Creative Ideas for Your Home!
A Review of Better Homes and Gardens: 101 Weekend Projects
by Grace Smith, Ph.D.
Looking to add personal style to your home or apartment? In the Better Homes and Gardens: 101 Weekend Projects CD-ROM you'll find popular projects recommended by the magazine's 7 million readers. Here you will discover new ways to add decorative touches to your home. The CD-ROM includes great ideas for storage solutions, window and wall dressing, outdoor projects, special painting techniques, and affordable accents.
In only one or two weekends, you will be able to complete practical, do-it-yourself projects that will add a unique personal flair to your abode. Better Homes and Gardens provides step-by-step directions, easy-to-follow videos, photographs, illustrations, and tips for completing your projects. Each project includes printable instructions and a list of tools and materials to buy or assemble ahead of time.
Some projects are geared at reducing clutter and providing better storage solutions. The closet project in the Storage Solutions section of the CD-ROM does just that. By providing information about how to reorganize your closet, when to declutter it, and how it should look, the program offers a quick solution for organizing the place you face each and every day.
Other projects are decorative or creative. An interesting one for adding just the right touch to your child's room can be found in the Bright Ideas for Lampshades section.This project illustrates how to decorate a plain lampshade with your child's colorful handprints. By choosing appropriate colors to complement the room's decor, you apply your child's handprints to the shade. The result is a customized, clever lamp that you (and your child) can point to with pride.
Speaking of lamps, another project shows you how to rewire a broken lamp in several easy-to-follow steps. Featuring photos and sound, you can follow the directions for the project on the screen or print them out. Your printout starts off with a list of supplies, then takes you through the steps one-by-one. You can even add an in-line switch if you want!
One of the program's most unusual projects consists of three hinged door panels for displaying photos and memorabilia. This project uses fabric and ribbon as background for the photos or memorabilia you select for display. What you'll end up with is a giant scrapbook or life-size photo album that will most certainly add a touch of drama to your dwelling. By changing the fabric and ribbon, you can customize the panels to match the decor of any room in your home.
You can search for these projects and 97 more within eight categories in the CD-ROM. To find the weekend project you'd like to use, search:
1. Easy Upgrades to Your Home and Furnishings
2. Creative Projects for Outdoor Living
3. Affordable Accents for Adding Just the Right Touch
4. Great Paint Techniques
5. Storage Solutions
6. Ideas for Well-Dressed Walls
7. How to Become Window Wise
8. Bright Ideas for Lampshades
Along with these projects, the CD-ROM offers a bonus section that you can use for ordering additional projects directly from Better Homes and Gardens.
Multimedia Cafe Scorecard
| Product: |
Better Homes and Gardens: 101 Weekend Projects |
| Company: |
Multicom Publishing
|
| Cost: |
n/a |
System Requirements:
486 SX or better, 8 MB RAM, double-speed CD-ROM, WIN 3.1 or later, SVGA display with 256 colors, SoundBlaster compatible audio board, Mouse
or
Macintosh 68030 processor or better, System 7.1 or later,
Macintosh Cd-ROM, 8 MB RAM, 13" monitor, 256 colors,
double-speed CD-ROM drive, QuickTime 1.6.1. or higher, Mouse
Breakdown:
Entertainment Value 5
Educational Value 5
Concept 5
Graphics/Sound 5
Interface 5
Overall Score:
Copyright © 1997 InfoMedia, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.