The Domino Effect

 

 

Earlier this month, I posted a cloche vignette in the great room that used some light colored, over-sized dominoes. You can see that post here.  When I re-arranged the room after taking down the Christmas decoration, I cleaned the horribly dusty and fingerprint covered glass tabletop on the cocktail table. Now, that is a chore in itself, since the glass weighs about 40 pounds!  The glass top never got placed back onto the table base because I could never pin down the husband to help me lift it. Finally, last week, it got done. Of course, the table stayed bare while I was waiting for some inspiration. Yesterday, it came to me that I needed to use another set of dominoes to help set a theme.

 

 

 

 

Wow, but the glass on this hurricane is cloudy! Nope, not dirty-  just inexpensive glass on a  hurricane from Target.   Anyway, I opened a box of black double dominoes costing a mere dollar from an estate sale and I use them as filler at the bottom of the hurricane. 

 

 

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Had to find something that wasn’t made out of glass so I used this beat up 50¢ tray.There are plans to paint it, but for now it will stay “used” looking. Then out from storage came one of the antlers, a miniature silver bowl filled with some shoe lasts, and a very tarnished urn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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These child size shoe lasts are just so sweet.  I found them at McMaster and Storm’s fall sale where I met Jill. She sold me these lasts and an extra large wooden spindle from her booth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This very badly tarnished urn was another frugal find back in the fall. I believe it came from an estate sale. I attempted a clean-up job, but the finish is pretty well worn and it didn’t shine up very much. I’ll have to try again with another cleaner and then follow it up with a good polish.

 

 

 

 

 

The terrarium holds a layer of sheet moss, a fern that I am astonished is still alive, glass ice cubes, snowflake tree ornaments, and a white penguin. Is there such a thing as a white penguin? I’ve only seen the black and white ones in the zoo. 

 

 

 

Realistic looking glass ice cubes…

 

 

 

 

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Hello, Mr. Penguin!

 

 

 

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Christmas ornament snowflakes…

 

 

 

 

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Well, the sun came out this morning, but it is so cold out and there’s a chill in the air because of the humidity. The Weather Channel says to expect some intermittent snow or rain showers throughout the day, but in Ohio, you never can rely on a forecast. Heck, I’ll be happy if it reaches 40º today!  Sure do wish I was someplace warm!

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Check out the new Linky Tools Follower sign-up on my sidebar. It’s a great alternative to Google Friend Connect, which is going away for non-Blogger platform blogs as of March 1.   You can read more about it if you go to my latest post on it. 

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Blog List Gadget Issue

I am cursing Blogger again today! I inadvertently deleted the blog list on my sidebar and can’t add it back in with all of my subscription and GFC lists. I noticed the problem last week when I wanted to manually add in some new subscriptions. In addition, I’ve noticed that when I follow someone through GFC, that blog’s name is not automatically placed into my blog list on my sidebar. I have to manually add it into the blog list.

When I pull up the “add a gadget” then “blog list” on my layout page, I’m unable to add in any blog names by choosing the “all” feature on the “blogs I follow” list or the “subscription” list.  Today, I was actually able to add some in, most of them one by one, instead of the “all” option.  Now THAT was time consuming! But I had to stop trying when the “Saving…”  tab came on and just hung there. For minutes, for hours….. 

The “saving” button just hangs there, never processing on the widget.

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 Do you see how the “Saving…” button is highlighted? Well, that should disappear once all of the blog names I want to save is complete. The problem is that it never saves, period! Which means that there are still a lot of blog friends whose names haven’t been added to my blog list!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far, I’ve been able to  add in 168 blog names one by one using the blog address, but I couldn’t go any farther.  I guess I was lucky to have achieved this number, since I tried multiple times throughout yesterday to solve the problem. Heck, the “saving” procedure even went on all overnight, with no end result! 

Has anyone of you had this problem before? I posted the problem on the Blogger forum, but haven’t received any comments suggesting a solution.  I want to have my complete blog list on the widget and not leave anyone out.  So if you don’t see your name, I haven’t deleted you- I’m just in limbo. You’re still on my Google Reader and on my Dashboard, just not on the widget list.  Any help would be appreciated.

Ice, Ice, Baby….

 

It was bitter cold today, as a result of an ice storm we had overnight. While surrounding areas got dumped on with snow, we only had a light dusting here in the southern suburbs of town. Early this morning, even though it was still quite dark, I could see that there was a thick ice layer on the driveway, street, and sidewalk. After daylight made its appearance and I saw the icy glimmer on the trees and bushes, I was inspired to put together this winter tabletop for the dining room. It is a very simple and frugal vignette~  I had everything on hand except for the newly purchased glass icicles, which were only $3 apiece.

 

 

I filled an ordinary apothecary jar with a batch of my faux snow, added in a few pinecones from the tree out in the front yard, then carefully laid in the icicles. I centered the jar in the middle of one of the boxwood wreaths that hung from the banister during the holidays. The greenery added just the right touch of color to the wood tones of the table and the pinecones.

 

 

 

 

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I placed some of the faux snow inside the petals of the pine cones, just like we’d see them if they were laying on the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The glass icicles glisten, just as the created snow does. Doesn’t it look real?

 

 

 

 

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I laid the jar lid off to the side because the jar was starting to fog up. The faux snow is very saturated and the condensation kept building up. The one advantage to having the jar covered is that the snow won’t dry up quite as fast.  It should last several weeks without adding any more water to it.

 

 

 

 

 

Even the candle holder off to the side of the wreath is ice inspired. These ice balls are the perfect size for tea light candles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I signed on to Picnik to create a collage with my photos this afternoon, but I discovered that I couldn’t use the collage feature. update on 1/22:  There must have been some sort of a glitch, because I tried it again about midnight and that option showed up!  So I put together a simple slide show instead, using some of the photos from the collage above, which was created in Photoscape.

I had heard rumors that Picnik was not going to be around much longer and I received an e-mail this morning that it will be gone as of the middle of April. I’ll miss its features, but I think it is generous of the company to be refunding us premium members our entire yearly membership fees. There really are some “good guys” out there!

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"Winter Ice Picnik Show"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

 

To see this show in full screen, click on the link, “Winter Ice Picnik Show,” at the bottom left of the slideshow. Mouse over the bottom of the screen, there is  a slide bar where you can pause the photos. For some reason, they seem clearer than the ones I’ve posted above. 

 

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