Bling bling football

This is a craft idea that's been in process for a long time.  My ultimate vision is to make a disco ball out of a football.  I've tried to find a rigid plastic football, so I don't have to worry about inflation.  I couldn't find one, so I ended up buying a cheap inflatable football, which I spraypainted black.  As for the mirrored pieces, I couldn't find anything acceptable within my price range. The next best thing I could find was strips of bling.  I thought I might be able to glue the strips, 4 or 5 rows across, onto the football, but that didn't work so well either, so I cut the wide strips into thin strips.

Then came the hot glue.  This took a lot longer than I expected. 

I used a bamboo skewer to tap the bling into place.

I had to leave a small gap for the inflation hole.

Et voila!

Orbs for inspiration

My dishwasher has been on the fritz for a while. This means a lot of handwashing of dishes, as well as a lot of letting dishes pile up in the sink.  Since I end up spending a lot of time at the sink, and haven't quite figured out how to fix the dishwasher, I've decided the view out my window needs some arting up.  There's a photinia tree out there, and I've been trying to keep its undersides trimmed up.  I've also come into some steel strapping.  I had a vision to make these orbs and found the hardest part finding a way to drill through the steel.  I discovered that Mike's Merchandise had some hard metal bits, and those seem to do the trick.  I cut the strips to the size I wanted, and made orbs of a few different sizes, held together with pop rivets. One key is to clamp the pieces together and drill through both.   A little bit of spray paint in bright colors, and a little fishing line to hang them in an unobtrusive way, and now I have something pretty to look at while I wash dishes.

The view out my kitchen window.  You can't really see the orbs out there but they're there

Here they are, with my chickens. I use that pallet for a step ladder into the canopy.

Orange

Yellow-green

Green

A little oblong red one

And a big purple one

What to do with beach ball eyes? I'm sure to find many things

Here's one:  As you approach the front door, you see this. 

Follow the arrow, and you encounter this:

Here's lookin' at you!

Tree eyeballs

This is another project I've been trying to get together for a while.  I saw the idea on Pinterest and wanted to do my own.  While at Partay Citay a few months ago, I saw they had an array of beach balls, but none that were solid white.  So I invested in some white spray paint, and some black spray paint. 

I spray-painted them white on the day that I got them, and gave them a few coats to ensure good coverage. The original beach ball was black and white, and I entertained the idea of masking the black part and using that for the iris but then got lazy and decided to paint the whole thing white, then paint the irises on, and follow with the white dot highlight.  As far as I can tell, that white dot highlight doesn't have a name, and is another way in which cartoons are not like reality.  If you have a white dot on your actual eye, see a physician.  I cut the circles for the eyeball stencils from an old pizza box, and sprayed them on last night. 

Now I just need to find the right tree to give the gift of sight, and figure out how to keep them from spinning around in the breeze.  

That's my daughter demonstrating the perils of loosely anchored irises

I also had an idea to try and make a mouth of some kind and make a tree into a giant puppet, but that will have to come later....

Spraypainting things gold

A very satisfying pastime. Little plastic things look a lot fancier painted gold. I always think of Goldfinger when I'm doing it.