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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Embellishments Give Your Quilt Personality

Nowadays, embellished quilts are the in-thing'. Embellished quilts look very trendy and we can experiment with a variety of options with which to decorate the quilts. The primary objective of a good quilt is to keep us warm in bed. But many families use quilts also to celebrate different events of our life like weddings, birth of a baby, Christmas and other festivals and events. Many are used simply for decorations.

There are two important ways to guarantee that an embellished quilt is attractive to the eye. First and foremost, the quilt making has to be technically sound. If it is not constructed well, no matter how much we adorn it, the quilt will not look good and will wear out. Second, we must keep in mind that the accessories not only make the quilt attractive but also add weight to it. Thus the foundation fabric or the fabric with which the quilt has been constructed, must be strong enough to support the embellishments.

Lace, Ribbon, Beads or Paillettes, and Other Embellishments

The list of potential quilt embellishments is limited only by your unique creativity. Following are just a few of them:

Paillettes - These are small, circular pieces of luminous metal or plastic sewn on garments for decoration. They shine wonderfully when they catch light or sunlight. They can be used to decorate clothes, handbags and accessories. They are also great accompaniments for crafts such as frames, jewelry, lamps, and more. They are also fashionable as a knit, crochet and quilt embellishment.

Beads Beads can be used to add visual appeal. They can be attached anywhere while adorning the quilt top or block and/or after the quilt sandwich has been created. We can attach the beads to the top coating or through the top layer and batting or through all three layers after creating the quilt sandwich.

Buttons - Buttons can be sewed on in small clusters to enhance the appeal of a plain area. Buttons stitched onto folded ribbon or embroidery can also go a long way in making your quilt look exciting.

Charms - Charms have gained tremendous popularity and can be found in discount stores, jewelry stores, flea markets, garage sales, and all over.

Doilies - Doilies and other specks crochet can plug a plain shape marvelously.

Embroidery - Embroidery can be done with the help of floss or silk ribbon. They go a long way in adding a delicate touch to the quilt. We can also use French knots for consistency and use outline stitches to characterize the edges of an area, which might need more focus.

Lace - Lace can be added in numerous ways. It can either be stitched on flat or assembled to give it a full, more three-dimensional look. Lace can also be used in a pieced seam or inserted under the rim of an appliqu patch. We can even be fasten it on top of a seam to conceal it. Lace can successfully set up a contrast of texture yet is light and appealing to sew. Embellishment used on top of a lace such as stitching or beading areas intensifies the visual texture. It creates a intense feel both literally and visually and also helps the eye to slow down as it considers the area.

Ribbon - Ribbons can be added in the shape of streamers and bows.

However, we must remember that the heavier the embellishment we use, the more quilting is required to prevent it from sagging. If the quilting is not done with care, the quilts will not lie flat. If heavy embellishment is used, hand quilting may makes for a better quilt to avoid ruining the embellishments with machine quilting. Or, for the safety of the embellishments, the quilt, and the machine, machine quilt first, then embellish.

With a bit of care, embellishments can add a whole new personality to your quilt and make it a one-of-a-kind creation.

Jan Myers is the author of numerous articles and books on topics from organizational development and leadership to quilting. It was her avocation, the love of quilting, that inspired the popular online membership site for quilters known as the worlds largest quilting bee at http://www.QuiltingResourceCenter.com.

A Guide to Buying a Property in Italy

Overview

An increasing number of foreign nationals have taken to purchasing real estate in Italy over the course of the past fifteen years. The increase in real estate purchases in Italy by foreign nationals really took off following the integration of Europe into the EU. With the advent of the European Union, more and more foreign nationals began purchasing different types of real estate within Italy. This included commercial, residential and speculative investment purchases by foreign nationals.

The vast majority of foreign nationals who have taken to purchasing and owning real estate in Italy are from within one or another of the European Union nations. With that said, British investors have been particularly active in buying and investing in real estate in Italy during the past five to ten years.

The prime real estate purchases in Italy by foreign nationals in recent years have been concentrated fairly heavily in rural regions of the country

Investment Real Estate

As with the other nations that are members of the European Union, Italy has seen a growth in the number of foreign nationals making real estate purchases within that country since the inception of the EU. The common marketplace that was formed with the development of the EU is deemed to be the primary reason as to why there is so much activity in the arena of real estate buying and selling in EU nations such as Italy. A significant amount of the movement in regard to real estate in Italy involves the buying and selling of property for investment purposes.

A significant amount of activity when it comes to investment real estate has involved two primary types of property: commercial or industrial property as well multi-family properties that are used for residential and vacation purposes.

There are no real restrictions on foreign nationals purchasing real estate in Italy beyond a bit higher purchase registration tax that will be discussed later. This holds true for investment real estate as well as other types of real property in Italy.

Residential Real Estate - Single Family Dwellings

The biggest rush of selling when it comes to residential property has occurred outside some of the major cities in Rome. Many foreign nationals have involved themselves in this particular buying spree. Indeed, particularly people from the EU have actively made the purchase of homes and villas in rural areas of Italy to be used as second homes. These people maintain that they are attracted to the easy going and relaxing lifestyle of life in rural Italy. (There have been some motion pictures in recent years set in such environments that many real estate experts in Italy maintain have further spurred the sales of rural residences in the Italian countryside.)

Residential Real Estate - Apartments

When it comes to finding private residences in the larger cities in Italy, apartments remain one of the most popular types of residential property bought and sold in the 21st century. Take for example the city of Rome. Apartments remain one of the most often conveyed forms of real property within the Italian capital city. (Of course, the limited amount of living space and the ever growing population of Rome have combined to make apartments invaluable residential assets in that city.)

Many foreign nationals have invested in apartments in the more major Roman cities over the course of the past decade for two primary reasons. First, these apartments are allowing these foreign nationals a second and oftentimes more affordable residence in one or another of the Roman major cities for their own purposes. Second, many people from other nations are making the purchase of these apartments in the larger cities in Italy to then be let or rented to other individuals.

Generally speaking, these investors who are purchasing apartments in Italy are renting to people who will be in Italy for an extended period of time on business. In the alternative, they are renting these apartments to individuals and families who have elected to spend an extended period of time in Italy, in one of the major Italian cities, on holiday.

Vacation Real Estate

Vacation real estate remains a proverbial hot property in Italy at the present time. The demand for real estate in the major resort communities in Italy have sent the costs of real estate in those communities through the roof. With that said, many of the more healed foreign nationals continue to attempt to make the purchase of nicely situated real estate in the resort communities in Italy.

One of the other areas in which vacation real estate is selling at a brisk pace is in some of the more rural spots in Italy. As mentioned previously, many foreign nationals are taking to purchasing real estate and graceful homes in rural parts of Italy to be used for their second homes. Likewise, many foreign nationals are purchasing real estate in more remote and rural areas of Italy for use on family or other types of vacations and holidays.

In addition to using these properties for their own personal holiday or vacation purposes, many of these same foreign nationals are leasing these properties to other foreign nationals during those times of the year in which these owners are not occupying the properties themselves. As a consequence, many of these foreign nationals have been able to make their vacation properties pay for themselves. Indeed, there are some foreign nationals who have gone so far as to purchase more than one residential property in different locations in Italy. These individuals will use one or another of these residences at different times during the year and let them out to others the remainder of the time. These individuals have found this type of investment to be profitable.

Successfully Purchasing Real Estate in Italy:

Specific Steps to Buying Real Property in Italy.

The real estate sales and purchasing process in Italy is fairly streamlined and not particularly complex. For the most part, a foreign national stands in the same shoes as does an Italian citizen, with one exception. When it comes to the purchase of real property in Italy, a foreign national must pay a 11% purchase registration tax after the sale itself is consummated. An Italian citizen must only pay a 4% purchase registration tax.

In Italy, the first step towards the purchase of real estate is the initial agreement between the parties. Once the initial agreement is signed and executed, there are some primary tasks that must be completed by the parties. For example, the buyer must obtain appropriate and sufficient financing. The seller must work to make certain that title to the property is free and clear of any and all encumbrances so that it can be conveyed to the buyer.

When this initial agreement is signed, the seller will post a deposit in the amount of at least 10% of the total purchase price of the real estate being sold. It is not uncommon in Italy for deposits to run as high as 50% of the overall purchase price of the property. Deposits in Italy tend to be higher than what is seen in many other countries around the world.

Generally speaking, the deposit is not refundable if the buyer simply decides that he or she does not want to buy the property. Indeed, the only real circumstances in which a buyer can obtain a refund of the deposit -- even a hefty deposit of upwards to 50% of the purchase price -- is when the buyer backs out of the deal or in circumstances when clear title to the real estate cannot be obtained within the time set forth in the initial agreement between the parties.

The real estate purchase process is overseen by a notary in Italy. The notary actually has more duties than is normally associated with a notary involved in real estate transactions in other countries the world over. For example, the notary in Italy is responsible for carrying out title searches to work to make certain that the title to the property is free and clear of any obvious defects or liens.

Many real estate experts in Italy recommend that a purchaser take the time to hire what is known as a geometra. The geometra will survey the physical boundaries of the property for sale to make sure that it actually does comport with what is listed on the legal description that is subject to a contract for sale. (These experts maintain that this particularly is important when it comes to older properties in Italy.)

The real estate purchasing process can take upwards to six months to complete in Italy. For this reason, unlike in many other countries around the world, it is a commonplace occurrence for a purchaser to move into residential property after the initial agreement is signed. In most countries around the world, the purchaser does not take possession of the property until the final agreement is executed and the deed to the property is transferred from the seller to the buyer.

Les Calvert - an authority on overseas property and the Director of http://www.property-abroad.com/italy has written many articles on Italy and other popular countries reagrding purchasing overseas property.Mortgage Leads

Hotel Pay-Per-Click advertising: You do the math

The saying goes something like A fool and his money are soon parted and buying pay-per-click advertising without doing your math homework can quickly have hoteliers sharing the same fate.

Pay-per-click advertising (those Sponsor Results, Sponsored Links or Sponsored Sites above and to the right of the organic or natural search results on the major Search Engines) has to be one of the smartest money-making ventures of all time. Advertisers bid against each other in a frenzied auction environment, competing to appear higher up the list of ads that accompany the natural search results.

As of today, to appear at the very top of the page in the Sponsored Links in the UK for London Hotel will cost you over GBP1.30 per click; in the US over $3.00 for New York hotel; in Australia more than $2.60 for Sydney hotel and in France more than EURO1.40 for the search term Paris hotelthats per-clickit costs you nothing to show your ad but the moment someone clicks on the ad and is routed to your web site, the meter clicks over one more time and takes another little nibble from your credit card balance.

Developed by the really smart guys at the Search Engines, the pay-per-click auction environment encourages the great majority of inexperienced users to bid up the cost per click somewhere north of Vladivostokwhich it was probably designed to do. In the hotel arena, these inexperienced bidders are probably the same people who measure their performance in terms of ARR rather than RevPAR.

Still, its only a couple of bucks isnt it? Well, based on data that indicates that the majority of hotel web sites convert less than 2.0% of clicks that go through to the site, at $2.00 per click, it just cost you more than $100.00 to convert that sale!

Given the prices being bid per click at the moment, it appears that few hotel managers and marketers are doing that math, so we have prepared the Hotel Marketing Workshop Pay-Per-Click Calculator. You will be able to quickly and simply work out in advance, exactly what the maximum cost per click you ought to be paying based on your Average Online Room Rate, Average Online Length of Stay, Percentage Marketing Investment Per Sale and Estimated Conversion Rate.

Using this simple tool (its just a spreadsheet and some basic formulas), you will be able to choose what level of investment per click will give you a reasonable Return On Investment (ROI). And may prevent you from pouring your scarce marketing dollars down the porcelain through over-expensive clicks through to your web site. You can download it here or visit http://www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com and follow the links to this article and download it from there.

Now for that math lessonlets say you run a mid-scale inner-city hotel and your Average Online Room Rate is $200 and Average Online Length of Stay is 2 nights. You Revenue Per Online Sale is therefore $400. Now, before your eyes glaze over, its not much more complex, just keep following the bouncing ball a bit longer.

Most hotels allocate somewhere between 3.0-7.0% of revenues to marketing expenses, so lets keep it simple and say that you would normally spend 5.0% of your $400 revenue on marketing costs ie $20.00. Your web site converts 2.0% of visitors to sales (1 in 50 sad isnt it but that is the average conversion rate and yours may well be lower) which means that you should only spend a maximum of $0.40 per click on pay-per-click ($20.00 x 2.0% = $0.40)not much is it? $0.40 will get you on about page seven in most markets for high volume keywords. Maybe your bookings for next month are looking a little soft so you are prepared to up your Percentage Marketing Spend to 10.0% of Revenue Per Online Sale or $40.00; that still means a maximum cost per click of $0.80 to give you a modest ROI.

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase your destination hotel up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you reverse engineer the math, at $3.00 per click with a 2.0% conversion rate and a 5.0% marketing investment and a 2 night stay, your hotel would need to be achieving an Online ARR ofwait for it$1500.00 per night; perhaps in parts of Saudi Arabia that may be achievable but seldom in downtown anywhere else.

And the Search Engines are smiling all the way to the bankeven at a 5.0% conversion rate and 10.0% marketing investment thats $300.00 per night; a not unheard of ARR, but 5.0% web site nett conversion rates and a 10.0% marketing investment are rarified numbers indeed for many hoteliers and their web sites.

So, what can you do to make PPC work for you? Its all there in the formula:

research keywords that arent so actively competed for that are still relevant for your target audience and bid on those less volume yes, but a much more reasonable cost per click

extend your key phrases that you bid on to three or four words downtown boutique your destination hotel as these phrases are again not so actively competed for

select and implement the very best Web Booking Engine you can find to make that final step to conversion as user-friendly as possible

increase your Revenue Per Online Sale by either increasing online rates or encouraging longer stays

find and be prepared to pay a professional to manage your pay-per-click investment with the skills to maximise click through rates and the lowest cost per click

call Hotel Marketing Workshop to help you increase your conversion rate through a better web site experience (oopsthat darn commercial keeps sneaking in)

OR you could just keep bidding up the cost per click like everyone else and slowly go broke while the Search Engines keep charging your credit card

At Hotel Marketing Workshop we dont actually manage pay-per-click advertising for clients; theres nothing wrong with PPC when well-managed but we just prefer to do what we do bestdeveloping and designing great web sites that maximise the conversion of visitors (from whatever source PPC, Search Engine Optimisation, referrals from inbound links, online and offline ad campaigns) to online revenues.

And we are happy to help you find and select a PPC advisor as part of your overall hotel internet marketing strategy and work with them to maximise your online revenuesand were OK at the math too!

- ENDS -

Keith Paulin is the General Manager of Hotel Marketing Workshop (http://www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com). Keith has worked in senior marketing roles within the hotel industry (Hilton, Regent, Hyatt, Accor) and in other industries (HP, Lion Nathan, Shell) and holds degrees in Marketing and Business Management. Hotel Marketing Workshop works with chain and independent hotels, large and small, delivering tactical, practical hotel internet marketing strategies that work and then assist with expert implementation. Keith has a deep interest in the world of e-commerce, Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing and a clear track record in producing growth in RevPOV (Revenue Per Online Visit) for hotel clients.

Nov 23, 2007 Nov 24, 2007 Nov 25, 2007 Nov 26, 2007 Nov 27, 2007