Pinterest Fail #2: Melted Spoon Rose

This should have worked. My friend was able to do it with no problems whatsoever.

Maybe I didn't cut the spoons short enough. Maybe I thought about it too much. Maybe my glue gun is a POS. Who knows.

It started out innocently enough: I had my spoons, my pliers, my hot glue gun, and a candle. Everything I needed to made a melted spoon rose.

I even cut up the spoons like I was supposed to: 2 really short sports, 5 medium length, 10 longer-length.

The fun part was the melting. I'm not even going to lie. I let my pyromaniac side run free during this portion, holding the spoons over the flame until I thought the spoons were softened.

Maybe this is where things went awry. Because instead of just fusing them together, I let the handles actually light on fire, as evidence by the charred portion of the fused spoons.

I did what the website told me and placed them all together. I noticed very quickly that nothing seems to be coming together like it did in the website. Before the glue was completely cooled, I disassembled everything, cut the handles shorter, and tried again.

(read: played with fire again).

Now I felt like I had everything in order, almost identical to the website. What went wrong?

Y'know what? I'm going to blame it on the glitter. I tried to Edward Cullen my rose and, like the actual Edward Cullen, it just looked weird and unappealing. And I wasted a lot of glitter because I thought the glitter had a sprinkle filter.

But, the more I think about it, the less I'm horrified by it. Yes, it looks like what an inept middle schooler would bring home from art class in a bad sitcom, but I love it anyway. It's got a bit of a Little Shop of Horrors feel to it. And, as long as it doesn't start crying out, "Feed me, Seymore!", I think I'm good.

Fall Decorations

Before I moved up to New Hampshire, the idea of decorating for fall never crossed my mind. Now that I'm up here, I can understand why everyone I work with is nuts about decorating for the season. The foliage in even the busiest cities like Nashua, Manchester, or Concord is so vibrant that you can't help but want to have that in your home as well. So I decided this year I'd break the bank a little and make my apartment a little more fall friendly.


The first thing I tackled was our dining room. All I need was some fall-related table mats with complementary napkins. I got the table runner from Marshal's, which is honestly a godsend when it comes to cheap but pretty decorations. I found these wonderful fake-wood table rings at Target on clearance, which really put the whole look together.


I finished it off by threading a fall-themed ribbon under my candlesticks and centerpiece (which was originally an antique candy dish given as a gift from my Ababa-in-law, but more on that later). This idea, I must admit, was stolen from my sister-in-law, who has been expertly decorating the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner tables for a few seasons now.


To backtrack a little: this was originally a TV stand, a gift from one of our groomsmen. But when my brother-in-law moved to Vegas, we got his TV (and subsequently his TV stand), leaving this TV stand somewhat invalid. As a result, the former TV stand became a bit of a dining room cabinet, storing placentas, tablecloths, napkins… I purchased a table runner at Michael's meant for a 10" wide table and draped it over the TV stand.


On top of the TV stand, I put two little scarecrow people, found in Target's bargain bin area, and added a few gourds I got at Jo Anne Fabrics.


Speaking of TV stands, I garnished the newer TV with a garland of leaves, accented with a fall-themed knick-knick at each corner (to serve mostly as an actor for the garland, but it also provides a little variety on the TV stand).


Since I'm a notorious snacker, I figured I'd take a page out of Texas Roadhouse and put a tin bucket of peanuts on the coffee table. I placed a leaf-shaped candy dish for the side for the shells.


The subwoofer in the corner of my living room totally needed sprucing up! I decided to raid Michael's fake flower section and great a fall-themed flower arrangement for one of my vases (side story: my husband bought that vase for flowers he bought me, unaware it was a floor vase. Me, being uneducated in the floral world, originally didn't get that a tall vase is usually meant for the floor). I lined the vase with another garland of leaves and added two bags worth of white/clear marbles to keep the vase steady. To the right of it is a little glass leaf candle holder, from Marshal's.


The kitchen got a little accessorizing, too, with a fall leaves mat (from Target) and a few pumpkin/harvest towels (from Marshal's).


I also found this gem at Michael's. I don't know why I'm such a sucker for spoon rests, especially since I'm tempted to use a paper towel to rest my cooking utensils on, lest I get the rest messy!


I found this adorable little creamer at Marshal's, and decided that the little corner of my cabinets needed some sprucing up too…


I live off of my white board. From to-do lists to notes for my husband, I use it every single day. So why not doodle around the edges and incorporate the fall theme in as well?




I decided to adorn the doors of the crafts room and bedroom with some bows made out of extra ribbon from the living room table. The key to making bows with ribbons is doing the "bunny ears" with the ribbon (as opposed to "around the through the cave", as my parents so explained it). I snaked a few pieces of ribbon through the center and finagled a thumbtack through the lower layers of ribbon and attached it to the door.


I gave my script candles a rest for the season and placed the remaining gourds I got from Jo Anne Fabrics on the tray. To the left of the gourds is a picture from my wedding. To the right, an outtake from the 2009 Christmas picture.


I decided to decorate the top of my jewelry bureau with a vase of some more fake flowers, this time from the dollar store (honestly, this "bouquet" cost me maybe $6. Stupidly cheap, especially compared to the $40+ I spend on the bigger "bouquet" in the living room). And in the background lurks my infamous RSVP roses.


The best part about fall decorations is that they're good for a solid 3 months, right into and past Thanksgiving. Which gives me plenty of time to get ready for Christmas decorations =)

This also marks my 100th entry in this blog. Hard to believe that something I started on whim would've gone this far! Here's to the next 100 entries!

Photo Friday: The Sticks of New Hampshire

On the topic of not being able to sit around doing nothing, I spent the afternoon after getting my wisdom tooth pulled on a bit of a road trip. My husband and I have been casually looking at houses for our future house hunt, which will (hopefully, God and finances willing) start next March. Given the type of house we want and the towns we've been looking at, we might be fulfilling the stereotype of city people moving out to the country to raise a family. So I decided that, since I had 4 hours before taking my first Vicodin (read: no more driving), I'd go up to a few of the towns we had been considering.


While it might be a shift, going from Boston (home of 600,000+) to Nashua (80,000+) to, say, Auburn (5,000), it's safe to say that I might love it out in the country.

Post-Wisdom Tooth Vlogging: "Through the Gauze"

This can give you an idea of how little tolerance I have for just sitting around. To backtrack, I lucked out in that I only have one wisdom tooth. The other three? Don't exist; never will exist. This is actually a thing -- many scientists believe that this is part of the next step in human evolution. Upwards of a third of people these days don't even have any wisdom teeth.

Now, if I were truly lucky, I would've been one of the 33%, as this one wisdom tooth was impacted and growing in on the side. The result? An hour in the dentist chair as they chiseled and chipped at my mouth. They only gave me general anesthesia, meaning I was fit to drive immediately after.

The result? A vlog the second I got home and a road trip up to gorgeous little towns like Goffstown and New Boston, NH (more on that later).

While I'm feeling the effects today (no road trips today, let me tell you...), I can, from my very sedentary position, post the vlog from yesterday:

Lock and Key Pearl Necklace

A while ago, I bought some key charms as part of my DIY charm bracelet, knowing I'd have some extra key charms left over. I have a fixation on key necklaces. For this project, I decided to combine this fixation with my fixation on pearl necklaces.

For this, I got out: my pliers, my wire cutters, pearl beads, jump rings, toggle/loop, beading wire, and the charms.

I first cut about 6 inches of chain and attached the lock and key charms to the center of the chain, with one chain link separating them.

Using my pliers, I twisted the beading wiring around one end of the chain. After I feebly got the wire on the chain, I beaded the wire, occasionally bringing it up to my neck to see how long I wanted it. Remember that the toggle/loop will add about an inch of length to the necklace.

Once I got the desirable length, I fed the beading wire through the loop of the toggle and twisted the wire in place. I lathered, rinsed, and repeated on the other side. I went through the meticulous task of counting how many beads were on the right side and copying the same number on the left.

The end result?

I also made a super-simple chain necklace with one of the remaining key charms. This one was so simple that I didn't even take pictures of the process. After connecting one of my extra split rings (which I got on accident long, long ago) onto a chain, I slid one of the charms onto the chain and attached a lobster clasp to the other end.

I think I have too many necklaces.

Nonsense. No such thing.

Photo Friday: Friggin' Reveyah

A few weeks back, while my husband played ice hockey, I got to spend a sunset at Revere Beach. It might not be the Bahamas, but I spent the last half of my college life on this beach. It's also a wonderful place if you're into character studies. An evening here, and you can understand why they thought about making a Boston version of the Jersey Shore.

Try it Tuesday: Champagne to Kill Fruit Flies

You know the saying: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.


But how about champagne?


Originally, I wrote this in August, but just never got a chance to post it. Once Fall hit, I felt it was unnecessary, because fruit flies are obviously a problem of the summer, right?


Wrong.


While I absolutely love New Hampshire (I mean, c'mon, ducklings come to my patio to eat birdseed), one problem I have in New Hampshire that I didn't have in Boston is fruit flies. And they are merciless. Turn on the faucet and ten flies come out. Open the trash and it's like I'm recreating the Green Mile scene, only with my trash can playing Michael Clark Duncan's* role. Absolutely terrible.


But there's a quick fix for this problem (and a wonderful excuse to drink).


First, buy a nice bottle of champagne. Invite some friends over and enjoy a few glasses with a few strawberries. Just make sure to save about 1/5 of the bottle.


Then, simply leave the bottle out on the counter. The champagne won't smell to us, but it'll attract the flies like … er … flies. Keep it out for as long as you like -- surprisingly, it never looses potency. Just make sure to not look at the old champagne when you dump it down a (very empty) sink. It's enough to churn any strong stomach.



*rest his soul