is sitting on the right of the victim. Again, this person will have rubbed some lipstick on their fingers – thus, while doing their random motion, lipstick will be smeared on the victim’s face. (Everyone else can laugh, but the other players do not want to laugh excessively or give it away that something is happening to the victim). The person rubbing lipstick on the victim must be very subtle and not let the victim see their finger with Lipstick on it.

After the victim has taken their turn, play continues around the circle. Players will laugh and receive strikes, and some people may even be eliminated from the game. The game ends when everyone is tired of playing, or everyone gets out, or when what most likely will happen – the victim discovers what is going on!

Bob Alexander asked:

After having had such a great time on my fourth mini vacation of the year, my wife must have decided that I’d had just too much fun and I was going to have to do penance. Her method of torture was to make me paint a couple of rooms that were, in her eyes, becoming dull and in dire need of paint!

I approach painting a room as I do almost everything; why make work of something that could be fun if you give it half a chance? Painting is such a project. I pretend that I’m creating a masterpiece that will be praised by all. At the same time I put as little effort into painting as I possibly can. If you don’t watch it, you can make painting seem like work!

We want a stress free painting experience so we’ll only buy a few things we need instead of spending a lot of money. Spending money to most of us is stressful so we’ll do as little of that as possible. You’ll need a good paintbrush, probably one that will use latex paints, since that’s the overwhelming choice today for paints. You will also need a roller and a roller handle along with a paint tray.

Since you will always have holes in the wall, you’ll also need a small can of spackling paste and a putty knife. Other than some kind of drop cloths to cover the floor and furniture, that’s all you need to buy! I didn’t mention a step ladder because you can find one of those small 2 step ladders in most homes today.

I don’t have to paint the ceiling which is wonderful, because they’re really a pain in the neck! Literally, because you have to keep looking up and straining your neck! One of my rules is “If you don’t want to put it back together, don’t take it apart!” Just paint around electrical outlets, wall lighting and such. Of course you have to take pictures and stuff off the wall, just get someone else to put them back.

Move furniture to the middle of the room. There’s no need to empty the room unless you just want the extra work. You now have the walls almost ready to paint, but before we start, check them to see if there are any holes that need filled. Only use a small amount of spackling for each hole, and then scrape most of it off with your putty knife. After it dries, sand it down and put another thin layer over the first.

Scrape it off again and sand it a few strokes with sandpaper after the last coat dries and you’re ready to paint! See how easy that is? Feel the stress beginning to fade? You’ve already saved yourself a lot of work just on filling nail holes. Most people put in a tremendous amount of unnecessary work on wall preparation because they use an excessive amount of spackling. Then they’re faced with sanding all that mess off!

Always paint the trim work first, because it’s easy to hide mistakes with wall paint later. There’ll be four doors and three windows this time around. I’ve long ago determined that it’s going to take about 30 minutes each to paint these, so I don’t try to rush because I know it’s going to take 3-4 hours to do the work. Just before I get out the paint brush, I wipe the wood with a deglosser to make the paint adhere easily.

After the trim work, you’re ready to paint the walls! Just do it! It’s really pretty hard to do a bad job if you use enough paint. For some folks, squeezing every drop of paint out a roller seems to be an obsession. The old adage, “You can’t paint with a dry brush!” also applies to a roller. Don’t be afraid to use enough paint and you’ll do a fantastic job!

By nature I’m a lazy man, so I don’t believe in making an easy job difficult. I don’t bother trimming around windows and doors as I paint the walls, because I’ll wipe down any spatters I may have with a wet cloth and keep painting. Depending on the size of the room, I’ll be through with the walls in 1-2 hours.

By the time I’ve pushed the furniture back against the wall, I find I’ve spent most of the day painting and I’m sure it will have been an enjoyable day. I’ll really feel like I have accomplished something. I’ll paint the other room the next day and then it will be time to go fishing.

Life is too short and time is too important to waste it making easy jobs hard. If it were an electrical or roofing project, I wouldn’t tackle those. I’d just hire someone who knows more about those projects than me! Then I’d go fishing!

D. Halet asked:

USA, the fifties. Danny and Sandy met at Rydell High School. They were in love last summer but Danny does not admit it to anyone. Danny treats Sandy as an unknown person. Sandy will be looking to win back the love of Danny and will spectacularly the day of the Rydell High School Fancy Fair.

In the year 1978, one of the most famous movie musicals in the USA is brought to the screen.

Grease is one of the events, the most significant film of the late seventies and will affect a worldwide generation of teenagers. We loved Grease; we wanted to look like Sandy, Rizzo, Marty, Danny, Keneckie or Fonzy. If you were a teenager thirty years ago, you surely sang “You’re The One That I Want” and “Summer Nights”.

Halloween is the opportunity to realize our dreams. I dreamed to look like Rizzo. If I choose not to dress a witch costume for this Halloween, I probably will choose Rizzo’s costume.

Grease is full of characters and then of different costumes based on the fifties teenagers clothing:

Sandy is blonde, naive and she fell in love with Danny.

Rizzo, leader of the Pink Ladies, is a teenager who lives free according to her own laws. She broke with Danny and is Keneckie’s girlfriend.

The Pink Ladies: Frenchie, Marty, Jane are the Pink Ladies. They are generally frivolous, only interested by themselves and want to please the T-Birds.

Danny is the hero of the movie. He is the leader of the T-Birds, rebels of Rydell High School. He is in love with Sandy, but refuses to admit it.

Keneckie is Danny’s best friend; he is also the second T-Birds leader. He lives a passionate love story with Rizzo.

The T-Birds: Sonny, Doody and Fonzy.

If you want to dress like a Grease character for Halloween 2007, you can either buy costumes or make them yourself.

Here are some homemade Grease costumes examples.

Sandy Costume:

* A white short sleeve blouse

* Pale yellow waistcoat

* A long flared yellow skirt

* White socks

* White tennis

* Ponytail style blonde wig

* Mascara, pale pink lipstick

Note: Use a Crinoline in order to extend the skirt

Sandy at Rydell Fancy Fair:

* A black t-shirt

* Black leather or vinyl trousers

* A black leather or vinyl jacket

* High heels red shoes

* Curly blonde wig

* Eye liner, grey eye shadow, mascara, lipstick red

Rizzo costume:

* A black short sleeve blouse

* A narrow black skirt or black Capri pants

* A pink jacket (”Pink-Ladies” written on the back)

* Black shoes

* Eye liner, mascara, dark green eye shadow, black pencil on eyebrows

and red lipstick

Rizzo costume at Rydell Fancy Fair:

* A red short sleeve blouse,

* Pink shorts

* Red sandals

* A red scarf around her neck

Pink Ladies Costumes:

* A white short sleeve blouse

* A narrow black skirt or black Capri pants

* A colored scarf around the neck

* A pink jacket (”Pink-Ladies” written on the back)

* Black shoes

* Eye liner, mascara, eye shadow dark green, black pencil on eyebrows and red lipstick

Danny Costume:

* A black jacket

* A black t-shirt

* Black pants

* White socks

* Black shoes

* A 1950s-style black wig

* Black sunglasses

Keneckie and the T-Birds Costumes:

* A black jacket

* A white t-shirt

* Blue jeans with returned edges

* White socks

* Sneakers

* A 1950s-style black wig

* Black sunglasses

A fake cigarette behind the ear of Keneckie

Rydell Cheerleader Costume:

* A white short sleeve blouse

* A long red flared skirt

* A red jacket

* White socks

* White tennis

* Ponytail style wig

* Mascara, pink lipstick

Note: Use a Crinoline in order to extend the skirt

Your Halloween Grease Party may begin

Josh Stone asked:

Painting is the last great do-it-yourself project. Our cars may have gotten so advanced that it takes a computer hacker to fix them, our computers have simply revolted and will be taking over any day now, and various home repair jobs grow ever more complex. We finish a carpentry job only to discover that our shelves fall down, our decks tilt, and doors never hang quite the way we intended them to.

But anybody can slap paint on a wall, right? We still have a safe perimeter of pioneering frontier staked out in the realm of painting. The rest of civilization can go on being digital, but painting will always remain a satisfyingly, soothingly analog pursuit.

Things you’ll need:

Rollers, two sizes of brushes, a trim or cornering (sponge) brush. Paint pan. An unbelievable amount of rags for wiping up. Either or all of newspapers, drop clothes or plastic sheeting plus a few rolls of masking tape. Painter’s coveralls, shoe slip-ons, and hairnets, maybe a few spare sets in case it’s a mutli-day job. Perhaps a couple of screwdrivers for removing fixtures and such.

Not everybody, but some will also need: Wall scrapers, putty and putty knives, caulking and caulking guns, wire brushes, extra pail and roller grid, painter’s specialty paint pads, ladders, scaffolds, sandpaper, and spackling compound. Oh yeah, and paint!

Preparation:

This is where ninety percent of the difference between the amateurs and the pros comes out. Think of the key to good painting as spending two days prepping a room that will take half a day to paint. Never, ever say to yourself, “I don’t need to cover that. Paint would never get there!” Yes it will! Paint will go places you never thought possible, no matter how careful you are. At the very least, compare the two hours to cover something to not covering it and spending three days afterward with a razor scraper trying to get paint off of it. Cover it.

Everything that’s in the room and isn’t fastened to it must come out or at the very least be shoved together in the middle of the room and covered. Using either newspapers (less stable), dropcloths (more stable), or plastic sheeting (much stronger) and duct tape, cover every surface in the room which you don’t want paint on. The floor should probably take plastic sheeting, especially if it’s carpeted or you’re going to be dragging a ladder around on it. Windows can be covered with newspapers. Everything gets secured with masking tape. By the way, this is where “masking tape” gets it’s name: you’re using it to apply a mask to the room before you swab paint on it, then removing the mask.

Consider removing metal and plastic fixtures from the room. Hanger hooks, doors, mirrors, light switch and plug socket faces (cut the power to the room first, even though you’re just removing the plastic facing), shelf brackets, thermostat controls, and so on. It’s easier to simply remove them than it is to try to keep paint off of them. If you’re covering small items, you can get by with mummifying them in tape. Use the cloth, paper, or plastic for large area, and border it with the tape to stick it on. Never trust your covering to a single layer; overlap everything to make sure that if you rip a hole in something, that won’t be the one place where paint leaks through. By the way, instead of agonizing over getting the tape border exactly straight, just put it on naturally and then trim the overlap by cutting it back with a razor.

An exception is the hanging lamps or chandeliers in the room. Ceiling lighting fixtures are both too difficult to remove and too labor intensive to wrap. Why not just cover it with a heavy-duty trash bag and duct-tape the opening around the neck? I knew you’d like that idea!

Next, you’ll need to at least clean the surface you’re going to paint, and possibly patch and prime it as well. Washing is a simple matter of soapy water and a sponge. Depending on what kind of walls you have, there may be some scraping of old paint and filling in of nail holes and cracks. Make sure, after whatever improvements you have decided to make at this point, that the surface you want to paint is clean and dry.

By the way, nothing is more irritating than finishing a new paint job only to have to pick hairs and dirt out of it. So not only should your walls be clean, but should stay clean while the paint is wet. That means putting up some kind of barrier to dust from outside the room, keeping pets out, keeping windows screened so insects and outside litter stays out, and not smoking in the room. For instance, if you’re painting a bedroom while somebody else is drywalling the hallway (notice how home improvement projects tend to bunch up on you?) you can tape up a plastic sheet over the doorway to the bedroom to act as a dust curtain.

As for the kind of paint and quality of tools: A common maxim in the painting trade is that you can do it the cheap way and have it to do again next year, or you can do it the expensive way and not have to do it again for eight years. So, high quality paints and tools only cost a few dollars more than the bargain stuff, and will save you money and labor in the long run. Paint quality isn’t so much a matter of brand as the different kinds of paint each brand offers.

Painting itself is somewhat monotonous work. It helps to have two people or if you’re doing it solo, an iPod or radio going. Music tends to help keep you relaxed and focused. Get just enough paint on your roller or brush and apply evenly and generously. While today’s paints aren’t quite as stinky as those of ten years ago, they are still harmful if inhaled in concentrated quantities; always keep that window open or fan going and keep things ventilated, perhaps even ducking out of the painted area once an hour to get a clear breather.

Good luck and have fun!

Peter Blake asked:

You are likely to get different divorce advice when you ask for it, depending on who you ask.

You should be clear in your mind exactly what you want to know before asking for divorce advice. You will then know what questions to ask. Do NOT make the common mistake of not differentiating all the different divorce categories, as there are many different divorce categories to look for.

Mind Is Fully Made Up

If your mind is fully made up to get a divorce, however tough it may be, then the advice you seek should be relevant to getting a divorce as soon as possible. This will probably involve meeting with lawyers, so essential you have all the proper information to give them. He or she will then be better prepared to provide you with the proper divorce advice.

Not Sure…

However, if you are not totally sure you want to get a divorce you would be wise to talk to a lawyer or financial expert to ask advice about the financial implications. Divorce advice regarding the wellbeing of your children can usually best be obtained from specialists. Marriage counselors are best qualified to give you advice on every aspect of getting a divorce. It’s in your best interests to consult more than one person when you are seeking divorce advice.

When you are sure the divorce is agreed to by both parties, and will be clean and simple without any financial problems then such a divorce should not require any complicated divorce advice. Both parties will have already agreed to getting divorced, so should be emotionally well prepared, with no particular outstanding worries – only sadness. The kind of divorce advice under such circumstances would not normally have very great financial implications, and would probably deal only with a pre-nuptial agreement or even a mutually agreed-to divorce.

However, if you must get divorced perhaps the best divorce advice you can ever get is one which enables you to take care of all the matters on your own by talking to friends, counselors and family. Ultimately the divorce is your decision and only you should be able to think and act it out as best as you can. My advice: Try avoiding divorce at all, if you can, as often painful for all concerned!

FacePaintingUniversity.com asked:

Here are some excellent free face painting ideas that will make you a smash hit at your next party or event!

When face painting, don’t stop with the face, include body painting also. This is always a hit. Kids go crazy for body painting. This is great to do because it makes the kids feel like they are wearing a costume and they really have fun with the character that they have been painted as. Whether it be a king or a witch, this idea is a “no fail” when it comes to pleasing youngsters. And don’t worry about the time this may take. Just keep it simple, short, and sweet and it’s a snap!

Another of the free face painting ideas is for you to try mixing and using makeup with your face painting. Taking some cosmetic makeup and combining it with face painting is an awesome idea. You can use blush to create rosy cheeks on a princess or eye liner pencil to create whiskers on a cat. Using makeup creatively and in combination with face painting can save you time and effort. Beginners may also find this easier than using paint on certain designs. Simply test out and experiment with different cosmetics to find what works best for you.

An entirely new and incredible dimension to add to your face painting routine that has been tried and tested is the use of stick-on-jewels. What’s great about stick-on-jewels is that they are simple and incredibly effective. Kids love them and it escalates the look of any face painting from amateur to pro. They are also very simple to use. Just remove the paper backing and apply to the desired area. This is one of the best and most effective of the free face painting ideas.

Try to use costumes with your face painting for an incredible combination that delights every time! Finding simple costumes is the key to this favorite of all the free face painting ideas. You don’t have to go all out and spend a lot of money. That’s not necessary at all.

Some costume ideas:

• A simple black cape for a vampire.

• A paper crown for a king

• Paper bunny ears for a rabbit

• A paper or plastic tiara for a princess

• Stripes painted on t-shirts to look like a zebra or tiger

• Or an old sock or stocking stuffed with tissues, magazine pages, or newspaper to look like a tail for a monkey, lion, or tiger.

And the last of the free face painting ideas is for you to use good old glitter! It’s simple, cheap, and incredibly easy. You can find glitter gel, glitter powders, and glitter dust that all work well (you just need to decide which one works best for you). Just as the stick-on-jewelry can improve the look of your face painting, glitter can make your painting look highly professional.

There are endless free face painting ideas, you just need to be creative, use your imagination, and most importantly, have fun and enjoy your art!

Karen Fusco asked:

Face painting is an art that can be undertaken by anyone, amateur or professional. It’s a fun way to entertain your children on a boring afternoon. Rain or shine, you can bring smiles and laughter with this simple entertainment. If you’re brave – and you know your kids best – you can even allow them to paint each other!

High school teens have enjoyed painting faces for pep rallies for quite some time. They paint their mascot paws, team logos or names, school names and colors on their faces for both fun and fundraising. It’s an easy way to earn money for the junior prom, senior class or an upcoming class trip. They set up booths at local arts and crafts shows, midnight madness sales, and during special school functions. Low prices keep the student customers coming back, along with their friends.

Face painting is also used as a way to earn money for special needs, such as a charity event. It can help fund an account for someone hurt in an accident or give financial support to someone who has a chronic illness, such as a heart condition, cancer, or multiple sclerosis.

The ideas for kids face painting are limited only to your imagination. When painting faces of young children, you must have patience, allow time for fidgeting, and keep your design simple. It helps perfect your talent to practice the pre-selected designs in advance of an event. Most children are happy to be your guinea pig for your practice sessions.

Ideas for designs come from many places: popular cartoons, movies, coloring books, the animal section in your local library or bookstore, magazines featuring flowers, catalogues, and toy stores. Try asking the neighborhood kids for their ideas. They know what’s ‘hot’ our there on their scene and what they’d be happy having drawn on their own faces. Kids can be extremely helpful and imaginative. Ask them to show you their favorite characters or to choose pictures from their own book collection.

Fingerprints are always fun. Try painting a fingerprint of a parent on a child’s face, using the person’s own finger, of course. And in reverse, you could even paint a toe print of a child on a parent’s face! Paint the name of a favorite pet on a kid’s face. Try dipping a willing pet’s paw into the paint and stamping it onto the kid’s face.

For quick fun, try face painting stamps. Draw a picture of a face onto a large piece of paper and have the child stamp a design on the face. Regular rubber stamps can be used for this, of course. But for actual human face use, there are special face stamps.

Lastly, where should your face painting take place? Try shopping malls, hospitals, birthday parties, charity events, festivals, school events, flea markets, church functions, craft shows, parades, and open house events. Hobby stores may offer classes for kids face painting or might allow you to teach a class yourself. After all, you’d be appealing to the younger shoppers along with their parents, and that would bring in more business.

Face painting is fun and creative. Think about it … you can have a lot of good times with this activity.

submit111@gmail.com asked:

Kid face painting is generally fun and easy. However, before you start on the activity, there are some things that you may want to consider first. Children are different from adults in many ways. For one, they are more at risk of getting into accidents and secondly, they are more of a concern especially when it comes to their parents. Getting to know safety practices is a must especially if you are planning to go professional with your kid face painting activity.

Here are the 7 simple steps to safer kid face painting:

1: Clean your hands to prevent infection and germs transferring from one child to the next. You can use soap and water or hand sanitizers in between sessions.

2: Make sure that you have everything you need and that the paints you are using are non-toxic and suitable for the skin. Paints that are not meant for the skin can cause allergic reactions like rashes. Also make sure you don’t use ordinary metallic glitter, as these can irritate both the eyes and the skin. Always use clean tools. If you must, dip your brushes in clean water before every session.

3: Prepare ahead of time and have everything you need ready in one place. Having to go and get other tools or materials will leave the child unattended. The child may accidentally fall off the chair or hurt his or her eyes with the paint and other tools.

4: Make the child behave and explain to him or her the need to be still while you are face painting. A child who is constantly moving or making sudden movements presents a risk of getting into an accident. The paint may go into the eyes or your painting tools can cause bruising or cuts. There are several ways to keep a child comfortable and you can find different techniques on kid face painting over the Internet.

5: Position yourself comfortably before you start face painting. If you are in an awkward position you can trip and injure the child in front of you. Also make sure you are in a wide space-if you are in a cooped-up area other children who may be playing or running around can accidentally hit you or the seated child.

6: Warm water and a gentle cleanser must be used to wash off paint. You can also dampen a piece of cotton to clean the face. Don’t rub on the skin, as this can cause irritation.

7: Take short breaks in between face painting sessions. Drink water if you are thirsty and eat when hungry. When you aren’t able to focus properly, not only will you make mistakes but you might also poke the child by accident.

If you keep these 7 tips to safer kid face painting, you’ll definitely enjoy the activity more and worry less whether you are doing the right thing in kid face painting. You will be able to work your way up to being a professional face painter while avoiding confrontations from other parents. For more safety tips on kid face painting, you can scan through face painting books in the library or simply print out information online.

Josh Stone asked:

If you’re a home owner looking to sell, you’ve doubtless been a little discouraged by the recent downturn in the real estate market. These things happen, and it’s nothing much that can’t be undone when the market gets to it’s next boom. In the mean time, improving your home is one of the best ways to compete on the real estate market. But doing so incurs additional costs that you can only hope to get back on the sale.

Painting your own home is one of the most economical improvements you can make. It’s also one of the most visible improvements you can make, and at least prospective buyers can see the results even if only in the picture in the home-finders magazine. But exterior painting is a slightly more daunting task than interior painting. So hopefully this will help you through the hardest steps.

Digital imagination

Your first task is to decide on the color scheme. Now maybe you have an artistic, vivid imagination and flawless taste in choosing a color palette. So good for you. If not, there is a new method that home owners are taking advantage of and that is digital imaging.

To do this, take a picture of the house with a digital camera, then load it into your computer and open it in a digital imaging program. You can then change the color of the house in the program by applying various color filters to it, using this to help you decide what color scheme to use. Commercial software is the first thing you might think of, but there are many freeware, shareware, and even Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) programs that are more than capable of handling this simple task. You should be able to find one for any computer platform.

Lacking that, you can either ask your computer savvy friend to do it for you, find a resource online that will image it for you, or try asking at the hardware store. Most paint and home improvement retailers now offer to do the same in the store, loading up a picture of your house which you provide and giving you a preview of different color schemes and palettes. Ain’t modern technology wonderful?

Prep work

A rule of thumb to know is that three-quarters of painting is good prep work. That is the labor-intensive part that makes the job so much work; actually slapping the paint on it is the easy part. Here’s the least you need to do:

Start by thoroughly cleaning the outside of your house. Paint won’t stick to dirt, grease, grime and dust. You may be able to get by just spraying the siding with a hose with a nozzle attachment. But you’ll do a more thorough job and get better results with a brush attachment on your hose. These brushes often come with a reservoir for liquid soap which will clean better. You can also wash by hand with rags or sponges, but the rule with house painting is that you don’t want to do anything by hand unless you absolutely have to – Karate Kid notwithstanding! If you do use soap, be sure to rinse the siding with pure water after you’ve washed it. Start at the top and work your way down the sides. If your siding has areas of mold, mildew or discoloration, wash it with an anti-fungal cleaner which will be available in most hardware and home center stores for a few dollars.

On wood siding, fill in any gouges or holes with an exterior-grade patching compound, sometimes this is called ‘plastic wood’. If damage is more extensive, consider replacing the area with a new piece of siding. Remove even small areas of loose, flaking, chalky or blistered paint thoroughly, as the slightest crack can peel a whole sheet away in the next storm. If not too extensive, loose paint can be removed with a power washer. If you’re hard up this can also be done with a paint scraper, putty knife or a wire brush. Sand the edges of the area of removed paint afterward to help the new paint cover and hide the edge.

To remove larger areas or even multiple layers of damaged paint, you can use a heat gun. This device, which looks a bit like a hair blower, generates temperatures of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit or more. Aim it at one area to soften the paint, and then take away the gun and scrape away the paint with a putty knife. Always use work gloves and eye protection and keep your hands away from the barrel of the gun. Never point the heat gun at anything except the paint to be removed – it will melt almost anything given time! Set the gun down on the plate provided.

An alternative to the heat gun is a rotary paint remover you can attach to an electric drill. Its stiff wire tines quickly remove large areas of paint, very similar to how a buffer works. Take care not to press too hard on the siding, or it may gouge the wood, which will be hard to fix. Practice on a spare loose board or other surface before you begin on the siding. Keep the tool away from your face or other body parts when it is in motion, and wear eye protection to prevent eye damage from flying chips.

Seamlessly caulk all cracks, seams and gaps with a top-quality exterior caulk. This includes areas like the perimeter where the siding meets the windows and doors, and the corners and the edges of exterior trim. Cracks and seams leave edges where fresh paint can quickly deteriorate.

Mask off areas that are not going to be painted. You will want to place masking tape along the edge of house trim, around window and door frames, and around trim, since this is likely to be painted in a different color. You can also tape newspaper, plastic sheeting, or drop cloth material over windows and doors to protect them from drips. The rule of thumb is, paint wants to go where you least expect it to. Place plastic drop cloths over plants and shrubs, or where paint may drip on porches, roof sections, sidewalks, driveways or any other surfaces. Remember that it’s always easier to cover something up than it is to remove paint from it afterward.

Now you’re finally ready to paint and let dry, then remove all the prepping. You’re done! Wasn’t that easy?

Larry Zolna asked:

Just by reading the newspaper or by watching the evening news, you will find that the incidence of date rape is up and the number of assaults on women has significantly increased! How can a woman help avoid these tragedies?

Just about every woman carries a lipstick in her purse or pocket. We are use to women applying lipstick just about everywhere. Well, now a woman can be “armed” without anyone being aware of it.

Lipstick Pepper Spray is a small but effective canister containing Pepper Spray which, when sprayed in the face, will stop any attacker in his tracks and let him know that he messed with the wrong woman.

You might wonder how much damage can be contained in a small lipstick tube. If you were the attacker, you would be very surprised when you were sprayed in the face. In fact, this small Lipstick case contains 20 half-second sprays with a range of 10 feet. That’s enough power to give you time to get away and call 911.

One other thing — not only people can be the attackers. You might also be threatened by a dog or other animal. One or two squirts from your Lipstick Pepper Spray and the dog will scram very quickly.

Lipstick Pepper Spray was designed for women. It’s small, compact, and almost unnoticeable but packs a wallop. No woman should be without one. And, the outside case comes in different colors.

Don’t be the next victim of an attack of any kind. Lipstick Pepper Spray could save your life.

If you would like more information about this simple product that can save your life, please click on this link: http://www.feelsafeandsecure.com/pro1203512.html

Feel Safe and Secure is a seller of home security products, self defense products, and wireless hidden cameras. To view these products, please visit our website:  http://www.feelsafeandsecure.com  and Don’t Be the Next Victim!