Things I've Learned
1. Store Christmas lights by rolling each strand into a ball, with the end that plugs in on the outside.
They don't get all tangled up, it's super easy to test them before you drag them outside to put them in a tree or shrub, and if you keep them wrapped in a ball as you beautify the trees and shrubs, it saves mucho work.
If you roll each strand individually, you can easily store 20-25 strands in a plastic tub. And did I mention that they don't get tangled? Because they don't.
2. It's ridiculous to pay $5-$6 for a bow for a wreath or whatever. All you need to make one is some wire and some ribbon.
Start by cutting a four to six-inch piece of wire. Set that aside and then pull some ribbon loose (you don't have to cut it yet). Make yourself a tail topped by a loop, pinching the ribbon in the middle.
Make another loop on the same side of your pinchy spot as the tail.
Keep making as many loops as you want, just make sure to cross from one side of your pinchy spot (totally a technical term, btw) to the other each time. When your done making loops, bring the uncut end of the ribbon back down to make your second tail.
Wrap the wire around your pinchy spot since you can't just keep your fingers there forever.
Cut your second tail so that both ends are even and then shape your loops so the whole mess looks like a pretty bow.
There's a good tutorial over here, given that my photos are pretty lousy.
3. Daylight Savings and winter darkness destroy my photographic joy. I need an external flash or a new camera body or all new lighting in my house like WOAH.
4. Sometimes weddings don't quite go as planned.
I mean, I don't know exactly what happened, but the bride doesn't look too thrilled.
The bridesmaid seems to have had a good time, though.
I just don't know about these two.
I mean, Ken lost his pants and Barbie, well, she's a bit disheveled.
I asked the Puppet Master what happened and all I heard was "bad girls" and "dungeon" and "naked" before my brain shut down and I decided it was better if I didn't know what had happened in my family room.
5. Kids are awesome. The end.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Reader Comments (9)
Great tips! I'll have to look into that balled up lights technique...they tend to tangle no matter what I've tried in the past.
You have some craziness going on in that family room there - I love the terms the puppetmaster threw out, though! :-)
We had a similar scene with Polly Pocket the other day. My head fell off and I stopped listening.
I once knew a guy who at the end of the holidays used to take EVERY effing light they used and put it back in those clippy thingy dohickeys they come in by the individual box and put them away. He swore that was the only way to stop them from getting tangled and would take days doing this. True story....
Your photo stories are the best. :) Also, I need to say how much I love the Christmas-Christmas-Christmas-Wild! Random! Barbie story! But you're right - kids are always the bestest and most awesome - even when they scare us with their crazy plotlines.
The lights idea seems perfectly simple. So simple that surely my husband has been doing this for years. But, since I KNOW my husband I will tell him about it anyway. : )
Looks like TMZ should have been reporting on the Barbie wedding that took place in your family room. Although are you even sure it was actually a wedding? Looks more like Lindsay Lohan got released from rehab.
I actually just saw a pretty nifty way to store Christmas lights... Wrap your lights around a magazine that's rolled up. Keeps the lights from getting tangled.
P.S. Your photos are far from lousy.
Phineas and Ferb makes me twitch. Hard.
My kid has been a slight jackwagon the last couple of days. Not impressed.
We had a similar scene last Christmas. It involved naked Barbies on the train that goes around (and around and around and....) the Christmas tree in our living room. Many naked Barbies.
I used to put my lights back in their original boxes (in the dohickeys as mindymin so eloquently described them) but I stopped a few years back. It absolutely kept them from getting tangled and they always seemed to work the next year as well. I had the same strands of lights for years (now I lose at least two per year). I stopped doing it when my son started "helping" me put things away after Christmas. It seemed my sanity can only take so much helpful chatter from my future member of "On-and-On Anon" child and wanted to get the task over as quickly as possible. I like the rolling thing though and as it seems that can't be too time consuming I will definitely try that this year. Love your bow tutorial as well.