Image by: Sara Shuman

Like all other mums, we wanted to have keepsakes of special events like birthday parties, get-togethers and other family occasions. And, photos would surely serve as the best keepsake. But, if you’re too busy making things go smoothly, the best option might be to hire someone to do the job for you – like a photo booth.

If you’re thinking of using a photo booth at a special family event, and why wouldn’t you? They’re perfect for all sorts of functions and it’s safe to say most people like them. Before you go on and hire one though, take a moment to plan for it. There are a few things about your event which you should consider before renting a photo booth, to make the whole thing work out properly.

In general, everything is in the very capable hands of whoever you hire the booth from, but helping them prepare adequately for the event will make everything work out perfectly. Here are five things to consider when hiring a photo booth.

1. Think about the guests.

An event that is only catering for about ten people might have no need for a photo booth. Even if it is affordable, the difference between the photo booth being a memory maker and it being an elephant in the room, is definitely made up by the number of people who are available to use it. Sure, it will be fun for about ten minutes, but if that’s all the use you’re going to get out of it then what is the point, really? With photo booths, the old saying of ‘the more the merrier’ stands true. It’s a hit at parties, not gatherings. Also, if your guests are expected to get unruly and smash the thing, have it packed away at a certain point in the evening, the equipment within them is very expensive.

2. How much space do you have?

Since the booths are not camera men with legs, they’re not overly portable. But then they are booths so they’re not supposed to be. You could check every shop for photo booth hire in Sydney and not find a very portable one, there just aren’t any; but that would be missing the point, they’re booths. If it can’t fit inside, can it go outside? If you weren’t otherwise planning on using the outside, there’s always a chance the photo booth will just get left alone outdoors like the only smoker at the party.

There are open planned booths available as well, they’re slightly more portable, take up a little less space and are great for outdoor events. Consider how many photo booths you’ll be using. If it’s a corporate event, you could end up needing a few. If this is the case, make certain your venue can accommodate them, they are quite big.

3. What type of venue is your event at?

Are you having it indoors or during night time? It doesn’t matter. Most photo booths come with high tech flashes and other gadgetry to sort all of that out for you. Is it outside, however, consider the weather, is it near water? I think what I’m saying here is that, like a gremlin, it shouldn’t get wet. Also what about power points, where can you plug the booth in where it will still be visible and accessible to your guests. If you’re linking the photo booth up to the internet for social networking reasons (yes they can do that) you’ll want to make sure there is a reliable internet connection at the venue.

4. The duration of your event.

Photo booths are stalwart and don’t bore easily, because they’re not people. It doesn’t matter how long your event is taking, hours or days, the booth will tire slower than the camera guy, and your guests will tire of the photo booth slower than they do the camera guy too. They’re great for weddings which generally take the whole day and go long into the evening. You can get Nan’s polite wishes for the future at 12pm and then her less edited opinion of marriage later at 12am. They will happily stay and snap your event all day long if they have to.

5. The theme of the event.

This particularly refers to events like your kid’s birthday party. By default, photo booths usually come with the rental company’s’ branding on them and are a standard, boxy design. But there’s no need to accept that if you don’t want to. You can get a fully customised booth based on the theme of your party. You could kit it out in white and doves for a wedding, or make it glittery for a get-together. You can even use the photo booths to make theme appropriate souvenirs and memorabilia.

Photo booths are wonderfully customisable and great for giving any event a personal touch, so if you can use this to your advantage, you definitely should.

If you want to maximise space in a smaller bathroom, you’ve probably already been told to install a pedestal sink, but what if you just don’t want one? Luckily, there are plenty of other sink solutions which will help your bathroom feel twice the size. Here are just a few.

Install a Corner Sink

Pedestal sinks are perfect for freeing up floor space, but they can still project a little too much to make walking through your bathroom easy. If that’s going to be a problem, you can always pick a corner sink instead. This will be out of the way, and corners often make more effective locations for storage since larger shelves can be installed from wall to wall without breaking up the space too much.

Opt for a Trough Sink

Pedestal and corner sinks might not be your style, especially since they’re more suited to traditional designs. You still have plenty of options, though, and one of them is installing a trough sink. These are long and thin, and work wonderfully in tight spaces. As well as fitting into confined bathrooms with ease, their elongated appearance helps make the room itself feel larger. Trough sinks generally work well with modern, minimalist styles.

Fit Wall-Mounted Taps

Fixing the faucets to the wall means that you can opt for a narrow sink, with the edge coming right up to the wall itself. This is a design choice usually made for modern bathrooms, but it works well with any style. You’ll also find the sink easier to clean without having to work around taps.

Choose Options with Round Corners

Whatever type of sink you choose, try to find one with corners which are as rounded as possible. This will help provide the room with a more flowing appearance, but it also makes it harder to injure yourself. Tight spaces and hip-high sharp corners do not typically make for unbruised bodies, so look for rounded styles as much as you can.

When it comes to sinks for small bathrooms, there a plenty of ways to make the right choice. Take this guide into account, and you’ll swear your bathroom stretched itself out overnight

Infographic by: Stinkyinkshop

Spain is one of the most frequently chosen locations for IVF with egg donation. Patients are drawn to the Iberian Peninsula by the clinics’ experience, high success rates and a large number and variety of egg donors. However, the cost of treatment in Spain isn’t the lowest in Europe. One cycle of IVF with egg donation costs approximately 7,500 EUR. Having said that, you can find egg donation treatment in Spain for as little as 5,000 EUR or as much as 10,000 EUR.

Egg donation clinics in Spain

There are 166 egg donation clinics in Spain. Most of them are located in large towns such as Barcelona, Madrid or Alicante. With such a large number of IVF clinics available, choosing the right one isn’t easy. When searching for a clinic most patients take into consideration the cost of treatment, success rates and location. There are also other factors to look into such as whether the clinic has an international medical team. After all, even the best doctor can’t help you if you won’t be able to communicate.

A good place to start when looking for an IVF clinic is a large and trustworthy internet database. If you are interested in egg donation in Spain make sure to check out EggDonationFriends.com. It’s a great website with loads of information about egg donation abroad, including Spain. Most of all, it’s probably the biggest database of clinics with egg donation programs in the world.

Comparing egg donation clinics in Spain

To start you off in your search, we have found some egg donation clinics in Spain which are worth recommending. Read on to see what you should have in mind when researching fertility clinics abroad.

IMFER – Instituto Murciano de Fertilida

This patient-friendly IVF clinic is definitely an experienced one. It was founded in 1998 by dr Antonio Collizo who had been working in the field of infertility long before the clinic was established. IMFER is a good choice for international patients since it has a special department devoted solely to foreign patients. Each international patient at the clinic gets an assigned treatment coordinator who is there to support and help the person throughout treatment, as well as acts as an interpreter during visits. The International Coordination Department can also help you arrange your trip and stay in Spain.

ProcreaTec Clinic

ProcreaTec is a good choice for patients looking for a clinic in a convenient location, since it is placed in the capital of Spain – Madrid. The clinic offers treatment at a very high standard and has many awards and certificates, including the Merck Serono Award for Innovation, Quality and Image in Assisted Reproduction and ISO accreditation. Procreatec treats international patients with great pleasure and professionalism. Since its opening in 2008 more than half of the Clinic’s patients have been from abroad.

IVF Spain

IVF Spain has an experienced and multilingual medical team with years of experience in treating international patients. It is located in the center of Alicante with hotels and restaurants near the Clinic. IVF Spain offers a free on-line in vitro test and skype consultation to provide you with answers regarding fertility treatment and the most suitable type of treatment for you. The Clinic specializes in most types of assisted reproduction techniques including IVF, egg donation and PGD.

Infographic by: Smart Space

When the dreaded credit crunch hit Europe, and the most of the world in all honesty, it left people wondering just how they could enjoy themselves still without it costing a fortune. Belts were being forcibly tightened and luxuries were resigned to dreams or celebrities for whom money was no object anyway.

Since those days, a lucky few have found themselves playing football at the highest level or appearing on the countless reality shows, making a living out of doing nothing at all. Yet for the rest of us it’s still a chore to cobble enough money together to help us to have a good time when we really need to.

Holidays are just one prime example of where we’ve been hit, and hit hard. The days of jetting off to warmer climes and feeling the warm sand between your toes, sipping cocktails and lounging by the pool have gone for most of us and the days of family holidays are just a distant memory.

Yet, in true British fashion, we’ve made the best of a bad situation – it’s just what we do!

Rather than sitting at home sulking when our friends, family and colleagues are posting pictures of their latest beach break on Facebook and Instagram while we sit there watching it rain, checking out the best bingo sites and offers in the UK and indulging ourselves in our favourite soaps; we’ve taken to ‘staycations.’

So instead of spending hundreds, even thousands, of our hard-earned and hard-saved money on an exotic overseas holiday, many of us are now choosing to stay in the UK and to see the very best of what Britain has to offer both inland and on the coast. An article by Lauren Davidson in the Telegraph earlier this year quoted statistics from Visit England which revealed that “Brits are taking 16% less foreign holidays today than before the recession.”

These staycations have exploded in popularity in the past few years, mostly because the tourist boards in the local area have realised what is happening in terms of holiday trends and reacted by investing much-needed money into redeveloping the main attractions.

For example, the British seaside resort (as a whole), was tired and run down. The piers were great for walking along but having reached the cafe at the end it was often disappointing to find that it had closed down years before.

Now, the attractions are being spruced up and the theme parks like Blackpool Pleasure Beach are being revamped to keep the visitors coming and even to keep them increasing. Expedia released their annual beach report which showed the most popular seaside destinations to be Jersey, Bournemouth, Blackpool, Torquay and the Isle of Wight.

City breaks are also ‘in’ again, with British residents looking to find out more about the cities they’ve never visited despite them never being more than a few hours away by road or rail (or air if they so wish).

The likes of London and Edinburgh have always been popular with overseas tourists because of their history and traditions, but now the two capitals are growing in popularity with UK-based holiday makers too.

Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, York, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow and Norwich are also growing in popularity with people venturing to take in the sights, marvel in the history and to finally tick the venue off their “must go” list.

When two people dissolve a marriage, tensions run high. If there are children involved, it can be even more emotional while debating child custody, child support, and visitation schedules. It’s better for you and the other parent to work out your own agreement about your children together, because if you cannot come to terms, it will be the judge who makes the arrangements. Having a family court attorney on your side provides many benefits for you and your children.

Allows You to Remain Focused on Your Goals

If you are in negotiations with your spouse over certain aspects of custody and visitation, you want an advocate who can help you stay focused on your objectives. You need someone to be your voice of reason and help you know when to give a little or when to stand firm. Having a lawyer who is not emotionally attached to your situation maintains your equilibrium during a stressful time

Dispels Myths

There are many myths that surround child custody and support. Your attorney dispels the myths and provides the truth so that you are more prepared when you get to court. This reduces your stress and anxiety about the circumstances that you find yourself facing. Even if you’re trying to be professional and cooperative with the other parent, it still can be very frightening and difficult to deal with this issue

Custodial Issues That Arise After Your Settlement

Child custody laws are different in each state. When you have a family court attorney of your own, you can ask for advice before making changes to your child’s situation. This keeps you out of trouble with the other parent and the law. Instead of getting advice from your hairstylist or your accountant, you need someone who knows what your rights and responsibilities are under the legal statutes of your state and your own divorce decree.

Maintain the Best Interests of Your Child

When determining custody, you may want to parade all of your spouse’s dirty laundry through the court to show that you are the better parent. This could backfire on you. Your attorney can be your voice of reason here, helping you sort out what the court will actually consider. Courts want children to maintain contact with both parents, if at all possible. If you appear combatant, a judge could decide that you may drive a wedge between the child and other parent. Your lawyer will present the case more objectively and logically, which won’t undermine the best interests of the child.

Finding Unique Solutions

Today’s families are much different than those from thirty years ago. The nuclear family of two parents, two kids, where the mom stayed at home and the dad earned the money is probably not your situation. In these times, both parents work. There may be multiple layers of grandparents, step-parents, and step-grandparents who want to maintain involvement with the children. The complexities of your family need to be accounted for when determining visitation, support, and custody.

With your attorney, you can explore different ideas to make co-parenting work for you. When you have a lawyer who understands the law and can also be creative about how you manage the custody arrangement, it’s possible to work out a plan that will be appropriate for your child and both parents. Your attorney has more experience in handling different situations, enabling you to find something that keeps the child safe and connected with the people who need to be connected to them. Your lawyer is the best advocate that you will have throughout the process.

Regardless of the industry, people will always opt for a personalized experience, and salons are not an exception.  In fact, it could be said that this personal touch is the reason for customer retention, which span years or even decades.  In this, the smaller, privately owned salons are more likely to have this kind of service, since they can be more flexible in the way they deliver their service, mainly centered on their clients’ whimsical wants and needs.  Additionally, these hair salons will definitely go for the extra mile in order to get loyal customers. Here are some of the things beauticians at privately owned hair salons do in order to meet the personal expectations of their clients.

Personalized Attention

People who choose small, privately run salons over their larger, corporate counterparts is the amount of attention they receive.  The more they frequent their chosen salon, the more likely they’ll develop a relationship with their stylist. This creates a more cordial atmosphere for the client, relaxed in knowing that their stylist will know if they need additional services like hair styling or manicure.  That way, these professionals are able to lift their client’s spirits in bringing out the best in them, based on their individual style and tastes.

Creativity and Uniqueness

Creative by nature, beauticians will often have outgoing personalities, reflected by the various hairstyles they provide for their clients. This trait is also exhibited by the decorations and the overall appearance of the salon. The individuality and uniqueness they exhibit is one of the reasons why a lot of clients choose them. Also, unlike the larger chain stores, privately owned salons are able to provide more flexible services at a moment’s notice–all in an effort to gain complete client satisfaction tailored specifically to their very needs. This level of flexibility can’t be achieved by the larger chain salons, since they have limited capabilities due to the more rigid rules and regulations they follow. It’s easier for privately owned beauticians to make changes to their products and services, catering to the ever-shifting whimsies of their client base.

Beauticians in privately salons are freer to express their creativity and style, creating a better atmosphere clients will certainly enjoy.  The mixture of the flair and sophistication attracts a certain type of client base, and will certainly have that “WOW” factor. This keeps clients coming back, as the ambience of these salons provide a more cheerful mood that alleviates stress (all while staying in compliance with their state regulations).

Customized Salon Services

Privately owned beauty salons are chiefly known for their one-to-one customer services, and a lot of clients appreciate this. Their stylists definitely take their time knowing a specific customer’s wants and needs, all in the name of being able to bring out the best in them. They will provide them with individualized attention and quality products for their clients to feel more confident in their appearance.

Impromptu Salon Services

Stylists in privately-owned salons might not know their client’s mood when initially entering the shop, but they try their best to lighten up their mood.  They’ll listen to their issues, help make them feel better about their situation, or just change things around a bit for them – whatever it takes to give their clients the boost they need to make it through the day.  They are willing to become a listening ear to their clients, going well beyond of what’s expected of them to do.

Lastly, privately owned salons have a wide array of products and services to offer, making their clients’ visit the best experience possible.