You'll shoot your eye out! (I hope...)

It all started with a beautiful blue mosaic gazing globe, like the one pictured here: (only on a different pedestal and in my yard, not a beautiful lush green place)

It was sitting out in my front rose garden (now doesn't that make it sound pretty?), just minding it's own business, when suddenly, out of nowhere and for no particular reason that I'm aware of, a neighbor kid shot it with a bb gun. It didn't have a chance to survive. It was knocked off of it's pedestal and crashed to the ground where it shattered.

During the mourning of my beloved gazing globe, I vowed that whatever I replaced it with would be durable enough that if shot again, there would be at least a small possibility of the bb ricocheting off of it, and hitting the kid holding the gun. I know, I know... But even a *tiny* possibility of that happening would make me feel better. Also I didn't want to spend much money on a shooting target.

I set out looking for a DIY project that would result in something that met my qualifications. My first step was bowling ball shopping. It took months for me to find them, but the day I found 3 (gasp) bowling balls at DI for $3 a piece felt like a dream. Yes of course I bought all 3 even though I only had one pedestal. Not everything I do is rational. I'm okay with that! :)

This blue beauty, Frank, was my favorite. I kid you not, it says Frank right on it! Didn't seem quite right to call it anything else anymore.

I found a blog that had all sorts of great tips on how to glue flat glass gems to a bowling ball and make it look beautiful. Those were the days before Pinterest though, and since the vision was already in my head I didn't save the link. The credit for this goes to someone else though, just keep that in mind.

I wanted to use clear gems to let Frank's blue hue show through, and decided that clear silicone would be my best bet as an adhesive to do that job. So far, that was a good idea. I'm hoping it stays that way.

Thanks to the dollar store, these gems were cheap, but the color choices were limited to green, blue and clear. This glittery gold bowling ball, named Goldie (for lack of her name stamped on it) was nice enough looking, but not quite what I was looking for. I chose a mix of green, and opalescent gems, and hoped that some of the glitter would show through, but not too much of the brown.

I spent days in the fumes of silicone, tediously setting each stone in a bed of goo. I loved it. But things would come up, like dinner, animal escapees, and running out of gems. Really, had I been prepared enough, this would have been a pretty quick project. Oh! Also, when I got to the middle of the ball, the gems kept sliding down, so I had to do one side, and let it dry before I could work on the other.

After they were finished and completely dry, I couldn't wait to put them on my pedestal. Okay, I put them out there several times during the process to make sure I liked the effect I was creating.

I am thrilled with the results. I decided to set Goldie out for the time being, as I'm still too in love with Frank to risk him being shot in his first week outdoors. He's sitting on my fireplace waiting for me to finish his own pedestal and find him a home in the backyard where it's less dangerous (or so he thinks).

Now, I've got a new problem. 2 finished orbs, one black bowling ball (that I'm considering covering with pennies thanks to another Pinterest find), and an added blue one that I found during a different trip. Only one pedestal. They will all deserve a place of honor in my gardens at some point. I need to find a cheap DIY pedestal idea. I feel like the mouse in "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" a lot of the time.

My Bright Idea

A friend of mine recently introduced me to a new favorite website, Pinterest. There are days that I find myself looking and pinning and dreaming and wishing. There are other days that the things I've pinned actually inspire me to do something fun and new. This was one of those days.

I've been finding myself staring at my kitchen chandelier, thinking that it needs to be changed for a while now. I wanted to get rid of the brass (and possibly also the dust) and replace it with something that I liked better.

I forgot to take pictures of the fixture before I got it taken down, so here's when I remembered to start documenting my project with photos.


Funny, after taking it down, dusting it, and cleaning it up good, it doesn't look half as awful as it did before...


...It took quite a bit of brain power to figure out how to hang this up outside so I could paint all sides of it, and keep the chickens from trying to eat it at the same time. I settled for hanging it from the kids swing set. Worked like a charm!

Almost immediately, I fell in love with the new color. Had my neighbors not moved the week before, they probably would have enjoyed watching me spray and grin, and spray and grin.

In this picture, you notice how the paint self-dimples to make it's own hammered finish. I've never enjoyed watching paint dry more than I did this day!

After finishing the paint job, waiting for it to completely dry, I decided to try an effect that I saw on Pinterest to make the white plastic tubes look just a little bit more like real candles. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, so I practiced drizzling hot glue down the sides of a toilet paper tube before I committed. Yes, the kids thought I was crazy. Please don't confirm their suspicions for a few more years. ;)

I was still a little wary, but jumped in with the glue gun anyway. Seriously, this chandelier has been bothering me so long that I didn't think I could make it look any worse.

I was pretty happy with the results, just adding the glue, but after a few coats of white spray paint, I was feeling pretty impressed with myself.

This is the can of Rust-oleum hammered finish spray paint that I used. Sometimes I tend to get carried away with things when I love the results of the first attempt. We'll see how many other pieces of random things in my house end up covered with this paint. (Yes kids, I know that this one is totally out of order. I tried three times to move it where I wanted it, and when it didn't work, I moved on so that this post would actually get finished.)

Anyway, here's a closeup of one finished arm of the fixture, to show the dripping "wax" detail. Have I mentioned I love it?!

And here's a similar picture with the light actually turned on. (Nope, can't look at this picture without seeing the blurry white spot on the bottom and wondering where that ghost came from! Gotta stop watching scary movies...)



And here's the entire finished project. I can't stop looking at it. That could have something to do with it's proximity to my computer chair... but whatever!


I am thrilled with the results, but wonder if I should try something more bold next time. I think Hannah's room would look pretty cool with a bright red chandelier, blinged out with crystals. Hopefully someone else got tired of their old brass fixture, and sent it to the DI for me to play with.

As I finish up this post, and look at the final picture, I can't help but wonder what that wooden curtain rod would look like with a coat of hammered finish brown paint...

Giveaway Winners Announced!!

I would like to thank everyone who entered my giveaway! I've sure enjoyed the giggles. :)

Congratulations to all of you!! You are all winners! Each of you is now the proud new owner of a cute little kitten! :)

Is that what you were all afraid of? Are you glad that I'm kidding? Would you like the list of real winners now?

Since there was an overwhelming support for the vinyl lettering (I wonder why...), I decided to up this to three winners. Using a random number generator (I swear I did! This is not rigged like you all thought it would be!) the three winners are:
Kristine
Cynthia
Kathy

The winner of the Huge pile of 3T clothing is:
Brenda

I know there was quite a fight going on for the flush light. Unfortunately I don't have enough of them to give you all your own. (Dumb purchase limit!) The winner of the flush light is *drumroll please*:
Momster

The winner of the shovel earrings, and the story that goes with it is:
Debbie
And now I'm looking for coffin charms to go with them! lol

Since nobody wanted the Missionary book on tape, I entered all of you into that drawing, and the random number generator picked the winner. Congratulations:
Natalie
for winning something that nobody wants! Now you can have your very own blog giveaway to try to give it to someone else. ;)

And last but not least, the winner of the kitten... To my dismay, there were 3 winners who share this prize (since they apparently live in the same house). To the kids who wanted to remain anonymous:
HRA
ADA
IJA
you just won yourself an Oreo. I hope you're happy!! I can't believe you convinced your grandma to post that, and conned your mother into letting you keep one of the kittens! Wow did this giveaway backfire on me...

Winners, please email me at dwarthur@trilobyte.net with your address so I can get your prize in the mail. Winners of the vinyl lettering please specify what saying, size and font you would like.

Thanks for playing everyone! This was a fun giveaway, and I'm already starting to compile ideas for my next giveaway. Stay tuned! :)

Finally My First Blog Giveaway!!!

Welcome to my very first blog giveaway! This is inspired by my cousin Cynthia who had her own giveaway, which I won! Thanks for the brilliant idea, Cynthia! She gets two extra entries in this blog giveaway, since I won hers, and for putting the duck on the wall even though it made her little girl cry. Soooo sad and hilarious!

So here goes! Here are the awesome prizes you could win!

First up I'm giving away 2 custom made white vinyl sayings to make your walls talk. You pick the saying and font.




Secondly, I'm giving away a HUGE pile of size 3T girl clothing. Yes, it's used. Yes some of it has been worn by both of my girls. Come on people, it's FREE!



Where else on the internet will you have the chance to win your very own light up toilet flusher, WITH it's own battery?! If I could enter my own giveaway, this is the prize I would want to win!



Up next is a gorgeous pair of handmade shovel earrings. Yes, there's a story behind the shovels. If you win, you'll get the story to go along with these beauties!



You could win your very own (and I might mention antique!) book on cassette tape about preparing your children for missionary work. Don't fight over this one! I know it's rare, and quite possibly very valuable.



Last but not least, you could win your very own kitten! Black or white. Girl or boy. We've got them all! You pick the one you want!



Now I bet you're dying to know how you can win one of these fabulous prizes! It's actually a very simple process. First you need to leave your full name, address, phone number, email address, SSN, and credit card number in a comment on this blog post. Then you need to forward a long random obnoxious spam email to all of your friends in your address book, not including me. Then become a fan of ice cream on facebook.

If that's too much for you, I'll accept an entry by simply commenting on this blog post and telling me which prize you'd like to win the most. :) You get an extra entry if your comment makes me laugh.

(If you took me seriously on the first part of the entry process, then you're giving me permission to buy all the paper I want using your credit card)

The Febreeze Explaination

Preface: I posted my facebook status this morning as "Wendy is going to febreeze her whole life!" I got so many questions about the meaning of my status, and ended up writing this story to explain.


Warning! Not for the easily queasy! But you asked for it!

It started yesterday with a stench coming from the kitchen sink. We all noticed it, but who had the time to wash the dishes and find the smell? I lit a candle in hopes that the beautiful scent would mask it. By the end of the day, there was no other option. I had to clean out the sink and find the source of the problem. Every dish that I took out and put in the dishwasher just made the smell worse. I finally got to the bottom, and realized the stench was coming from the drain. I think something crawled in it and died. However, about that same time, the sink got clogged, and water was starting to backup in both sinks. I had to put my hands in the nasty water to hold the drain shut while I plunged the other side. It was difficult to keep the gag reflex at bay. After what seemed like 3 hours (but was probably only 10 minutes) the dead thing dislodged, and the sinks started draining again. It took several doses of vinegar and baking soda, and some Mr. Clean with Febreeze to finish the job.

I took out the stinky paper towels to the outside garbage, and my cat came running up to me. Well she had kittens just a few days ago. She hadn't bothered to clean herself up, and she stunk worse than the kitchen sink did. I weighed my options while stifling the gag reflex again. I decided at midnight that I was going to give the cat a bath. I knew this wasn't going to go well, but wasn't prepared for the reality of it. Wet stinky cat was even worse of a smell than dry stinky cat, and I had to lock myself in a tiny bathroom with her so she wouldn't escape the bath. She kept jumping out of the water, splashing muddy stinky water all over me and the floor and everything else in there. I did my best, but cats seriously don't like baths.

So it was too cold outside to put a wet momma cat outside. I figured my only option was to blow dry her. I'm sure there was a better option, but I still can't think of it. So I found out that cats don't really like being blow dried either! She was jumping at the door, huddling behind the toilet, and anything else she could think of to get away from the air. About the time she gave up and decided to just let me finish, she pooped on the floor. Remember, I'm still locked in the bathroom with a somewhat less stinky cat, and the new smell almost pushed me over the edge. Well I cleaned that up, finished blowing her dry, and went to put her outside with her kittens.

I thought it to be a waste of a bath to put my newly cleaned cat back in the nasty stinky box that she gave birth in. I figured I should at least take out the smelly towel in the bottom. Well when I took it out, I found out that she had given birth to 8 kittens, and there were two dead ones in the box. (I found the other two dead ones the day before and got them out.) I took out the towel, kittens, both live and dead, and wiped out the bottom of the box. Mom didn't like that at all. I tried to put a new clean towel in for her, but she had the live kittens back in before I could. I gave up and put them all back outside and came back in to clean up the messes I had made.

After a thorough scrubbing of the tub, wiping of the bathroom floor, scrubbing of the carpet (where she had pooped), and disposing of icky paper towels and dead kittens, I only had a pile of nasty smelling towels to wash, and myself. By now, it's 2:00 in the morning. I really don't have the time to take a shower, so I just washed as good as I could, and changed clothes. I threw the towels in the washer, and went to bed. Even my dreams smelled bad last night! Tell me how that happens! Now I'm in desperate need of a shower and a sense-of-smell-ectomy. Oh, and a little bonfire of clothes that might never smell right again.

Obituary

Chicken Tenders, aka Spike Elvis Tenders Arthur the Third passed away in an unfortunate turn of events on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. (Fortunately while I just happened to be taking a nap.)

Tenders hatched sometime in April of 2009, and soon after became adopted by the Arthur family. As a chick, he was cute, fuzzy and loveable. As a young cockerel, he was loyal, and friendly. As the alpha male, he was mean. He first started his vicious cycle on children, then moved on to anyone wearing black shoes. In his last days of life, he attacked anyone that came near him.

He is preceded in death by his sister, Alfredo, brothers, Teriyaki, Parmesan, Fettuccini, Pot Pie, and Noodle Soup. He is survived by sisters/mates, Nugget, Patty, Annie, Goldilocks and Cordon Bleu. He will be dearly missed by Hannah, and only slightly missed by Isaac and Aaron. The rest of us are glad he’s gone, and can finally go outside without returning for bandaids. Sarah cheered her dad on and asked if we could eat him for dinner.

He was laid to rest later on that afternoon in a white casket (aka garbage bag) in an undisclosed open grave. In lieu of flowers, the family would like donations made to the psychiatrist that will need to treat my children who are now traumatized from watching his death.

Laundrylypmics

With seventy eleventy kids around this house, there's bound to be a lot of laundry. This particular week (which was actually last week, but since I didn't get around to posting it then, let's pretend it's this week) the house seemed overrun by laundry, both clean, and dirty. I spent what seemed like all of 2010 washing dirty laundry, and had a mountain range of clean laundry (I've named it the Arthuralian Mountains) that needed folding and put away. I knew I would have to come up with something good to get the kids to pitch in and help me without the screaming, whining, and various other torture techniques they usually use to try to get out of work. Since the Olympics were on, and they were enjoying them, I decided that we would do the Laundrylympics. As soon as I pitched the idea to them, they were full on ready to help, and with enthusiasm too! Hannah helped me come up with events, and I got started making medals (I know Cricut time usually counts as procrastination, but this time, it was a legitimate thing!). I had the kids make flags for their countries, and we started by having Opening Ceremonies. They marched in with their flags as I played the Olympic theme song on my ipod. We hung the flags on the wall, and we were off to our events.



Our first event was Downhill Dirty Laundry Sliding. They split into teams, boys versus girls, then piled up their dirty laundry at the top of the stairs. I decided that they'd have two runs each to slide down the stairs and see which team had the most dirty laundry at the bottom of the stairs at the end of the event. The boys hurled themselves down the stairs the fastest (and head first), but forgot to grab laundry on their way. The girls went feet first, slow, and got every single piece of laundry to the bottom. They won the gold medal for that event.



At their first medals ceremony, I let the winning team choose their Anthem. They were dancing to "Only You" (the Dance Dance Revolution version) as they celebrated their win.

They had to prepare for the next event by moving the laundry from the bottom of the stairs to the laundry room. Next up was the Speed Folding event. We started by sorting their clothes into piles, according to who they belonged to. The corrupt judges (aka Derek) started a timer, and they folded as fast as they could until time was up. Aaron and Hannah tied for gold in this event with Isaac grabbing silver, and Sarah with a bronze medal.

Aaron's anthem was "Fireflies" by Owl City. They sang along with this one.

For the third event, we had a Long Distance Speed Skating Delivery. Which is just a fancy way of saying putting the laundry away. In this event, they used a laundry basket to haul laundry from downstairs (where they folded) to their bedrooms. The corrupt judge made sure that they didn't leave any behind, and timed them to see who put all of theirs away the fastest.This is Aaron struggling in the middle of his race. This event had by far the most injuries. The corners they had to rush around were sharp, and they ran into them with their hands. The EMT's on site (aka Wendy) were very good at patching the athletes back up and sending them back out to their events.


Isaac won gold in this event, with Hannah bringing home the silver, and Sarah with bronze. I'm not sure if Aaron got the 'special' blue medal this time, or if he ran off mad because he didn't win.


Our last and final event was Sock Match Curling. You see that green tub behind the medals stand? We had two of those full of unmatched socks. We dumped them in a huge pile, and let them sort through and find as many matches as they could and then 'curl' them together. Aaron whined and whined throughout this event, thinking that everyone else was beating him, and somehow cheating. He ended up with the gold medal anyway.


Not sure why Isaac is wearing a tiara during this medals ceremony. He's Isaac. Not sure why he does most of what he does.

And finally, here are pictures of my decorated Olympians.
Thanks so much for your help kids!