Ode to colorful, round Joy! (aka: the sparkleball light decoration)

Somehow, clear, colorful round things just make me happy at the holidays. (any day, really)   They seem to radiate peace and calm, as well as beauty.

 Do you remember when these sparkleballs were popular some 10 years ago? I always wanted to *buy* one for our holiday lighting. I was informed that you had to make them yourself. With then 2 and 6-year-old kids, the prospect of making one was too daunting.

But now it is 10 years later, and we have You Tube to show us how!  The now 12 and 16-year-old are also more than able to do this project.   Check out the DIYs below, if you might want to know how to make sparkleballs yourself:

This video uses a soldering iron to melt holes in the cups (for the lights) and to melt the cups together.


And then there is this video, showing a different construction method:




This method uses a drill to make the holes, and a stapler to attach the cups together.

We originally wanted to go for the drill and staple method, but we bought a bag of  hard plastic Chinet cups .  Due to their composition, these cups simply crack and /or shatter when drilled.

So we adapted the first method to our project; we used a glue gun (sans glue sticks) to melt a hole in the bottom of each cup, and then the glue gun again (with glue sticks) to glue the cups together.  We did the melting part outside, where there was plenty of ventilation.

Here is our first result:

It's our oblong sparkleball! (-:   It uses 1 strand of 50 lights.

Yearning for more round colorfulness, we made another one the next day. This time we used clear cups made of a softer plastic. We could have used the drill and staple method, but the stapler was jammed, and we had the glue gun method down pretty well- so we used it again.

Some things we learned:

*Even when purchasing the correct size, sometimes the numbers of cups per row will vary a little. There will be gaps. It's okay- the finished product looks great, gaps and all.

*The more places you can fasten the cups together, the more stable the structure!

*It is hard to find strings of holiday lights in the stores 6 days before Christmas, but stay flexible with availability, and see the possibilities!

*You can always make the holes bigger, but can't make them smaller!

*This activity can promote great fun and bantering between teenage siblings!

Our second ball came out more round-looking, and much bigger than we expected.  It uses 100 lights.  (well, it uses 74 lights- the rest were crammed in the middle of the ball)  I think it is so lovely, that I posted it's picture twice in this post!

Now we are on a roll.  We imagine what it would be like to use clear, multicolor cups with white lights, an all-red sparkleball, an all-blue sparkleball, a half green and half red sparkleball, a sparkleball made of entirely yellow lights , or yellow and orange, to resemble the solstice sun.  My favorite idea is to get a strand of lights that change colors, while slowly fading from one color to the other.  Wouldn't that be ethereal?

What will tomorrow bring?????

(-:

Reverb #11 Day 5 and 6: What is the best science experiment/art project you did in 2011?

I am trying to catch up on my reverbs in little snatchets of time!  I'll be combining #5 and #6 today, as sort of a "yin-yang" post.

Science and Art are like opposite ends of the spectrum sometimes, and this is true for my kids.  For them, science is like a curiosity, best taken in small doses, while art rocks the house!

The kids enjoy science if we keep the subject matter more on the superficial side, so we cover a wide range of topics in small doses.  They have seen many NOVA shows, and most recently, they became completely overwhelmed by The Fabric Of The Cosmos- a great multi-episode show on quantum mechanics.  I highly recommend it, but I digress...

pumpkin plants in the grow box

We do experiments of homemade design mostly, from our everyday circumstances.  So this year, we have discovered things like borer larva in our pumpkin plants.  We had a great gardening project, experimenting with growing pumpkin plants in a Grow Box, instead of the ground.  Everything went well till the plants started looking cut off at the stem base, and were dying.  Upon researching, we discovered we had insect larvae inside the main stems, munching the life out of the pumpkins.  We also read that the plants can sometimes be saved if the larva are carefully cut out of the stem, and the stems are sealed with a wrapping of foil.  So I, enthusiastic Cavemomma, went to work, digging out terrified larva, as the kids squirmed as they looked on.  (well, they sort of half-looked...)  Some plants actually survived the butchery, but their growth was stunted, and they never got beyond a small size, producing a flower now and then.  This was my favorite eperiment of the year, even though the pumpkin project was halted.  We learned more about the life cycle, and interaction between plants and insects.

wooly aphids under the microscope at 30X

If you ask my kids, they preferred the next insect project we took on a few months later: aphids in the neighbor's apple tree.  (we were house sitting, and felt a responsibility) We talked to our favorite friendly ACE Hardware garden expert, who told us how aphids eat, grow, and spread, and the mechanics of the products we could use  for getting rid of them.  We even took a sampling home and looked at them under the microscope.  Then, the kids choose the most fun option for ridding the tree of aphids- putting on bathing suits, and spraying the tree with soapy water. (using Dawn dishwashing liquid, the garden hose, and an insect sprayer)  The results were instant and permanent! 

But there was our baby bird project too, and reassembling George the skeleton, and the Happy Scientist experiments.  I think the kids' all-time favorite experiment this year is the Happy Scientist's examining trick birthday candles versus regular birthday candles, and observing why the trick candles relight.  When I asked them just now why this was their favorite science experiment this year, they both replied it is because we made a batch of brownies to serve as the candle holders for the experiment!  That's science in our house- it's all about the treats!

Daughter's melt and pour soap on display at the county fair

On the other hand, arts and crafts projects seem to effortlessly spring out of nowhere at my house.  I asked what Daughter's favorites have been this year, and she said making clothes for her Webkinz, making soap, making polymer clay jewelry, and drawing pictures for her stories- mostly about gymnasts.  These are just her favorites.

one of Son's most recent videos

Son would say, hands down, his animation movies with legos is his favorite art project.  I think he has made over 50 movies this year.

So there you have it; some yin-yang, science/art happenings, favorite or not , that we have engaged in this year.

You can participate in Reverb 2011 too- click on this  button to participate, or read the other responses to the daily prompt:

A dvd/cd holiday greeting card template- from my computer to yours

We sure had fun making a holiday dvd last weekend!  Next, I designed the card portion of our holiday dvd video greeting, and have posted the template files online, for anyone who might wish to use it for their own dvd greeting card.  So if your creative juices are flowing, and think you might like to make a slideshow, put together movie footage, or even share pictures on a disc, please feel free to use this card design to package your disc greeting!

The card is designed to hold a standard disc sleeve measuring 4.96 inches square (12.55 square cm)  Here is the front of the card:

There are three files to this card: one page for the"outside" faces of the card, another for the "inside "faces, and another for the text greeting.  The "outside" and "inside" faces are printed on opposite sides of the same piece of paper.  The text greeting is cut out, and pasted to the disc sleeve on the inside of the card.

If you want to print the card exactly as it is, you can download the template as jpeg files, or as pdf files.  If you want to play with the card and make changes, and/ or add your own embellishments, then download the psd (Photoshop) template files.  Regular-click the appropriate link above, which will take you to to Google Docs for downloading.

Here is how you put the card together:

After downloading your fles, print them out on a paper of your choice.  I used a 176 g/m² (65 lb) linen cover stock.  Any card stock would be suitable, or even regular printer paper, as the cd or dvd provides a rigid structure to the card.

This is what the "outside face" of the card looks like.  Print it out.  Pay special attention to the orientation of the paper as it comes out of your printer.  When the printed page comes out of my printer, it is flipped to the unprinted side, and upside down.  So, I designed this card so I just put the paper back into the paper tray as orientated for printing on the other side. (this means that the printed side is flipped over from top to bottom)

So, as a recap,  print the "outside" face of the card,  and  then flip over the paper from top to bottom, so the printed side is down, and the previous top edge is now the bottom edge.

Now print the "inside" face of the card on this unprinted side.

 Here is what the "inside face" of the card looks like:

 If done correctly, the bird tree will be on one side , and the canvas with three snowflakes will be in the same position on the other side of the paper.

Now print out the text greeting, which contains the greetings for 4 cards:

Carefully trim away the white areas of the paper.

Then, score the narrow vertical space between the front and back cover with a  bone folder or a butter knife, while using a straight edge.  It isn't absolutely necessary to score this fold line, but it sure helps to make a crisp fold.

Then, carefully fold the card in half along the score mark, so that the bird tree is facing out.  Ta da!  A card!

Now apply a paste or adhesive to the disc sleeve, in order to fix it to the card.  Put your sticky material on the side you normally think of as the front side of the disc sleeve, so that the opening flap will face outward when pasted into the card.  My favorite adhesive is dry adhesive tape in an ATG (adhesive transfer:) gun.  The adhesive doesn't buckle the paper, it is pretty much a permanent seal, and it sticks right away- no waiting for glue to dry.

Now carefully place your glued disc sleeve onto the right inside page of the card.  My technique for mounting the sleeve on straight is to carefully put the left edge of the sleeve against the fold line, while lining up the top edge.  Then, carefully lower the sleeve to make contact with the entire card.  Carefully rub the sleeve so your adhesive makes complete contact.

This is what the inside of the card looks like at this point.  Notice that the disc sleeve's opening flap is accessible.

Lastly, paste the text greeting to the lower half of the disc sleeve, and insert your disc into the sleeve.

I tie up my cards with ribbon, gift-wrap style.  Happy, Happy greeting cards!

The artwork on the card is from two different vintage holiday cards, provided by Karen at The Graphics Fairy.  Karen searches high and low for historic items, and posts daily vintage images and ephemera that are free of copyright restrictions.  She  offers them as free downloads.  Every Monday, you can visit her blog to see how folks have used the images in their own crafty projects.  Thank you so much, Karen!  I love to think that my use of these images are breathing life back into them- by circulating them once again.  I think of the artists that made these images long ago, for Christmases long past , and wonder if they are still alive or not.  I hope to honor them  by bringing their work back out for people to see it this holiday season.

The canvas texture is a free download from Leslie Nicole of French Kiss Textures.  Thank you, Leslie Nicole, for sharing the products of your talents, so that we may enhance our own creative processes!

Happy Holidays!  If you do decide to use the card, and have any questions or difficulties, please email me.

I'm playing the link up at Graphics Fairy's "Brag Monday"- Go see what others have made with Karen's found images!

 

Mama arts and crafts

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone who is celebrating today!

I have a moment between turkey and sides prep to blog. Here's a peek at my newest artsy project. I like having my own "Mama projects" to feed my own creativity and sense of self-expression. I also believe in the notion that it is good for my kids to see me engaged in my own projects- to witness my own enjoyment, frustrations, puzzlements, satisfaction, struggles, determination, concentration, etc. I hope I am as positive of a role model as I can be..on most days.

Anyway, I have decided to make 2012 calendars this year for some special friends- using my pinhole photography, and my fledgling bookbinding skills. It will be a softcover mini-calender to carry in a purse or pack. Here are the front and back covers:

and the back cover:

 

I have been figuring out, and making, the layout in Photoshop. I have it set up so that four pages (front and back) fit on the front and back sides of a sheet of 8.5x11 -inch paper, so I can print the calender at home.  To make sense of the mindboggling task of knowing which pages go on any one sheet of paper, I made a little mock-up book with regular copy paper first:

 

and labeled the pages front and back....

 

So all I had to do is separate this mock book to see the proper layout. 

The layout truly seems haphazard!  Photos of one month are paired up with calendars of other months.  It comes out right in the end, though....

I am indebted to several individuals who have helped me to make this project a lot easier!  These folks offer up items of their talents for free, and here is my shout out to them:

Photography Blography has some great free Photoshop calender template options to download- thank you so much, Photography Blography!

Kim Klassen makes spectacular textures and backgrounds- and  offers a free texture every week to subscribers.  I used one of her textures for the cover pages.  I am grateful to you, Kim!

I downloaded some free fancy, scallop-doo-dad clip art to add some nice decorative touches from about dot com's clip art site.  Thank you, Folks!

When I have completed the print/binding phase of this project, I would like to offer my little calendar in pdf form for free download to anyone who wants one, for their desktops/portable devices.  It's just a little artsy gift from me....continuing the sharing, giving and gratitude to you friends, and those who helped make the project so much nicer!

In order to do that, I need to complete a dvd workshop on making pdf multimedia projects, which is taught by Brooks Jensen of Lenswork. I'm looking forward to making this my first pdf!

Happy Thanksgiving!