Dear Silk Flower Enthusiast,

If you haven’t already noticed, KinkadeStudios.com has recently undergone a complete redesign.  We thought the old website was good, but why settle for good when great is just around the corner!  KinkadeStudios.com still has all the useful features as before such as Keyword/Item search, Volume Discounts and Color Pictures for every item.  But now, along with the snazzy new look, KinkadeStudios.com has great deals on select items up to 40% off posted right on the home page, every day.

A special offer for you!  In celebration of the new look and as a thank you for your ongoing support, KinkadeStudios.com would like to present you with a coupon for 15% off to help empty your Wish List.  So if you’ve had your eye on that 6' Birch Tree, or want to get a head start onChristmas and Holiday Decorations, now would definitely be the time.  Type the code NewSite0709into the coupon field during checkout and your discount will be applied to all products not already on sale.  Coupon end 8/7/09 so act fast!

More great deals!  There is only ONE day remaining until the end of our Mid-Summer Preserved Topiary Sale.  With a life span between 8 and 20 years these perfectly preserved plants have been hand trimmed and arranged by silk artisans.  Enjoy 25% off the following items:

Table Top Set
40” Juniper

20”Double Ball
50” Juniper

30” Ball Cone
40” Spiral

30” Triple Ball
50”Double Ball

We at KinkadeStudios.com pride ourselves in offering the best and largest selection of artificial flowers and trees, preserved plants and trees plus much more.  We thank you for your business and support, and we strive every day to provide our customers with the best buying experience possible.  For questions and comments please feel free to contact us anytime.

Yours truly,

KinkadeStudios.com Team

If you see this post it means that BlogEngine.NET 1.5.0 is running and the hard part of creating your own blog is done. There is only a few things left to do.

Write Permissions

To be able to log in to the blog and writing posts, you need to enable write permissions on the App_Data folder. If you’re blog is hosted at a hosting provider, you can either log into your account’s admin page or call the support. You need write permissions on the App_Data folder because all posts, comments, and blog attachments are saved as XML files and placed in the App_Data folder. 

If you wish to use a database to to store your blog data, we still encourage you to enable this write access for an images you may wish to store for your blog posts.  If you are interested in using Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, VistaDB, or other databases, please see the BlogEngine wiki to get started.

Security

When you've got write permissions to the App_Data folder, you need to change the username and password. Find the sign-in link located either at the bottom or top of the page depending on your current theme and click it. Now enter "admin" in both the username and password fields and click the button. You will now see an admin menu appear. It has a link to the "Users" admin page. From there you can change the username and password.  Passwords are hashed by default so if you lose your password, please see the BlogEngine wiki for information on recovery.

Configuration and Profile

Now that you have your blog secured, take a look through the settings and give your new blog a title.  BlogEngine.NET 1.4 is set up to take full advantage of of many semantic formats and technologies such as FOAF, SIOC and APML. It means that the content stored in your BlogEngine.NET installation will be fully portable and auto-discoverable.  Be sure to fill in your author profile to take better advantage of this.

Themes and Widgets

One last thing to consider is customizing the look of your blog.  We have a few themes available right out of the box including two fully setup to use our new widget framework.  The widget framework allows drop and drag placement on your side bar as well as editing and configuration right in the widget while you are logged in.  Be sure to check out our home page for more theme choices and downloadable widgets to add to your blog.

On the web

You can find BlogEngine.NET on the official website. Here you'll find tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks and much more. The ongoing development of BlogEngine.NET can be followed at CodePlex where the daily builds will be published for anyone to download.

Good luck and happy writing.

The BlogEngine.NET team

Frank and Mieko, customers of ours from Hawaii, sent us images of the hair clips that Mieko makes out of artificial Spider Lily that she sells at local craft fairs around Honolulu. Unfortunately, the model at right (a cabbage patch kid doll) is slightly dwarfed by the flowers. On a normal-sized human head, these would add a great tropical flair to any outfit.

At left is a closer view of how she arranges the flowers before hot-gluing them to a hair clip. This is a great way to make inexpensive fashion accessories; not only can you order flowers in any color, shape and size to make your own hair clips, you also use flowers from that silk flower arrangement that you have decided to cycle off the living room table and hadn’t quite figured out what to do with them…

If you have any thoughts about the creative use that Mieko has put our flowers to, please feel free to begin the conversation using the comments section below. If you have pictures of some of YOUR handywork that you’d like to share with us, please use the contact us form to send your information and pictures.

Aloha!

A good customer of ours was kind enough to send us pictures of some of her work recently. She does wedding cakes for a living and had asked that we provide her with some leaves to use for a "camo wedding cake." I think you'll find that she did a great job accommodating this Canadian couples wedding wishes. Note the woodlands camouflage table cloth! They are very passionate about hunting up north of the border I suppose.

The leaves used to create this unique wedding look came from the Fall and Green Canadian Maple Branches from our sister site AmazonFoliages.com. This particular customer allowed us to show her work but decided to not share her business information as she works on a referral basis only.

If you'd like to see YOUR work featured here, please use our Contact Page and send us pictures of your handiwork and give us your business and contact information.

We'd like to take this opportunity to showcase some of the neat stuff that our clients are doing with products purchased by us. To that end, we need your help!

Please use the Contact Us form to send us pictures of your handywork. Please make sure you include information (including weblinks where appropriate) about your business and who knows, perhaps this can become a new lead vehicle for you!