Party Time: DIY Surprise Lantern

Another Party Time post here, if you missed the first one, you can find it here.  I came across such a great tutorial for a surprise lantern, I knew I had to share it ASAP.   I was actually browsing different uses for paper rice lanterns, when this beauty caught my eye:

At first I thought, "oh that's neat, some tissue paper fringe" but that quickly became "hey wait a minute!"

 

 YEP! That's confetti! How fun! When I was growing up, there was this graduation party we were throwing, and I was racking my brain for a way to have confetti "bombs" around.  Of course I had yet to discover paper lanterns, maybe things would have been different! This is such a great idea, and it comes from the wonderful party planner over at Oh Happy Day.

 This is something that you could easily tackle, and add a lot of fun & a huge mess to a party. What's a party without a huge mess, right?  They are reusable too! Head over to the tutorial to see the clever "plug" design.  The only thing I can think to add to the tutorial, is to make sure you hang it from a fairly sturdy hook, so only the plug pulls and not the entire ball.  The house I live in is pretty old, and I swear the walls are made out of brittle chalk. It's a real challenge to keep a hook in the ceiling!

When I first saw them I assumed they were being used as a light, which would be a really cool variation on these. Minus the confetti of course, that's probably a crazy fire hazard! But a rice lamp with a great fringe on the outside and a light on the inside would look fantastic. Even a white ball, with white fringe, and a colored light bulb would give almost a fur look.  The rice paper ball certainly has a lot of uses!

Alright party people, let's get to work on these - it's Party Time!

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DIY: Braided Extrension Cords

Extension cords, lamp cords, speaker wires....ugh!  Cords are the #1 eyesore and prove to be the most difficult to conceal.  But you know what? What if we just stop trying to hide them, and just make them attractive?  There are a lot of great ideas out there to get this job done.  Especially for situations where you can't hide the cord at ALL because it's holding a lamp from the ceiling.   In the past, chains have always done a decent job of blending cords in, as have home-made fabric covers like this one from A Cup of Glee:

In my home, I often cluster hanging lamps together in groups of 3. Which has tripled my cord problem! Thus far, simply braiding the cords has been my method of tackling them.  I like how it comes out, especially the simple white hemma cord sets from ikea:

But my new favorite, and the DIY for today, is this awesome yarn wrapped & braided extension cord tutorial from Design*Sponge (of-course!):

Sooo awesome! This turns ugly cords into large, attractive - centerpieces almost.  Definitely a focal point and conversation starter, and depending on your colors can be a great accent in a room.  The tutorial on design sponge is for an extension cord, and you'll notice there are female ends at both sides.  I asked why, and she said she needed a splitter at the wall, where it plugs in. Genius! This way when you need power in the room, just pull out this beautiful cord.  It would also look great coiled up under a shelf when not in use. In my opinion, the color combo above, pink, red & orange, would go great in any room!

Surprisingly few materials are needed on this one, the biggest one being time! Head over to design sponge for the full tutorial, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, inspired, and hopefully think about your cordage in a whole new light. I can't wait to try this one myself. Enjoy!

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Featured on: Design*Sponge

I'm so excited! Kate over at Design Sponge saw my ombre chair and wanted to feature the full tutorial I did for The Divine Minimalist.  It's part of Design Sponge's DIY Wednesday, and I couldn't be more happy. So far the people who have tried the fade job says it really IS fun - I'm glad I'm not the only one that enjoyed it!  If you are looking for a rewarding project, try this out. Head over to Design Sponge to see the full post.  Have a great one!

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Pinterst Picks: Rainy Day

So I'm supposed to be mopping the kitchen right now, but that is so boring and the computer was staring at me from across the room - as usual.  And I thought, "lemme just hop on pinterest real quick.." which turned into a quick post session.  And why not, it's a rainy day!  Which inspired the theme of my search, and I found some great stuff! So here they are, in no particular order - and notice how this time around, I've learned to embed! They say you learn something every day, so I guess I've met my quota... :)
Look who's on first, a rainy day mobil!

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Precious lil thang. Sadly, the original pin didn't include the exact link, but I felt like going the extra mile today and finding the original post. Anything to avoid that mop for my readers! Here she is. Oh, and by the way, links to the pin are under each photo, so click that pic, if you think it's "sick". Oh man, I'm full of it today! HA! P.S. "sick" is supposedly some slang term that actually means "good" or "cool", but you all probably knew that already because you're hipper than I. Or is it me, hipper than me?

Next up - a chandelier that threw me right back into my childhood, hanging out at Grandmas.  She had one of these teardrop chandeliers and I adored it. I still do actually.

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Delightful, huh? Agreed. Moving on, I don't have all day here! (Ok, maybe I do) Let's move onto rainy day wall art.  Look at these cute wall decals, I can think of several places in my house that these would be more than welcome...

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Nice.. and look at this 3-D rainy day wall art...what's cookin, good lookin!

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I think that's my favorite, I'm a sucker for 3-D wall art. Can't get enough. Especially this two direction theme here.  Raining into puddles, evaporating into clouds. That's how it's done! Here's one more wall treatment:

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That's a rainy day theme you could do.... say.. on a rainy day. Jeez, where'd they get those towels? Send a link if you please.... OK - I think that's enough for one day, this house isn't gonna clean itself.

Eh one more:

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That was worth it! Can you believe that? The color attracted me to that post, first and foremost,but then on closer inspection I saw the crazy gutter work here.  This place plays music once it starts raining!  That is probably a love it or hate it situation, but either way it's impressive. I wonder if the wall takes requests...

Alright, well if the weather is better in your neck of the woods then I wish you the best! For those of us in the rain, set up that crock pot and redecorate your house.  Enjoy it, woot!

-Jesse

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Party Time: DIY Decor

Spring has sprung, officially.  This week has been cold and rainy here, and I can't help but think forward to all the summer parties and bbq's ahead!  I love a good party, we all do - but more so, I love to decorate for a good party!  Though after the food and beverages have been bought, there isn't always a lot of room left in the budget for the decorations, am I right?  Don't let that stop you though - you can still make your party sparkle with a few affordable supplies, a few internet searches, and a few good movies to pass the time.  While I won't bombard you with all the great ideas I've come across in one long post, I plan to post pretty regularly in a section I call: Party Time! Today's Party Time will be using one of my favorite (and cheap!) materials, paper!

Let's start with the increasingly popular tissue paper pom pom:

 

These are great!  They don't take you that long, they aren't that difficult, and they make a really great impression at a party.  Plus, tissue paper is so affordable and comes in so many colors!  You could hang just a few here and there, or go all out and have a swarm of them.  If you have multiple areas, try hanging odd numbers of them over each table or area.  I think odd numbers are fantastic.  Here is the tutorial on Martha Stewart's site.

Up next we have Paper Bunting:

I had seen these before and never knew it was called bunting.  "...They have a different word for everything." -Steve Martin!  Soon as I found that out, it opened up a whole new world of techniques to me.  The first few (rough) ones I had done, I used paper and a stapler - but tape, jeez! Why did I not think of that? Faster, easier, more attractive.  You could easily whip up a great set of bunting for your next bash, also at an extremely low cost.  Again, paper & string come in so many great colors that this theme is up to you.  I'm really into the Ombre thing lately (oh, you noticed?) so my next party will definitely have a fade! I found two great tutorials for bunting:

Delightfully Tacky 

and

Cap Classique

Last but not least for today, an old-y but a good-y, is the classic paper lantern.  Remember these from elementary school? I have used these time & time again for party decorations. Take a look:

 

These are such a good standby, and surprisingly few people know how to make them - so you're sure to impress.  Luckily, I found some wonderful tutorials on the interweb for ya.  In the above shot, a paper lantern is used around a glass vase to transform it into a table lantern - this one's new to me so I'm really excited to have found it.  What a clever little candle holder!   In the second we have the hanging lantern, but with a rounded edge, framing the divider of a room.  Using patterned paper is fun here too, or stringing the lanterns up like a garland.  I can't find a good example of that unfortunately, so I will just have to do a whole tutorial on that soon (oh darn!).  Here are the tutorials I've come across:
Design Sponge: DIY Wednesdays
and
Lucky Dylan Weddings

Don't forget these colorful mobiles I posted about before, the sewing machine technique is also extremely helpful & can be used with a wide variety of shapes.

What are you favorite party decoration ideas?  Send them in to me here so I can share them in a future segment of Party Time.  I set up a Party Time Pinterest board as well, click here.  Special thanks to these lovely blogs who have posted tutorials of their work, head over to their blogs and spread the love.  It's party time!

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