For all of my loverly Blood in the Water(rated MA) Readers that wanted to know just what in the world I said to manage to talk about shower curtains for 6 minute and 26 seconds not including my encore, here it is.
For those of you who are not sure what in the world I'm doing:
I'm just finishing out Public Speaking in college. I had to do a 6 minute informative speech with a max limit of 6 minutes 30 seconds. I gave a speech about Shower Curtains.
Now it's not the full on speech because I didn't write it out and then read it off. These are the points that I talked about from my outline for the speech, but I've flushed them out enough for you to see how I filled up all of that time. ENJOY!
Shower Curtains Speech:
Shower curtains are one of those everyday items that you take for granted. Many of us are struggling with a lack of money. Every day, you walk into your bathroom, and see your shower curtain, but when is the last time that you really thought about a shower curtain and what you can do with it?
Now I happen to come from a poor family. I remember sitting up late at night while my mom fitted me for new clothes that she made herself. We hear all the time about thinking outside of the box, but if you think that a shower curtain is only good for keeping your bathroom floor dry, then I must inform you that you, my friend, are still trapped inside of the box.
A shower curtain can be used for all manner of things. For example, I have the coolest rainbow tiger stripe curtains in my place to hide the ugly, plain mini blinds. I paid about $5 to put curtains throughout my home. How? My window curtains came from the store labeled as shower curtains.
What else can you do with them? Let me give you the list of some of the best things you can do with them.
1. Drop clothes for painting: it's a great way to protect your furniture or floors. A little bit of duck tape and you can prevent the fun of scrubbing paint off the windows too. Better than that, the next time you're feeding the baby, toss a shower curtain on the floor under the high chair, clean up from flung food is no longer a monumental chore of epic proportions.
2. Ground cover: Instead of trying to get grass, dirt, sticks and food back out of that blanket, grab a shower curtain for your next picnic. the best part? It doesn't matter if the ground is still damp from a recent rain, you'll still be dry when you get up.
3. Haunted Houses: I know you're thinking, 'WTF?' but I'm serious here. A few dozen black shower curtains from the local dollar store, a few white, green, red, and brown if you can find them; fishing line, eye hooks, and a can of spray adhesive and scissors and you can build a haunted house with them. The black for the walls. the other colors for decorations such as ghosts, or creepy door hangings, the adhesive to make the door hangers a little sticky and you're ready to run a haunted house! I've done it, it's a blast! And super cheap for a small budget, but a ton of fun for kids and adults.
4. Remember how I have shower curtain window curtains? Well come winter, a little bit of double sided tape winterizes those windows without dropping $30 or more and no need for a hair dryer either. The best part? It still looks awesome.
5. Grab a few shower curtains and a hose. Tack those curtains end to end with a low temp hot glue gun, now you have a home made 'slip'n'slide' for the kids on that insanely hot summer day. They are out of your hair, it's cheap, and the yard is watered all at the same time! Where's the down side?
6. Cheap no cleaning required bed skirts or crib skirts. Why do you need more fabric to wash? A few quick snipes and the shower curtain hides the underside of your bed, looks great, matches the decor perfectly, and doesn't require washing to remove the dust that builds up on fabric!
7. Here's one you've probably seen with trash bags. Rain coats and painting smocks for kids, or adults. This way, you don't have to look like a hobo just because you don't have $30 for the cute rain coat or painting smock, and no wet or ruined clothes. And they can chose the color!
8. Children's bedroom decor: Grab the shower curtain with their favorite cartoon character on it, and the scissors. cut out the character, and tape to the wall. Done and for way less than buying the wall and window clings. Instead of covering all of two feet of wall, you can do the whole room!
There are other things too, but they were listed in the encore.
The encore included things like those fancy pop up play houses and tunnels, baby changing pads for cross country trips to protect your little one from the nastiness without needing to reuse the same pad every where. Cheap throw away changing pads for each stop. Quick awnings for the yard or garden or around the pool. protect the car from transporting the dog, or wet children on the way home from the pool or beach. No more sand in your floorboards! Home made kites. The list is long.
Let me know if you want more detailed instructions on these things. I wrote up step by step instructions as a handout for my speech. Hope you guys liked this as much as my class did!
~Starfyre