Trying out a new address for a bit.

If you've ended up here, thank you for visiting!!! I am trying out my blog at a different address for a bit because of some problems with my blog ID and Google Friend Connect. I'm not giving up on the address just yet, it's my first blog and my baby, but for now, I'm over here. Where everything seems to be working-for now???? Here's a teaser of what I'm talking about over there.

A Swiss Chalet...

Via

Thanks for understanding. Have a great day!

New Light On Trial

I've now got a light hanging where there has been nothing for so long that now I'm not sure I'm digging it. Nothing new because I'm very wishy washy anyway. But when I look at it I'm 50/50 on weather or not I like a hanging light in this spot. I've got the ladder another week, so the pressure is on to decide.

I went back to the Home Depot to look again at the lights I talked about in the prior post and they all seemed too small for the space. But...I thought I could go a whole different direction and not fill the space at all by buying the bare bulb light that was this:

Kinda fun, right? It has the vintage bulb which is the thing that most drew me to these lights. I had Mr. Husband with me and he didn't hate it...which translates to "hooray, it's mine!" But then if it was going to come to this light AND to pay $79 for it (c'mon it's just a light bulb on a $2 light kit) my el cheapo mind started churning and I remembered that we have a work light similar to this in the garage. We could hang THAT and buy only the overpriced $9 vintage light bulb!!!??!!
The bad news is that I'm not sure I like anything hanging there. The good news is that if I take it down, I know I'm done with lights up there for a while and I'm not going to obsess about it. It's out of my system! really!

I have a feeling this is falling on the deaf ears of all my beautiful blog friends with fabulous, glamorous style.

This is the stylish $2 outdoor light that I have over the front door, so obviously I am lacking the Liberace gene.

Home Depot Can Be Dangerous?

I can't go to Home Depot without seeing something I want that has nothing to do with the original reason I entered the darn store. I had to stop by there to get some caulk to fill in some of the many cracks in the drywall way, way up in part of the 20+ft ceiling that hasn't been touched in over 15 years because we don't have a ladder that tall. Side notes: we borrowed a friggin tall ladder O'death and I wandered around Home Depot for about 20 minutes looking for the caulk section because I didn't want to ask one of the cute Home Depot guys, "where's your caulk? (childish giggle)" While I was strolling around Home Depot I came across some really nice, and new to me, pendant lights. So... we've borrowed a ladder for a few days and IF I'm going to add a light to a ceiling that I won't be able to get to again for another 15 years, NOW would be the time to do that!!!! Right??
I know, I know...how will I change the light bulb(s)? I'm still in the honeymoon phase and am not thinking about that yet.
Lemme show you what has been there for the last 15 years:

When I first moved here there was a hideous cowboy chandelier hanging, on a hideous chain, all the way down to, and almost touching, the dining room table. I borrowed a ladder and because I couldn't reach the wiring with two hands and still balance on the ladder, I just CUT the chandelier down and undid the electric wiring in the wall-light-switch for safety. But yesterday, we tried, and my tall husband said he'd be able to reach the wires if I want to add a light. So... I could get rid of the sad remnant of once was.

Here's some of what I saw [whilst looking for caulk ;)] that I liked. I love the vintage bulbs the first row comes with:

 The star is so cute but it's $461. Not gonna happen. This idea is on a whim and I'm going to keep it below $100 (the rest of the lights are around $75), if I do anything. I like the industrial look and love the vintage light bulb in the cage, but how would I get to the bulb let alone change it?! Maybe they are all too small??

Also, this space doesn't really need light, It just might be a nice change to hang something.

I'd also like to add this:

Not the fan. The wood. You know, since we have the ladder a few days...and we're doing stuff up there already...???? Love Love Love It!


Actually, I've been feeling BLAH about this house lately. For many reasons, but a few are rising HOA dues (every freaking year) and too much time fantasizing on (the grass is always greener...) Zillow. So I don't really feel much like putting one more cent into this house, but I've felt this way about this house many times before and I'm still here, 15 years later...

Ten June Final Week Photo Challenge

This is the final week of the Ten June 30 Day Photo Challenge. I have had such a great time getting to know everybody! I'm so sad it's over. Thanks so much to Michelle at Ten June for hosting this party. It was the push I needed to get to know my camera better.

25. Something Pink

26. Close Up

27. From A Distance

28. Flowers

29. Black And White

30. Self-Portrait

25. Pink Lantana in the garden.
26. Close up of silverware in kitchen.
27. Palm trees at the mall.
28. Some flowers in the living room.
29. Wood pile next to the fireplace. Made it black and white using Picnic.
30. Self portrait. Used Picnic to remove some color saturation and made it grainy with the HDR effect.

Because I love Picnic Collage, here's a re-cap of my 30 days of photos...

It has been so much fun getting to know everybody through their photographs. Thanks for a great experience!

Ten June Photo Challenge

I'm back with another week of photos with 20-24. 20 and 21 are from my post last week, but I'm posting them again so that I stay with the rest of the group. I'm getting used to walking around with my camera and not feeling so self-conscious about it.

20.  Bokeh

21. Faceless Self Portrait

22. Hands

23. Sunflare

24. Animal

20. Taken in my house.
21. Was my week trying for the long exposure shot, so I lugged the tripod everywhere.
22. My son's Halloween glow in the dark gloves. I used picnic's collage. The white hand is with the light on and the green hand is long exposure, in the dark, with the glove glowing.
23. I don't have a filter to help with this effect. I tried taking a picture with sunglasses over the lens, and in my car's tinted windows. Didn't work. This was the best I could get with the bush filtering the sun's rays just barely.
24. My dogs!! Both were adopted from the pound. The big one, Dresden, is 10 and I've had her for 9 years. The little one, Loki, is 4 and I just got her this past April. Normally they don't like posing for a picture. They put their ears back and sit there all pathetic, waiting for the torture to stop. I got lucky here because a squirrel ran up into a tree and they forgot about the photo shoot!!

Thanks for visiting. As always, I look forward to seeing all your fantastic and inspiring photos. Have a great weekend.

Wine Bottle Light.....eh, not so much

I love bottles. The colors. The shapes. Everything. So when I saw, out there in blogland and pinterest, a super simple, fast way to "cut" a glass bottle I decided to give it a shot. I have not seen any step by step pictures of this process and thought I could be of help in that department. So I set my camera up to document the entire process.

Here are some examples of bottle lights you may have seen. The first one is a Pottery Barn light that uses whole bottles with a light in the middle.

My kitchen with bottles on the window ledges.

Or...how cool to recycle bottles into drinking glasses!

* I was so nervous about trying this! I set up in the bathtub, wore goggles and gloves in fear of the glass flying everywhere. One set of blog instructions I read said, "light string on fire and wait for the bang." WTF!!??  I was unsure what a "bang" with a glass bottle would entail, but I was prepared for the worst.

Here were the steps that I read about online: 1. Soak a string in nail polish remover. 2. Tie a few times around bottle. Place string where you want to cut the bottle. 3. Light string on fire and turn the bottle slowly. 4. Submerge bottle in cold water.

I let it burn for about a minute (no bang??) and then submersed it in my bucket of cold water. That's when there was a "BANG!!!" I peeled myself off the ceiling  pulled the bottle out of the bucket and...

TA-DA!!! But not straight, and a million little cracks around the edge. So many cracks that I would never be able to sand it smooth.

So I tried again up higher on the bottle and it just got worse.

Plus... it was starting to look and smell like a meth lab  (not that I know how a meth lab smells)!!!

FAILURE

I wonder if scoring the bottle first would have given a cleaner, crack-free cut. ???  I'm sure breathing in all those fumes killed a big chunk of the few brain cells I have left, not to mention all the other terrible things that breathing in those fumes did. I think I'm sticking with cutting tools, like a Dremel or a tile saw. That way it's only my fingers I'm putting in harm's way. When I succeed in making a light or drinking glasses out of a bottle I'll be sure to gloat about it explain and photograph it step-by-step in a future tutorial post.