I forget where I first saw lighted Christmas balls but it was at least 3-5 years ago. Since I saw them I kept thinking we needed to make some. Now that we have made them, I’ve been just a *tad* obsessed. To all the close friends, coworkers, and family that I have tortured with stories of our light balls, I assure you.. I will stop this discussion after Christmas. Maybe.
Back to the beginning of this story… finally this year Oak offered to help with the exterior holiday lighting efforts, so I thought this is my chance for some balls. Yeah, get your mid out of the gutter. Or, be prepared to make about 900 dirty jokes while you create these objets d’art.
I did a quick google search on how to make them, figuring I would need to go on some kind of crazy hunt for a sphere made out of twigs or something. But, lo and behold, I came across this site. It explains that you can use chicken wire to make the bases of the balls! Turns out, a community in semi-nearby Greensboro does these lighted balls on a grand scheme every year! Their display is so grand, people donate food to the food bank as a charity and they have received over 5000 pounds of donations in food in past years! So, clearly, I’m not the only one who enjoys some light balls.
Anyway, the site has extremely detailed instructions, and even a video,on how to make your own light balls using chicken wire and regular old strings of lights.
Purchasing the lights were an interesting part of the equation. Originally I thought we should do white lights, because we already have white lights around our door. However, none of the stores we went to (Walmart, Target, Kmart, Home depot..) HAD any white lights. Apparently the are a hot and/or understocked item this season. So, we decided to buy some strings of multicolored lights and mix them with some we already had.
They are really pretty easy. The most expensive part of this project, we soon discovered, is the extension cords. We had to get a long cord to go from the house to the big Oak tree in the front, and then another cord with an “octopus” of connectors to hook all the balls up. We made 6 balls this year, but hopefully in the future years to come we can start expanding the collection.
And, it turns out, I like these colored balls a lot. I think they really sparkle and bring interesting depth that white lights probably would have lacked. I highly suggest you try to make some. They definitely have me in more of the holiday spirit! Merry Christmas and happy new year 
I could call myself an “artiste” after creating this fine canvas creation, but that would be a big lie. A friend from college, Nichole, is having a little baby girl this December! For her shower, she registered for a bunch of cute owl-themed things for the baby’s room. I saw a canvas on the registry and thought – hey, I could totally make that! So, I basically stole the idea for this from some baby home decor company. Oh well! haha.
So I did. It started off with a regular cheapo canvas from Michaels that I painted pink. Then I really went at it with my Silhouette. I bought the owl image, which included the branch and its leaves, and then used some shapes I already had for the grass and flowers.
The Silhouette I have only cuts a regular letter-sized piece of paper, up to 8.5″ wide. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to effectively fill the large canvas (I don’t remember the size, but it was probably 16×20″ or maybe a little bigger). Didn’t turn out to be a problem at all – the big secret was to cut the branch using the slice tool into 3 separate pieces. Then, I positioned the owls on the strategically so the joints in the paper didn’t show.
I glued everything down with Claudine Helmuth multi-medium. I found this stuff pretty nice to work with. It has a matte finish. I glued all the pieces down first and let them dry. Even though it’s matte, I did find that you could see the adhesive if it was elsewhere on the canvas. I ended up doing a few layers of multi-medium over the whole thing, which alleviated this issue and sealed it all up. It works very similar to mod podge, but leaves a less sticky finished surface.
I don’t know if shows well in the picture, but the paper is all lightly patterned. It’s mostly from the Little Yellow Bicycle Fresh Print Clothesline collection. (Thanks to Belinda for this generous hook-up!). The color scheme was just perfect for this, and since at the moment I don’t use much pink or pastels, it was a great way to play with the paper. I think the orange and purple pieces came from an old K and Company collection pack that I had.
This was a ton of fun to make, and now my brain is contemplating how to make a more “adult” canvas for our living or dining room. You could definitely get creative with the paint layer, and even paint over the shapes as well, or use them as a mask. I think it could look pretty chic with some nice organic flower or leaf shapes. It’s all the fun parts of making art without having to do the difficult drawing part.
PS I’m in uber crunch mode at work now, so I can’t help but see about 900 “technical writer” style/error issues in this post. It’s quite annoying but I’m trying to ignore it. The word “this” without a noun after it? Vague pronouns? Sound the sirens, people… I have to remember, this is a BLOG not a warranted technical document.
OK, bye for now!
In the process of widening the wall between our kitchen and family room and re-drywalling half the kitchen, entryway and dining room, we ended up removing a lot of trim. Oak has a rather large assortment of pry bars that he uses to do this. I admittedly do not know much about how he went about removing the trim, but basically we ended up with a bunch of trim pieces with nails still stuck in them. Since the smooth end of the nail was what we needed to pull on, the basic process we started off with was using vice grips to grip the nail, and then wedging the pry bar under the vice grips to pull out the nail. Not too bad, but a little time-consuming.
When Oak wanted to purchase these extractor pliers, I kind of thought it was a stupid man-purchase. $28 for a fricking pair of PLIERS??? I almost rated it right there along with the biscuit joiner. Then, I discovered just how useful this little device was. You grip the nail, push down and the whole thing is out in one fell swoop! I could de-nail a long length of molding in just a few minutes.
Total life-savah.
Since even Oak complained about my lack of blog posts, I decided to motivate myself to some more frequent posting by sharing my favorite home improvement products. So, over the next few posts (until I run out of steam or ideas) you get to read about the things we have found that we have actually been super pleased with in this home improvement adventure. Like anything else, there are so many silly gadgets you don’t actually need. But then, there are silly gadgets that make life so much easier they are totally worth the investment.
Right now, we are working on getting our drywall and trim finished on the main floor. So, I’ve been working on fixing up all of the doors and woodwork. We have a lot of stained woodwork that just can’t stay that way unfortunately, since it’s so scratched/banged up from 30 years of abuse. So, I’m in the process of smoothin’ it all out and getting it ready for painting. My personal favorite for this is a nice fresh tub of Elmer’s Wood filler. Don’t make the same mistake we did and figure oh, we have like 9000 pieces of molding and 37 doors to putty, let’s buy the industrial size! Unless you plan on doing that task in 2 days (good luck with that), it will dry out. Even our clever idea of putting the putty in a sealed plastic bag – not so great. So buy the smaller container.
(SIDENOTE: This stuff is only for wood you’re planning to paint. It doesn’t accept stain all that well. In fact, what I have learned, for stained woodwork, and my stair-staining experience, is that you’re actually supposed to putty AFTER you stain. They sell tinted putty for this purpose. I’ve used the Minwax putty in a few different colors, and I’m generally not impressed… so stay tuned on that..)
Application technique is simple, but for the best results follows a similar train of thought to applying drywall mud – thinner is better to save your arm from falling off from sanding later on. (Oak will have to post his expertise on drywall at some point… in the meantime check out DIY Diva’s Drywall central.) Depending on how deep the gouge is, I alternate between using my fingers and a putty knife to apply the stuff. For the doggy-induced crosshatch patterns we seem to have on every door (seriously.. did these dogs ever want to stay in the room the were in?), the putty knife allows you to get a nice thin layer to fill in the thin lines. For deeper gouges, it’s easier to get in there with your fingers.
After that, let it dry and attack your putty with sandpaper. If you’re puttying flat surfaces like doors, definitely pull out your random orbital sander for this, as it saves a ton of time. Of course, you’ll make a dust cloud in the process but at this point I’m pretty sure our house is a perma dust bowl. I have completely given up on trying to clean it up until we’re ready to put the final coats of paint on everything (sorry, visitors). For door and window trim, you’ll have to pull out a sheet of sand paper and go at it by hand. Just think about the muscles you’re toning in the process!
Usually, this takes a few iterations of sanding, puttying, sanding again to find every little knick and get it all smooth. However, it’s definitely worth the effort because when you prime and paint, your door/trim/whatever will look brand new.
*Disclaimer: This post was NOT sponsored by Elmer’s. I did briefly consider buying stock in the company but discovered they are not a publicly traded company. Bugger.
I haven’t stopped scrapbooking! I made these layouts awhile ago and just realized I never put them on this site. Belinda sent me the Studio Calico “Candy shop” kit earlier this year and I got addicted and used every single piece of the kit. Here are a few of my creations:
I need to get on the ball and post the rest of the layouts I made. I even ended up ordering the “into the woods” kit, and used about half of that one so far. I don’t know how people can use a kit a month though, I would definitely be behind by now!
In other scrappy news, I’m pretty excited about attending the Creating keepsakes convention in Charlotte this weekend. I’m taking a class on how to make a mini-album with sticky back fabric (it’s called fabrips) so that should be fun. The vendor faire was pretty cool when I went a few years ago, so we’ll see, hoping I can get some deals! I’m mostly excited about the going to the Studio Calico booth (OK this may be borderline obsession).
Lots of other updates and pictures to post, since I’ve basically fallen off the face of the bloggy earth, but that’s for another day! talk to you later!
The blogosphere informed me that the trendy, must-have treat in Paris is macarons. They are light, crispy cookies that envelope a delicious highly-flavored center.
We purchased 3 different offerings macarons during the trip:
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- Ikea mint macaron: By far the largest (4″ across!), and cheapest. Flavor: minty, light, and crispy. Flavor intensity was low.
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- Googled “Best macaron in Paris” and came up with Pierre Herme. Stood in line behind some other Americans to get a taste! No pics allowed inside – I wish I could have gotten one. The assortment of pastries was beautiful!
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- About to devour my $15 worth of macarons. Yes, you read that properly. Europe is so expensive :(
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- Cute packaging for a delicious assortment of flavors: lemon, rose, olive oil to name a few.
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- My favorite macaron by far was the citron Pierre Herme macaron. Pefect light crispy texture and INTENSE lemon flavor. yuumy!
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- An assortment of all the flavors that McCafe offered. Why don’t the US McCafes have this?
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- Sampling a McCafe macaron. For much less than Pierre Herme, it was still pretty tasty. The lemon flavor was nowhere near as intense though!
So, our trip to Brussels involved no Brussels sprouts, but many many frites.
We started off by finding “Moules frites central” – the little Italy of Moules frites. We got a disappointing tiny dish of fries that were clearly frozen and unsavory. The mussels also weren’t that great – I suppose we should have looked up the best place ahead of time. Oh well! We did it
Nevertheless, after the disappointing mussels we were still hungry. We found not one, but two, most delicious frite places. I’m not sure why they are called “French fries” in the US when they are clearly a Belgian specialty. Most places, you order them on their own, and they come with a huge variety of sauces to choose from. And, you do not want to be stupide Americane and order ketchup. We came to like the spicy mayo that was offered at this cute little kabob shop – then we tried asking for it again at a different place, and got a blank look and “we do not have spicy mayonnaise!” We looked over the menu again, and chose the possible culprit: Samarai sauce. Oh yes, this was what we were talkin’ about. Yum! (Research upon returning home : it appears to be siracha and mayonnaise mixed together. Uuuh yeah what doesn’t make that spicy mayonnaise?).
So, we hit 2 different places – one that had a big cone of fries as their mascot/logo (aww) and a place called “Fritland” that had the Manneken Pis at their logo. Clearly, the Belgians think a peeing little boy can go with anything! It’s like black.
Both fries were delicious, but I give props to the cone presentation of the first place (as that is what I was secretly expecting), but I appreciated the sauce on the side at Fritland. Both very, very approved.. and I consider myself a French fry connoisseur.
So, my favorite band, Eve 6, has been in limbo for the past 5 years or so – a breakup, hiatus, a new group made of only a few of the members, and finally them reassembling as themselves with ALL the original guys! yay!
They came to Charlotte a few weeks ago and we had an enjoyable time going to see them. We even got some free Coors light (with the awesome color-changing mountain on the packaging). Sweet!
Don’t feel like paying $30 for 2 glasses of wine in a cafe? Solution: stock up on way too much wine at the Supermache for like $2 a bottle! So much, in fact, that you have to drink most of it in the last few days in the trip because there is too much to travel home with. Be sure to forget the juice glasses you bought just for this purpose and drink straight out of the bottle on the banks of the Seine river! Here, nobody cares if you drink out of unconcealed containers of booze. Ding!
Yeah, I am classy like that.
Surely after drinking a half bottle of wine, figuring out directions will be that much easier.
Hahaha! Maps are HILARIOUS!
When you get up, realize your butt is covered with little teeny very sticky flowers. Notice that none of the French people walking by have flowers stuck to their butts, even though they sat in the SAME EXACT SPOT!
Clearly these flowers prefer the butt of a stupide Americane! Really, if you ever want to feel like you are dressed like a huge dork (and get stuff stuck all over your butt), just go to Paris. I felt just like Andie in The Devil Wears Prada, pre-makeover, in my sensible traveling clothes and shoes. Still, I was not inclined to shove my feet into any teeny pointy shoes for walking 6 miles a day. My dogs were barking enough with my made-for-walking Teva hiking boots, thanks! Parisian women must walk about 1 block a day, or, they have insane toleration for pain… or perhaps several bottles of wine are involved just for one short afternoon jaunt in the classy shoes. Must be, must be.
OK, one day at Versailles yields ridiculous amounts of photos. Unfortunately, half of the photos I took inside didn’t come out so great (blurry) – though, that did DEFINITELY help me weed down the photo count. Who really needs 900 pictures of carvings and crazy paintings anyway? haha.
Here are the highlights of the inside of the palace.
First of all, no surface, anywhere, is left unembellished. The walls had gold leaf, paintings, inlaid stonework, carvings, etc etc at every turn. The floors were mostly either a patterned laid wood floor or inset stone like granite. Pretty much every ceiling looked something like this. It really makes me wonder why the Sistine Chapel is such a big deal… Apparently lots of artists worked on scaffolding laying down…
As proud owners of a fireplace, we were also impressed by each and every fireplace we encountered. Of course, each was made of a different exotic carved stone. Plus, they were large enough to hold an entire tree:
Where the King and Queen ate while everyone else watched. (Once again, my home viewing of Marie Antoinette starring Oak’s not-so-secret Hollywood crush Kirsten Dunst came in handy to truly picture this dining set being used.)
The royal boudoir, the spot of another famous scene in the movie. Did you know, when the Queen gives birth, everyone and their brother comes along to watch it all take place in her bedroom? How fun is that! 
The famous hall of mirrors, where the beautiful people admire themselves. OK, I totally stole that quote from our travel buddy Rick Steves. Mirrors were a huge luxury at the time, so I’d imagine, even if you weren’t all that vain you’d probably still be looking in these all the time like, OMG that’s what I look like? Time for some lipo and botox!
<insert some more photos of random paintings, thrones, a billion statues and paintings of King Louis, etc etc. > OK – I’m not really going to put you through that. The palace is definitely a worthy experience and one I wholeheartedly recommend should you find yourself in Paris area (it’s about a 40 minute train/car ride from the city). So, you can see it for yourself someday. Just be prepared to feel a little like cattle, and to be elbowing at a million other tourists. You’re not the only one that wants to be here!
I guess I am reserving the Versailles gardens (not to mention the other “mini-palaces” on the grounds) for another post. But here I am, semi-relieved to be outside of the grandest homes in the world. We did the palace first in the day and really, it’s about 1/5th of everything you can see here. You don’t know whether to be in awe of it all, or finally come to the true understanding of the aggravation with the monarchy’s overindulgence that started the French revolution (of which, by the way, they make zero mention of at Versailles). So, I hope you enjoyed this highlight tour! Be back soon with more photos
