Visiting Seattle

Almost all my family is, at one point in time, from the Seattle area.  I was born in Seattle, but moved away when I was just a baby.  Every year or two, we would go back and visit our family that was still living there.  Here are some photos of things that remind me of 25 years of visiting the Seattle area and are so quintessentially Northwest.

Hurricane Ridge

Purple Haze Lavender Farm 

Mt. Baker

Deception Pass

Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville, WA

 Hops growing at Red Hook Brewery 

And of course, Pike Place Market

Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia

Grouse Mountain, Vancouver, British Columbia

View of downtown Vancouver from the top of Grouse Mountain

Hanging String Ball Chandelier

I saw these on Ruffled and absolutely loved them.  This is a pretty simple project for a weekend and gets great results!!  The directions are on Ruffled's site and it pretty easy from there.  I used an oil spray instead of vaseline on the balloons.  Definitely put down something to cover the floors and surrounding areas, wear something that can get messy, and use something to hang the balloons from.  Once they had dried for at least 24 hours I used fishing line to hang them

This is the picture from Ruffled.  I love these chandelier balls outside hanging from a tree.  They show this as a wedding idea and I think it's beautiful, but it can also be used for everyday decorating.

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Here are some (iPhone) photos of when I made these.  I had an adjustable rod hanging above my cabinets from which I tied fishing line to the balloons.  I used black balloons so I could really see where the yarn laid down.  This is definitely a project for 2 people.  One person has to string the yarn through the glue and cornstarch mix and not let too much mixture remain on the yarn, while the other person has to wrap the yarn around the balloon, which can get slippery.  

I tried to use glue to lay down as much of the frizz and fly-aways you can see around the yarn (when this dries it can look messy).  

This is just a quick video of popping the balloons.  This part was fun!

Here are three almost finished products. These dried for around 24 hours until they felt completely hardened.  The balloon was popped and pulled out of the yarn ball.  You can use chop sticks or paper towel, carefully, clean out inside and around the webbing to remove excess.  

I bunched these by length and position and tied them up with fishing line.  I love how they almost float, and I love the positioning, especially when they spin.