Setting Up Stones: August 2014

I guess for every 10 posts like this (which is so much of my life), I have to be positive and share a less defeating project.

Enter The Pendant Lights.

Step One: Order super cool, on-sale pendant lights just in time for Father's Day, since for the last 4 years your husband has been commenting on his desire for more light over the kitchen island.

Step Two: Let the lights sit in their boxes in the front entry for six weeks.

Step Three: Admit defeat when he pronounces his judgment that the clear glass "shade" (hung at eye-level) does nothing to shield one's eyeballs from the increased wattage emitted from even a frosted bulb.

Step Four: Scheme about ways to cover the shade with patterned paper, paint, or some other pinteresty thing.

Step Five: Again admit defeat when your husband comes up with The World's Most Boring Idea Ever: this product from the hardware store.

Step Six: Let the pendants, along with the can of frosting spray, sit on the counter collecting dust for three more weeks.

Step Seven: Send your husband and two oldest kids on a six-day vacation with his dad's extended family on the other side of the country. The day they leave, invite an extra three-year-old and five-year-old to come play with your three-year-old and five-year-old. While they are happily busy doing this

and this,

break out the painter's tape and newspaper to cover the wooden part of the pendants. I mean, assuming you don't want frosted wood to match your frosted glass.

Step Eight: After taping one-third of one pendant light, waste an hour (give or take) skimming pinterest for frosted glass inspiration. Find nothing interesting that doesn't use a stencil of some sort. Lament the absence of a wild, yet graceful, tree branch stencil at your disposal.

Step Nine: Make popcorn for the kids, who are now watching a movie.

Step Ten: Double-check that there aren't any fabulous ideas out there on the interwebs, you know, because hey, it would be hard to get this painter's tape straight using only one hand (the other hand is shoveling popcorn to your mouth, of course).

Step Eleven: Get down to business. Tape off the wood. Practice on a little jar. Spray the pendants. Scratch the design using a tool designed for any purpose but this.