*New to Bellacroft!*

Fashioncraft recently introduced their new line: WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS!

This line includes:

• Candle Favors
• Place Card Holders
• Set of 2 Coasters

Guests will love your "Vegas" theme!

Bellacroft suggests adding games such as: Poker, Roulette and Blackjack to complete the event!

Fashioncraft Fabulous Las Vegas Candle Favors

Whether you're planning a traditional baby shower or a themed baby shower, you'll need favors and decorations! At Bellacroft, we offer a wide variety of manufacturers including the extremely popular: Kate Aspen! From frames to place card holders - personalized and non-personalized, Kate Aspen offers it all and then some. Having a baby is a joyous occasion! Make sure that the mommy-to-be and guests celebrate in style!

View all Baby Shower Favors at Bellacroft

Christenings and Baptisms mark especially meaningful moments in our lives. Share these moments with your loved ones by giving them your love and appreciation! Bellacroft offers a wide variety of Christening and Baptism favors - from bookmarks to candle favors. We offer your favorite manufacturers: Kate Aspen, Cassiani, Fashioncraft and more!

Christening and Baptism Favors at Bellacroft

If you want to set the mood with elegance and romance, these Silver Plated Diamond Napkin Holders will do the trick. Your wedding day will shine with brilliance. These rings are silver plated and come 4 in a box.

Weddingstar Silver Plated Diamond Napkin Holders

*New to Bellacroft*

One of our most popular designers, Cassiani, has added dozens of new products to their already popular line of Baby Shower and Wedding Favors. They offer a variety of specialized favors starting with candles and ending with bath fizzers. Bellacroft is able to offer these items at a special low price with $5 shipping as well!

Click here to view: Cassiani's Entire Collection

In stock and ready to ship the next business day!!

These candle holders can be sold individually (Tapers/Unity Pillar) or in complete sets! They feature suspended hearts that are perfect for your unity candle ceremony. Not only are they perfect for the ceremony, they are a perfect keepsake in the years that follow!

Order them now to received them in just a few business days!

Remember, if you place your order of $75 or more, you receive a free bridal gift!

Use coupon code BRIDALGIFT upon checkout!

Weddingstar Suspended Heart Taper Candle Holders

These are one of our most popular items this BUSY Wedding Season! This Unity Pillar and Taper Candles add a little class to your wedding ceremony with the Calla Lily. These matching candles have sheer white ribbon and handcrafted porcelain Calla Lily flowers as well!

If you want to REALLY spice up the ceremony, you can also purchase the pictured Taper/Pillar holders for an extremely elegant look!

Weddingstar Bridal Beauty Calla Lily Unity Pillar Candle

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Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press
A foreclosure can make it hard for borrowers to get other loans.

Related
Housing Bailout Bill Seems to Be on Shaky Ground (May 10, 2008)

Millions of Americans are “upside down” on their mortgages — they owe more on their homes than their homes are worth. So far, however, there is little evidence that people who have the means to pay are walking away from their homes as values sink.

The blogosphere is full of tales of homeowners who supposedly are choosing to mail the house keys to their lenders rather than keep their depreciating homes. And yet “jingle mail,” the term for those tinkling packages of keys, appears to be far rarer than many seem to think.

Freddie Mac, the big government-sponsored mortgage company, estimates that just 0.14 percent of the defaulted mortgages in its portfolio involved properties that were abandoned by borrowers. Fannie Mae, another mortgage company, puts the figure in the single digits. Both companies deal in relatively conservative loans, so the total rate may be somewhat higher. Industry officials say they have no way of knowing for sure.

Even so, the idea that some people are simply refusing to pay their mortgages has gripped the popular imagination. The notion picked up momentum in the last few weeks after “Inside Edition,” the celebrity-focused TV news program, reported that Jose Canseco, the former American League most valuable player who made millions during his baseball career, abandoned his $2.5 million mansion outside Los Angeles to move into a smaller property.

“You look at the Jose Canseco issue and say that it’s a walkaway, but he is probably the only person on his block that did that,” said Robert Padgett, director of loss mitigation for Freddie Mac. “Those types of stories garner a lot of attention,” he added, but they are “isolated occurrences.”

Many economists agree. The low numbers from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are consistent with past housing busts, like the ones that occurred in Texas in the 1980s and in the Northeast and California in the early 1990s. Homeowners typically do not walk away from homes they live in unless they are unable to pay the mortgage, usually because of job loss, a death in the family, divorce or a big jump in their monthly payments. Real estate speculators, of course, do abandon properties when prices fall.

In fact, researchers say the rich are no more or less likely to walk away — “ruthlessly default” is the economic term for it — than those of more modest means. A person’s credit history is usually a better indication of how he will behave than his income. How much money a person put down on the house when he bought it also makes a difference.

Investors “are going to default right away because they have negative equity,” said Robert Van Order, an adjunct professor of finance at the University of Michigan. “But that’s different from people who moved into the house.”

Owners who live in their homes do tend to default more when home prices fall. That is because being under water leaves borrowers fewer options if they run into financial trouble. When prices are rising, borrowers can usually sell their houses for more than they paid or refinance their mortgages.

Most homeowners default when there is “an intersection of two events: they don’t have equity in their houses and they run into trouble,” said Mr. Van Order, a former chief economist at Freddie Mac.

An estimated 9 million American households, or 10.3 percent of all single-family homes, owe more than their home is worth, according to Moody’s Economy.com. By comparison, 4.8 percent of home loans were in foreclosure or delinquent by 60 days or more at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

For a variety of reasons, most homeowners find walking away difficult and expensive.

A foreclosure can make it hard for borrowers to get other loans and sometimes even an apartment. Economists refer to these as “transaction costs” that offset the benefit borrowers might get from defaulting on an underwater home loan.

Lenders can also pursue deficiency judgments against borrowers to recoup the difference between what is owed on the debt and what the property is sold for after foreclosure. Such claims are time-consuming and expensive to win, so most lenders do not pursue them. In the past, some lenders have sought judgments against a few borrowers to deter others from walking away, said Grant S. Nelson, an emeritus law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In an attempt to reduce the incentive to default, Fannie Mae recently increased to five years, from four years, the time borrowers have to wait after a foreclosure to get another Fannie Mae loan. The company will make exceptions under extenuating circumstances.

The Bush administration has said that the only people who deserve housing relief are those who cannot pay, not those who will not pay.

“Let me also emphasize that any homeowner who can afford his mortgage payment but chooses to walk away from an underwater property is simply a speculator,” Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said in late March. “Washington cannot create any new mortgage program to induce these speculators to continue to own these homes, unless someone else foots the bill.”

Nonetheless, some real estate professionals, particularly those in markets where home prices are falling fast, say borrowers who can pay may be tempted to walk away.

Brett Barry, a real estate agent in the Phoenix area, said some of his clients owe $100,000 more than their houses are worth. Single-family home prices have fallen 24 percent from their peak in the summer of 2006 in the region, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index, and the decline shows no sign of abating.

I also think the mess in China is fucked. Do they make the Prius? Cause I want one but I also want to boycott everything from China... I know that Americans fucked the Native Americans and the whole slavery horror story.... but it is muther fucking 2008 and China is bullying MONKS! Holy shit! Not to mention the lead on children's toys (thanks) and the antifreeze in the toothpaste (really? nice recipe!) ... I think we should depend on ourselves to make toys and toothpaste and let those fuck-tards eat themselves. I am usually live and let live... but that shit is IGNERNT!

Description

Set of two (2) small glass vintage Japanese Buddhist altar candle holders.  Candle holders such as these are called rousokutate in Japan where they are commonly used at Buddhist temples and within home altars called butsudan.  Please read below to learn more about how the Japanese practice Buddhism in the home.

About the Listed Item

The two white glass candle holders offered here are in good condition though they do have some marks and scratches and there is some slight corrosion on the steel candle prongs.  This set is less than 30 years old.  Please click here if you need authentic Buddhist altar candles to use with your candleholders or here to see more items for the butsudan altar!

Size:
Height of each candle holder (excluding candle prong): 2.1 inches (5.3 centimeters)
Weight (combined): 3.6 ounces (103 grams)

Click here to see more candle holders!
Click here to see other Buddhist items!
Click here to see additional treasures from Japan!

More about Japanese Buddhist home altars

At the start of the long Japanese Edo period (1600-1868) the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu determined that the country of Nippon (Japan) should be closed to the outside world with the exception of a few ports of trade.  This was done in an effort to protect Japan from the colonizing forces of the west and in particular to isolate the Japanese people from the influences of Christianity, which the Shogun viewed as a threat to the principals of Confucianism upon which his rule did depend.  Over time this ruler's fear of Christianity grew such that laws were eventually passed requiring the Japanese to annually swear devotion to Buddhism.  Fearing the threat and penalties of Christian belief, many Japanese families began to erect small Buddhist altars within their home as further proof of their loyalty to Buddhism.  These home altars or butsudan were commonly outfitted with religious implements such as bells, incense burners, candlesticks and statues such that they might resemble Buddhist temples in miniature.  Specialist crafts developed for the sole purpose of manufacturing beautiful wooden butsudan and their associated articles of worship.  Over time, the practice of maintaining a home altar lost it's original purpose of publicly expressing one's loyalty to Buddhism and instead became an accepted and important household function, particularly with families acting as the head of the household name (usually the first born son's household).  Far from being forgotten as a relic of Japan's past, the butsudan is today an important household fixture which may receive daily attention by family members who consider the altar to symbolically enshrine the spirits and memories of departed ancestors.

In my wife's (Japanese) parent's home a large butsudan can be found in the central family room.  My wife's parents are very traditional Japanese and each morning and evening the butsudan receives a ceremonial offering of fresh water and the first scoop of rice from the rice cooker.   The offering is prepared in the kitchen by my mother-in-law and delivered to the altar by my father-in-law who also rings the altar bell and offers a prayer upon delivering the water and rice.  This practice is still quite common in Japan (particularly with the older generation) and represents an interesting example of how the butsudan retains an important function in Japanese life.  My wife's family also makes similar daily offerings to a Shinto (native Japanese religion) shrine situated in their kitchen.  The latter offering is to the kitchen god who protects the home from fire.

item code: R4S3B1-0003699
category code: (butsudannomono)
ship code: L1650