Facebook is Awesome

There's so much good in FB.  Yes, it has it's dark side, but during the past year I've been focusing on the light stuff and it's been a wonderful experience.

In our last flood, we lost many Christmas ornaments including photos, the kind you hang on the tree.  So I was thrilled when this missing picture showed up on my daughter's FB feed as I couldn't find it on my PC.  She was able to identify the year instantly, and in a click I had the complete ornament set.  It also sparked memories and conversation around how they were goofing around as I tried to take that annual photo.  

FB provides a place for my family and friends to stay connected, and although it's not a replacement for 3D time, it's become a regular prompt for discussion--most great, a few not.  I've picked up a few lessons-learned tips to keep it all good:

1. Don't share personal info. This includes your full name, address, phone number, primary email (use a spam dedicated account), school/work and important, your birthday.  Why/because you create a googleable presence that brings you up quickly online and there's enough 20/20 footage to remind us why this is not a good thing.  I use my Dad's birthday as it's a few days before mine, it's easy to remember and I'm a ham for birthday wishes.  And don't tag people in photos--they really don't like it when their named picture is all over the web, and think about setting your privacy to disallow your name being tagged as well. Get familiar with those privacy settings so you can control what's "out there" about you.  And that cute Messenger app thing?  You give away your Contact info in order to use it, which is like handing your personal address book to a stranger.
2. Don't share politics.  Being guilty of this myself, I made an effort to stop, because frankly, nobody gives a damn.  (This excludes Trump memes which are lol--why/because it's my blog/page and I said so.)
3. Don't slam people on their own page.  You wouldn't/shouldn't walk into someone's house and tell them it smells like butt--you'd leave unless you like that sort of thing.  So if you don't agree, move on.  
4. Don't posts links to fake news, copy/paste posts that cure cancer/disease/animal cruelty, tag me, etc. It's so easy to fact check before you speak.  And although it may feel righteous, correcting those who do this gets old.  Recipes are pretty safe and provide little fuel to online blazes. 
5. But DO enjoy the benefits of FB!  See what your kids are into (it's how I found out my little darling was ______.) Continue friendships with folks not in your everyday life.  Create a business page and shamelessly plug www.carasmiths.com .  Follow the Grateful Dead--still.

Have fun and be safe.

Christmas Tree skirt hack

For all you doily horders

Barn Wood Walls In a Weekend?

DIY reclaimed wood walls are lining up everywhere, from bistros to bedrooms. Upcycled planks from old barns, school houses, crates and pallets make for a charming focal point or backdrop. Those TV Home Shows make these projects seem like a giant jigsaw puzzle that you can assemble in a weekend... maybe, but a lot more goes into scaling the wall. Armed with some planning basics and know-how, you too can get this look for a fraction of the cost of paying a contractor.

TOOLS AND SUPPLIES:  Quality reclaimed wood, cleaning supplies: borax, dish detergent, watering hose or power washer, insecticide, table saw (optional), measuring tape/ruler, pencil, drill, nails (length dependent on supporting backboard), hammer. Working space to spread out plus some patience!

WOOD SELECTION
The days of driving down a country road and happening upon a barn awaiting disassembly are few and far between, but by all means, ask the owner's permission to do some thrifty scrapping if you are lucky enough to find one.  

Often professional pickers recycle these sites quickly for resale. So when shopping for reclaimed wood, ask questions. A reputable reseller should be able to provide you with your wood's humble beginnings vs. a previous life as a chemical stack pallet. Our supply came from a recycler outside of Philadelphia and cost about $100 for what they called a "scrap pack" comprised of long wall and flooring odds and ends. Also be careful when selecting colors: that charming, chippy red paint may contain lead. Portable test kits can swab for lead presence. Your best bet is to select solid unpainted planks with richly aged natural wood tones as you can enhance the colors with paint before or after you install your wood wall.

WOOD PREPARATION
Skip this step and you can literally trash your project. Those charming knot holes in your wood might be bug condos, so each board needs to be thoroughly cleaned. There are many recommendations online regarding how to go about this, but here's the steps we used: 
1) On a sunny day, lay out all the wood on a hard-scaped location (like a driveway) and hose both sides--if you power wash, just be careful and start on the lowest setting so you don't strip your aged wood's patina. 
2) To remove mold, mildew and general dirt, mix a cup of borax powder (laundry--the 20 mule stuff) and a bit of dish detergent into a full bucket of warm water.  Although we are not experts, borax is supposed to permanently draw out any crawling squatters from the wood, although a professional exterminator laughed at this...but at the very least it will help get it clean. 
3) With a long handled brush, scrub both sides well, hose and allow to dry completely. 

If you're not ready to use the wood immediately, it's important to store it in a dry area.  We didn't, which takes us to the final prep step:  insect removal.  We stacked our wood after cleaning it, but it did get a bit damp before we got to using it. Covered and still looking clean, we skipped spraying for bugs only to frantically rip down our first nailed board as the ants went marching. You are hunting termites and ants at a minimum, so read the insecticide label of your chosen product.  We sprayed each board, both sides, and once again allowed them to completely dry in the sun and kept them outside for a few days. (Ideally, if you purchased reclaimed wood, it's already been kiln dried which removes pests, but we errored on vigilance.) 

Get passed this point, you are on your way to a very stylin' wall!

CUTS
Safety first:  glasses, masks and gloves. Get some basic wall measurements down on paper to guide the lengths of your board cuts. As you can see in the blank wall photo, our dimensions were pretty consistent. When planning your design, you may choose an irregular, random pattern--great if you want an organic chunky wood wall look, and it doesn't necessarily require a lot of trimming.

If you want a more linear matchy look--we did, as our wood had many irregularities plus broken tongue and groove, then you'll want to square up each piece.  This way all the edges butt up tight against each other on the wall. Examine your wood and be careful to remove any hidden nails embedded in your boards before trimming.  We used a table saw to plane, creating straight horizontal and vertical edges. Also, save some time by planing your project's entire wood supply, as well as sorting your boards into piles of like sizes.

 

PLACEMENT
We had a drawing, and knew exactly which boards would go where.  It was even color coded. All that went right out the window after the placement of the first board. The wood decided for us where it would go on the wall, and here's a few things to be mindful of:  

• Know your frame.  Our wall is hollow, had an existing mantle and fireplace with two studs running up the middle and one on each side, so four studs total.  We measured and used those studs for support and created a 4 hole template out of scrap wood...why? (and they don't tell you this on TV)... aged barn wood is notoriously brittle. By predrilling holes into the wood before hammering them into the wall, you gain the advantage of accurate and secure nail placement without splitting your boards.
• If you're using a more solid substrate backdrop (such as cinder block) you'll need to align furring strips in order to create grip for your nailed boards. Again, create a template--a simple guide that helps mark hole placement for your boards, which will save time and expletives.  

  

  Create a template to mark and predrill holes

• A tip on nails:  To create a rustic look, paint the heads black or bronze. We wanted the look of antique cut nails until we priced them.  So one night, black permanent marker in hand plus a glass or three of wine, I painted the heads of ~600 nails while watching Scandal.  Instant vintage, gladiators!

We then started arranging and nailing the boards on the wall, one row at time, being mindful of electrical or other buried wall lines. Our placement for each board was guided by the random look we wanted which actually needed some thought to accomplish.  We kept the boards horizontal for each row as well as the same height, but didn't worry about lengths, just making sure we had pleasing coverage without short, stubby ends.  For some rows we used one large board next to two stacked boards running horizontal.  No rules here, which led to a great outcome.

TOUCH-UP
You may have some gaps where your background substrate shows through--use some matching paint or, like we did, a marker to fill in those lines. We also decided that the edges would look good painted the same color as the wall, so if you have exposed ends, this is a quick solution to blend it all together.  We then used various shades of watered-down white and beige paint to dry brush some highlights on the darker wood. 

Start to finish, our reclaimed barn wood wall took about 4 full days:  1 to shop, 1 to clean, and 2 or so to install. Hopefully these real life steps will cut down on your time.  Enjoy!

Potless Melt

Pot melts are all the rage these days in fused glass studios and a plethora of shiny $tainless $teel tools have hit the market. Molds, frames, custom grids, fibers thick and thin...they're all out there for the experimental artist.  But if you're on a budget and want to use glass scraps as a cost effective medium, how about going potless?

Tools and Materials:

-Clean, unused, unglazed red clay plant saucer with no cracks

-Scrap kiln paper

-Scrap glass of many colors (be sure it's all the same COE!) 

-Frit (optional)

Instructions:

1.  Gather that good intentions scrap glass you've been saving.  Sort same COE colors into like piles. Not only will this utilize your expensive scraps, but you'll feel so good about cleaning it up!

2.  Overlap scrap kiln papers (note the theme here $$) and line the saucer--pretty doesn't matter.

3.  Layer glass into the saucer. Depending on how you plan to use your potless melt, reserve your "good" glass for the bottom and top layers.  Use frit or less attractive scraps in the middle layer as filler.  Orphan beads not meant for daylight make an excellent foreground, I save them just for this.

When you're happy with your design, full fuse with a slow cool down.  Sandblast or sand the paper residue off prior to using your potless melt in a mold, etc. Your saucer may break...you'll be out a $1.  But you'll get much more control of your final abstract design--all at the cost of running your kiln.  

Give it try and share your thoughts!

Saturday Night Beading

Love going online and seeing something I made gracing someone I appreciate!

Mark Karan of Grateful Dead bands Other Ones, Ratdog, photo by Alan Hess: http://alanhessphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Mark_karan-43.jpg