Doily Wreath

This is a fun summer project to get you prepped for the holidays or to simply use as an accent for the perfect decor!  I can envision this with red, white and blue accents for the July fouth celebration as well. They emulate a firework display with the lights!  A beautiful  white paper doily wreath highlighted with holiday lights.  It has the holiday appeal of snowflakes, fireworks or soft elegance!

What you will need:
24-inch wreath form
30-inch wreath form
24-gauge wire
White spray paint
20-foot strand of white holiday lights in a white theme strand
Scissors

Paper bouquet holders (try ten 8.8-inch ones, twenty 6.4-inch ones, twenty 4.8-inch ones, and fifty 3.2-inch ones

Directions:

Step 1
Working on a covered surface, lay a 24-inch wreath form inside a 30-inch one. Attach them with 24-gauge wire at 6 to 8 evenly spaced points.

Step 2
In a ventilated area, coat combined wreath form with white spray paint. Let dry.

Step 3
Wrap wreath in zig zag form with a 20-foot strand of white holiday lights (test lights beforehand), leaving the plug end unwrapped (as much as is needed to plug in).

Step 4
With scissors, widen the center-hole slits slightly in paper bouquet holders (we used 10 8.8-inch ones, 20 6.4-inch ones, 20 4.8-inch ones, and 50 3.2-inch ones). Poke a finger through center hole of each bouquet holder (from front to back) to create openings large enough to accommodate a light bulb.

Step 5

Beginning with largest ones, place bouquet holders evenly around wreath, slipping a light through each hole so that bulb bases, not bulbs, rest against paper. (From time to time, hang wreath, and step back to ensure that the arrangement is balanced and attractive.)

Step 6
Add remaining bouquet holders in descending size order. Use smallest bouquet holders to cover centers of larger ones and to fill in any gaps. Hang near an outlet. Unplug when unattended.

Thief in the house

For some reason, this cracks me up... 

Conjoined Twins "Abby and Brittany"

My daughter certainly keeps a smile on my face.  I stumbled onto this article on Yahoo and read it to Jenna. I was discussing with Jenna how challenging this would be to live a lifestyle like this and asked her if she could imagine the challenges. She made me bust a gut with her reply..... she said "Well mom, it's a good thing they are sisters!"  I said "I agree!"

Color to black and white...

Here is a cute little story about Jenna…

We were at the Octoberfest celebration in downtown Appleton and Jenna wanted to get a carmel apple.  So I purchased one for her, and my sister Shelly suggested that since she brought along the picnic blanket, we could walk down to the end of the block and sit on the grass in front of the Lawrence University park, and take a break from walking.  Once we got there and got situated on the blanket, I was taking in all the incredible fall colors on the trees and watching the huge amounts of people walking by up and down the street.  It was a crisp, bright and sunny fall day.  Along the street, next to the park, there are old historic buildings with lots of character and detail.  Across the street is the Houdini museum, so my mind started to wander with thoughts of his time era and what the scenery would look like with people from that time period or even of an earlier time period, with horse and buggy.  I tried to paint a picture of it with my sister and Jenna,  discussing how everything would pretty much be the same for buildings but there would maybe be women in long heavy dresses, maybe most of the men with hats, maybe horse and buggies traveling by etc, etc.  I said to both of them, try to picture yourself sitting in that period of time and seeing all of these people in that attire with these buildings surrounding us.  Jenna pipes up in her authoritative voice and says "yeah, but mom, you're forgetting to add that it would ALL be in black and white."    Priceless, Shelly and I rolled around laughing our butts off with that remark.

Cheerful sunflower floral wreath

And also, anytime she created caffeine for him, she set some salt in the caffeine, as she knew that's the method he preferred it. After 40 years, he passed away, left her a note which said:" My dearest, make sure you forgive me, forgive my whole life lie. It was the only rest I told you---the salty espresso. Be aware of the first time we dated? I was very stressed in those days, actually I wanted a few sugar, but I said salt it had been hard to me to change and so I simply went forward. I never considered that could be the begin of our interaction!

Good guy... jerk?

This cracks me up as well...

An "ah ha" moment

I love this thought...