Welcome Autumn, here is a wreath on Hobbit Day!

I have been ogling fall wreaths for many months now. In fact I've been waiting for Fall since Winter ended. Summer and I are not the closest of friends. I respect the boundaries that lie between us.

But Fall? Oh there is nothing better than a crisp fall day when you can wear a nice wooly sweater, knee-high boots and a soft scarf — throw in some delicious warm drink and you have the makings for My Own Private Ideal.

And now that we have this very pretty door I wanted to make a wreath for it.

I spent more than a few work days idly Pinning. There are some GORGEOUS. wreaths out there! I was drawn to the simple wreaths, ones that had flowers and leaves etc but they didn't "explode". I think it would too much with our front door.

A few really jumped out at me.

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I was particularly drawn to the fabric wreaths. Perhaps it's because I don't often work with the stuff; I'm not a terribly good seamstress, I'm still attempting to learn to knit...

The yarn wrapping was rather long, two hours or so. I watched "Mystery" on PBS which was nice. (It was not, regrettably, a Miss Marple episode though.)

 

You can tell I was highly influenced by The Spotted Fox's wreath but I also wanted to make it my own. In the end I went with 3/4 orange and 1/4 maroon. As I started wrapping the maroon I realized I was doing Virginia Tech colors. Our former roommate just moved down there to get his PhD so DH thinks it was a sub-conscious choice. Granted, he thought that I chose Orioles, Ravens and Redskins colors, too. 

But then I hot a tough choice: what to use as accents. Felt flowers or leaves? Both? Branches? I love trees and our bedroom is full of tree branches and images so maybe this one time I'll skip them. Okay, but that still leaves a tough call about flowers and leaves. On one hand, leaves are much more iconically autumnal with flowers denoting more spring feelings. Then again felt flowers are SO cool looking. I mean, just look at these:

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They are just stunning! I didn't have any beautiful buttons but a few nifty thrift store earrings could go nicely...

But, just as I settled on flowers (DH thought leaves were better until he saw above, for what its worth) the internet showed me some gorgeous felt leaves. 

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And another by this very talented lady!

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In the end I decided to do both. I have a few flowers and a few leaves. I used a pattern from Martha (I know, I know) for the maple and oak leaves but the other two I cut on a whim. I was very much inspired by the delicate stitching work on the leaves above and perhaps one day I will get there, but today it looks like this:

 

I went a simpler route for the flowers as well, and only did rosettes. I think the Make And Do Girl pattern is for later this week, perhaps I'll make a hair clip or a hat pin! I double checked the rosette with a tutorial because the last time I made flowers was last autumn for Dia De Los Muertos when I made a bunch of carnations out of tissue paper. I have big plans for this year's Offrenda, which was such a good way to express my grief over Dad, but that's for another day. Anywho, thanks to The Crafted Sparrow's tutorial I was on my way. 

And before I knew it, I had a new autumn wreath to hang on my door!

Or at least to on this gorgeous bit outside my bookstore, hehe. It's a very simple wreath but that's what I like about it. But don't be surprised if I keep adding on to it as fall continues.

And it's ready for our party tonight! It's Hobbit Day after all, so we decided to throw a Hobbitous Housewaming! So this afternoon is going to be full of cleaning, project finishing and then lots of merriment with our lovely friends. 

Happy Hobbit Day! Merry Mabon!

"Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile"

— Shakespeare's Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I Scene i, Spoken by Berowne
 
Remember that terrible chandelier hanging from our middle room? The scourge of the 70s-80s? The blinding glass shame? The fixture that would be great if I were hosting a reenactment of Empty Nest.

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Okay, actually that sounds like a really fun party plan, I might do it. Regardless, it felt like cocaine had been snorted off of every prism or we needed a vinyl tablecloth and get fabric striped wallpaper.

Let's revisit our poor chum.

If you looked straight into it, it was like looking into the heart of the TARDIS which we all know messes with your head and can be really bad for any resident Daleks.

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For months I pinned ideas and fantasized about the lighting in my dining room/library. This is the room that houses my favorite pieces; all of my bookcases, the mid-century dining table that belonged to my grandmother, and the Jon Hamm bar all live in there!

And then one day, the husband and I had a rough weekend financially. Sometimes these things happen, a check gets deposited three weeks late, and then another and then another. Which, yes, was poor planning on our part but that's a whole different kind of tale. The point is, it was a few days until payday so two poor newlyweds would not be embarking on any kind of expensive DIY. But I needed to do something productive, anything to pull myself out of the cavern of self-loathing.

I tried my first idea, a Chinese lantern. A plain old, white round lantern. There are no photos of these attempts, by the by, because they failed pretty spectacularly. I removed all the of the glass prisms, all 16 of them and then attempted to shimmy the lantern around. The skeleton of this light fixture is to spokes of rods which are just the right length to tear a whole through the paper of a lantern. Sigh. I pretty much knew that would happen, but I was trying to prove a glass half-full hope. So, into the recycling with the torn up lantern.

The fixture is wired in such a way that it would take a hell of a lot to remove it from the ceiling, if you're wondering why that never happened. The joys of home renter-ship.

The poor husband heard me curse for awhile and tried to watch the MLB network around it.

Then I decided to put all of the prisms back on, which has to be done in a methodical way or else it leans precariously to one side, scary! Then I pulled out a roll of drawing paper. I tried to circumnavigate the  fixture. This also resulted in many curses and a few wobbly moments on the step-ladder. Enter husband, Dining Room Left. We fought with the paper, trying to get a sense of the length it would take to enshrine it. I thought to myself, I will draw things on the paper and it will shine through like stained glass! But the paper ripped, again and again. And the foul language continued. I decided to go back to organizing our books into LCC as a distraction. I must do something! I muttered through gritted teeth.

I happened across a tattered copy of Romeo & Juliet. To be honest I'm not sure to whom it belonged, he or I. Because I have a gorgeous complete works tome that I treasure I was about to toss the paperback into the pile to go to The Book Thing (a decidedly small assemblage as you can imagine). As I handled it I realized it was a rather narrow book, compared to it's height, not unlike the blasted prisms from the chandelier. 

The lightbulb in my brain went off (har har). I reached up and grabbed on of the prisms. The page was just a little short, but not unappealingly so. If they were all at the same length, it might even look purposeful. I began to run around the house for supplies. Poor DH had no idea what was going on as roadrunner careened up and down the staircase. 

My collection of materials was slight, a utility knife and a smaller calligraphy pen. I do not have a single hole punch, which might seem like the way to go, but even if I did I fear the holes would be too large.

I began by removing as many pages from the binding as I needed. The book was, as I said, pretty beat up so holding it flat open was easy. The point of the knife I pushed into the glued binding and a nice steady straight cut. Boom! Freed pages. 

When I experimented with the first page I wanted to make sure I was comfortable with the hole being a in an easy place to replicate. I went with the first line of text, beneath the Running Head. So I skewered as many pages as need and hung them with care. 

Because I left the drops on the paper is safe isn't a fire hazard (I'm pretty neurotic as it is, the last thing I need is The Towering Inferno in my dining room).

Et, voila!

 

 

Total price of project: $0
Duration: 10 minutes (maybe)

We are having our housewarming party this weekend (A Hobbitous Housewarming) so I can unveil it to my friends and family, yipee!

I suppose I could have used a quote from R&J  to title this, but everyone already knows that one so where is the fun? I might end up using different pages, books, authors, etcetera but I'm loathe to tear apart another book.

Speaking of the play, DH ended up doing an interactive version of it at the Renaissance Festival this year. If he's good I will only upload it to Facebook...

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

We have signed the lease and received the keys! So we immediately went back over to the new place. And there was a bit of "oh, yeah, that's not so great. Oh, I forgot about that..." Luckily I immediately countered my Eeyore mentality with "so many awesome projects!"

I think the best "Oh dear, what have we done?" was after the discovery of two Exit signs on the main floor. I can only guess the building was once used for some kind of commerce or office space. Tricky but I've already got some ideas swirling around my brain. One of the best things about being the child of an artist and a programmer is that I can visualize all kinds of strange ideas. I occasionally can explain them well to the poor husband but I suspect that I sound like a lunatic most of the time. 

But the foremost "Oh this has got to go" is the super 80s chandelier dangling from the middle of my dining room. If we owned the place I would yank it but such is the life of a renter.

This house is so fire-safe it's not funny. Two exit signs and posted fire extinguishers in each floor.
I like the latter.

Yeah, that's right it has two layers of glass elongated octagon drops — in two sizes!There is an awkward sunburst pattern on each drop. Some part of me wants to incorporate some amazing 80s room but that would involve a whole lot of pastels and I don't even like pink!

My first idea was to get a spherical paper lantern to go around it. That way it would continue to shed light and hide all of the glass action. But that would hide — it's only redeeming feature —  the cool pattern that hits the ceiling. So, back to the drawing board. 

The drawing board that is various strangers' Pinterest boards, at least. There are so many cool ideas out there! What I'm leaning toward the most is a variation of two DIY projects:

Burlap & Plexiglass Pendant
This comes from The Keylor Family

Chicken Wire & Fabric Pendant
This is from Neal

The Keylor Pendant is lovely and clean. I will use their plexiglass and hoops to my advantage. The Neal pendant has that awesome fabric element that I like. Also, Neal's is open at the top so it allows more light and I can still get my pattern on the ceiling. (When I'm feeling really optimistic it reminds me of looking up through a tree canopy).

Photo courtesy of the Maryland DNR