The last thing you want to worry about when you're on holidays is the safety of your home. There are many ways to ensure your house is secure for an extended period of time, so you can relax and enjoy your holiday.

Lock Away All Outdoor Valuables

Eddie Murphy’s former Californian Palace

Los Lagos in Granite Bay, California was previously owned by Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors Hollywood has seen in the past couple of decades. Aptly named the Crown Jewel of Los Lagos this residence is truly palatial and looks as if it could have belonged to a prince from an Arabian Nights movie. The main home alone is 12600 square foot while the guest house is a generous 5200 square foot. The first impression of the home is a wide paved area with a beautiful fountain at its center. Beyond this is a short, wide set of stairs leading to the entrance of the home with two tall palm trees on either side accompanied by several shorter palms decorated with a string of lights wrapped around their trunks.

The Greenwich Village, New York City Apartment

This is an elegantly refurbished home built in 1846 and is 6800 square feet of stylish, sophisticated elegance. It is a home anyone would be proud to own while still being comfortable to live in. At the last check it was on the market for a mere $22 million. Will it now become the home of another celebrity or a business man seeking a safe haven away from the hustle and bustle of New York City life? Only time will tell.

When designing a room, we tend to focus on what we can see—the walls, the floors, and the ceilings. But humans have four other senses as well, and when thinking about decorating, we often overlook those other senses. One of the most powerful senses a room can appeal to is smell. If you are cooking in a kitchen, you already have the smells of bread, cooking meat, and spices there. There are other ways to incorporate smells throughout the house.

Add Pleasant Scents With Air Fresheners

The sound of running water is one of the most relaxing sounds in nature. With an interior fountain, you can bring that sound into your home.Most interior fountains come in three kinds: wall-mounted fountains, free-standing fountains, or tabletop fountains.

Wall-Mounted Fountains

Fighting off the Aliens this Year

These movies draw inspiration from comic book characters of the same name and have proven to be great entertainment over the past fifteen years or so for all the sci-fi lovers out there. Who doesn’t remember Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith fighting off the myriad of crazy aliens in these movies that were interspersed with loads of dry humor? So the Men in Black (and women of course) will be an easy theme party this year. Send out your black and white invitations and add a few pink worms to the design or UFO’s requesting the pleasure of your friends company and encouraging them to dress as any of the characters from these movies. Black hats, black sunglasses, black tuxedos are the name of the game. Of course they can dress as the local postman or any one of the hilarious or terrifying alien characters in the movie or bring Frank the Pug with or dress up as Rosenberg, Edgar the Bug or K.

Photographic Installations in Black and White

Often we have a bunch of photographs of the family on special holidays, graduating or taking those first steps in life. Or there are those poignant photos of your grandparents sitting in boxes gathering dust at the top of a cupboard somewhere. You have always wanted to honor their memories and hang these around your home but never quite knew how to go about it. The first step then would be to haul them out and start sorting these out. 

Having a beautiful environment no longer has to cost an arm and a leg. By applying a few simple techniques and swopping your furniture around, a simple piece can transform your space. The beauty of furniture is that it’s able to adapt to your style, with a few easy touches.

Paint

Have you ever walked into a place where you just loved the lay-out, the kitchen design, the lounge, the bedrooms, and made allowances for things that you knew potentially might be a problem, but you’re sure you can look beyond them? If you’ve answered yes, you need to keep reading.

Will you be able to change the decor style?

Living in an age where a lot of focus is placed on “Out with the old, in with the new” it may be difficult for you to incorporate your porcelain doll collection handed down for generations, or your husband’s toy car collection. If this seems to be something of a bug bear for you, here are a few tips on keeping these collections manageable and stylish:

Have a focus area

When we think walls, we tend to think paint, canvasses or store bought wallpaper only. What other design aspects are there really?

Vinyl

Having a space to call your own is precious. Adding your personal flair and touches to it brings it to life. Frames are only for photos, right?

Wrong. A very nice way to add a focal wall with your own personal style is by having a frame collage. There are many ways to achieve a beautiful end result, and this is only limited by your imagination. A nice touch is to have only black and white photos on your feature wall, or only one color frames. Another is to have one style of frames in a variety of colors. How about swopping out the photos for love letters between you and your partner? If this is too personal, a nice add would be pictures drawn or painted by your children. Having them grouped together on a feature wall makes for an interesting eye diversion. Having frame boxes also opens a realm of possibilities. Boxes add that extra dimension, where you can include your child’s first toys, your wedding bouquet, souvenirs from trips or any item that was previously too small to display.

Dress for Success

Bring on the pomp and ceremony this year because it will be a royal occasion and you will be the monarch who leads the event to success. Many of us like a bit of dress up and a theme party that allows one to be a king, queen, prince or princess for the night just lends itself to a sense of luxury. The gorgeous robes of red and purple velvet bordered with gold and ermine are enough to make anyone feel special. Add to this a crown, tiara and lavish jewels and you will look and feel like the most important person in the room. Send out your velvet coated invitations and contact your local costume party store to see whether you are an Elizabeth II or Henry VIII, Tsar or Tsarina. Perhaps the title of lord and lady would be more your speed.   I’m sure that somewhere in history you will find royalty that has a touch of your personality in him or her to emulate for a night.

Christmas is a time with all sorts of family time, traditions, and of course, Christmas TV specials. Some of the most memorable Christmas themes can be derived from popular Christmas specials. Tonight we’ll focus on Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Each of these quintessential Christmas special is extremely popular with all age groups and there are many ways to bring the magic of these movies to the comfort of your home and make a truly magical holiday gathering that everyone will remember and talk about every holiday season.

Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special

Having a Christmas tree that fits a theme can add so much to your holiday décor. Whether you choose to have a main tree with a bevy of ornaments and smaller themed trees, or just one that showcases a larger theme, having a tree that is reflective of what you want to represent during your holiday celebration can make your holiday that much cheerier. Decorating according to your tastes and creating a theme around that can also make Christmas feel more personal to you and your family, rather than the giant corporate holiday focused only on presents that it sometimes feels like.

Color Theme

Christmas stockings are one of the most exciting parts of the holidays for everyone, because they can be filled with exciting extra little gifts and candies that don’t cost a lot of money, but really reflect the person you’re giving the gift to. Making each person a stocking that thoroughly suits their personality can be extra fun and exciting for the person making the stocking and the person unloading it. Here are several ideas for stocking stuffer themes that can be applied to any person in your family and are guaranteed to make their Christmas morning.

Hobby Stocking

In the past, bells were an integral part of decorating for Christmas. Songs like Jingle Bells and Carol of the Bells around during the season, but the decorations seems to have fallen by the wayside. Often, when people think of Christmas balls, they automatically picture the single cheap sleigh bell worn on a festively colored string by children. However, bells can be a classy and festive way to make your house feel ready for the holidays. Here are a few unique ideas for using bells in your holiday decor.

Napkin "Rings"

Aristocrats, actors and many modern artists are magnetically attracted to this exuberant, Italianate jewel many choose it as their retreat 

To give it its full title Nice la Belle (Nice The Beautiful) harbingers what visitors can expect in this, the capital of the Alpes Maritimes and the second largest city on the Côte d'Azur after Marseille (fifth largest in France). It is known for the Mediterranean lapping its pebbly beaches and its quietly delightful interior.Pines, pools, palms, portside posing, people ogling are the reasons why many come here. This is the birthplace of seaside glamour, where you can never be too brown or unashamedly ostentatious. And for families and individuals alike, once the fascination for Bulgari and boats wears thin, you can escape inland to mediaeval villages on the cypress-topped hills, with cobbled alleys, cafés and craggy ramparts, or just breathe in the Mediterranean's blue brilliance.

"Hot Desert" is the rather brutal phrase geographers use to describe the climate in Egypt's Red Sea Riviera.

It's brutal because the promise is actually more of a pampered, hedonistic holiday in the sun: beautiful people lounging by the pool, swimmers enjoying the company of dolphins and colorful fish, bikini-clad young women wistfully looking at a sea coloured azure, while dark-skinned locals mostly wear tailored servant uniforms and friendly smiles. The fun could be taking place somewhere like the Caribbean or the Cote d'Azur but this is Egypt’s Red Sea Riviera. And very few people had heard of it until the latter part of last century.Perhaps that’s because most of the shiny, beach-resort hotels aren’t on the Red Sea at all, but rather on the Gulf of Aqaba, a narrow strip of water separating Egypt’s Sinaï Peninsula eastern coast from Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Check your emails underwater

Aquapacs protect your devices from water and sand, while allowing you to use touch screens or Blackberry QWERTY keyboards on the beach or even underwater without a worry. There are Aquapacs for phones, GPS devices, digital cameras (even DSLRs), camcorders, tablets and e-readers. The camera cases have proper lens holders, so your photos come out clear and crisp, even when taken underwater. Prices start at £20 store.aquapac.net