If I had some duct tape, I could fix that

So here's my dining room in its stripped down before holiday decorating state.

Now the reason that I'm showing you this is because I want you to see how low the chandelier hangs. Which is perfectly fine when there's a table directly under it, but not so fine when I move the table out from under it to make room for a second table during--say--a major holiday like Thanksgiving.  By 'not so fine' I mean that a person who is trying to set these two tables (me) will hit her head on said chandelier many, many times. (15. At least) Or, she will until she comes up with a brilliant, inspired plan that would bring MacGyver to tears.

First I got some extra large, heavy book rings like the big ones here:

Then I got my handyman (Drew) to climb up on a ladder to carry out my instructions.  I'd have climbed up on the ladder myself, but while my brain power might rival MacGyver's, my balance most certainly does not. Plus, I'm way better at the bossing around part than the actual doing part.

Anyway, I had Drew thread a book ring first through a link on the hanging chain and then through the fixture's loop. Then I had him repeat the process two more times just in case one of those little suckers decided to spring open in the middle of the dessert course. I made sure that he used the same link for all three rings so that if one did break, the force from the fall wouldn't spring the others open. Does that make sense? I also had him turn the openings to different points--one on top, one on bottom and one in the middle to distribute the tension or uh something. (Two semesters of Physics people) Now if one opened, it would be ok because the other two would hold it in place. And if all three decided to spring open--well then darn Newton and all of his stinkin' laws.

Voila!

And for the visually discriminating--note the difference in hanging height. No more bonked heads! And bonus, none of the rings opened or even cracked a nanometer in the 3 days they held the chandelier up to a head clearing height.

 And oh so much simpler than pulling out the pliers, prying those links open and then squeezing them closed again only to have to undo the process a few days later. Sometimes I just hate it when I'm right. But not today, folks. Not today.

Scatterbrained Anonymous (SA)

I must confess that at times I can be a bit--um--unfocused. My brain jumps from thing to thing, and I rarely ever do projects in a linear, sequential kind of order. Instead of starting and finishing one task I have several chores all in various stages of completion. As you can imagine this method has the potential to turn into mad chaos if I don't keep a tight handle on it. In the off chance that I am not the only one with such organizational problems, I'd like to offer a holiday gift wrangling tip for other members of SA--I mean surely I can't be the only one, right?

In the Mellon house, we have several different gift exchanges with  family and friends, and they all have different specifications as far as price goes. Since I tend to shop in an "Oh look at that, I bet Suzie Q would just love that, I think I'll get it" fashion rather than by a specific list or plan, it taxes my poor brain trying to keep track of who I've bought for and who I haven't. So here is what I do.

For every needed gift purchase, I commandeer a shopping bag that I label with the recipient's name and any $ limits or theme information. Then as I buy gifts in my preferred, randomized way, I just place them in the bag and record it on the handy attached slip. Observe:

And yes, sometimes I do accidentally buy something for someone who's bag is already full. This is the reason why I only buy people gifts that I would also enjoy receiving so that I can just keep it for myself when this occurs. Method. Madness. Impressed aren't you?

I practically gift wrapped it for you

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it's officially holiday shopping season people. And you know what that means right?

You're about to find yourself surrounded by enough freaking Styrofoam peanuts and packing tape to wrap around the equator 3 times and still have enough to encase your children in a 2 foot thick bubble of manufactured cushioning. I can't think of anything that I hate more than having to unpack my purchase from this tomb of containment. Hate it. Despise. Detest. Abhor. Yes, all of those.

Which brings me to my first Mellon's Holiday Tip: Do the annoying work for your gift recipients. Unless you're afraid that the person will think that you're giving them a regift or something you've just had lying around the house: Be Kind, Unwind--the object from all of this excessive packing. I know I would thank you profusely if my exposure to that white, crumbly stuff was decreased.  Assembling the gift will give you even more bonus points. However, since this is a very time consuming, labor intensive, bad-word spewing endeavor for me, I save it for only those on my list who have been uber-nice without even a touch of naughty.  So far, there's only one person who meets that criteria...me. Better luck next year folks.

Now that you've decided to spare your giftee the pain of dealing with the packaging nightmare attached to their gift, let's see how we can minimize your frustration, too.  Just because we're generous, it doesn't mean we have to be tortured any more than necessary. Your good karma still counts, trust me.

So we have Mellon's Holiday Tips #2: Try to keep as much of that miserable material in the box as possible.   Don't, I repeat do not, pull out the entire mess on to the floor unless you want your room to look like an overturned snow globe. Snip as much of the tape and other adhesivey nonsense off as you can while everything is still in the box. Try to free as much of the item from its clutches as you can. And that's where you'll need Mellon's Holiday Tip #3: Keep your scissors within easy reach. This as you are no doubt aware can prove difficult when parts, packing and pieces start flying everywhere. Luckily for you, I am here to offer a solution. First, cut a slit in the top flap or sturdy side of the box like so.

It will look like this:

Then open your scissors and wedge them into the slit so that the blade joint is resting against the end of the slit like so:

If your scissors aren't spring loaded like these, apply a little pressure so that the blades start to cut into the cardboard, but not enough to actually do so. And now you have scissors ready to grab as you need them. That they're handle side up to avoid any unintentional slicing of one's skin is just the bow on the box. Merry Christmas.

I am Mellon, and I just want to chop (clap) you up!

Lately it seems like all I've done here on the blog is babble on and on about myself, so I thought maybe I'd share a little random Mellon interior decorating tip today just to keep ya'll on your toes. Or rather, to give you a reason to come back and indulge my craziness a bit longer.

Anyway, I have a fairly nice sized family room, but it is oddly shaped with windows on two walls, a fireplace on one, two big openings, and only one uninterrupted wall. This can present furniture placement complications because

A) My husband insists that he have a direct visual line to the TV 

B) My kids have a plethora of toys and toy paraphernalia that needs to be housed somewhere

C) I want things to look as pleasing to the eye as possible given the constraints of A & B. 

So, to address problem B, I had gotten this lovely shelf from Pottery Barn. Before I show you the picture though, I want you to know that I had to go through a ton of photos trying to find one that had a decent view of this piece of furniture--a ton. Let's just say, I am not appreciating how Macs organize photos anymore than I am appreciating my lack of photo labeling skills. Grumbles were made, bad words were mumbled and at least one donut was consumed.  Now that you understand all of the sacrifice that went into finding this image, I feel you are ready at last to actually view it.

Functionally, this piece was perfect. It had lots of little cubbies for all of the little doodads and doohickeys that kids collect. Plus, it was aesthetically pleasing. The problem was that although it didn't take up a lot of floor space, I had to leave a wide margin of room in front of it so that my playful tots could get into those charming boxes and open those handy drawers on the bottom. This severely limited my seating options and decreased the amount of available romper room area. So, I had to come up with a new plan.

I knew that I needed to keep all of those cubbies, so I tried the shelf in several different locations in and around the family room. But none of the new placements really solved the problem while maintaining my needed 'prettiness factor'. So I pondered and planned some more, and here's where having a brain that functions a little outside the norm proved to be helpful rather than the deterrent it usually is. You see, I decided to chop that baby up. For reals. I took the top third off and turned it into this:

A lovely, little library for the wee folks. A couple of pillows, blankets and a stuffed friend or two and you have a cozy little reading nook for the under 3 foot crowd. Without the drawers to open, I could scoot my arm chairs back to free up valuable carpet area in the room. Brilliant if I do say so myself. At some point, I might look into adding some kind of feet to it. But not for awhile as I like the stability of it not having any legs to break since my two year old is a climbing monkey who engages in much jumping and bouncing. I'm hoping she'll grow out her death-defying ways in a year or so. Fingers crossed.

The bottom two thirds became this

 sofa table. Still contains the toy madness, but now also provides surface area for display purposes and drink holding. I was quite pleased. So the next time you're having trouble finding the perfect home for a piece of furniture, you might consider rearranging the piece itself, if rearranging the room has failed.  But just be careful if you're using power tools, we want to chop up the furniture, not ourselves. That's a funny one, ya.

Farm Birthday Party Games

Before I start on the meat of the post, there are two things I need to mention about this little informal poll:

1.  Initially I was shocked that no one admitted that she was only here for the pictures. But then I realized that anyone who was only here for the pictures wouldn't have read/participated in this little exercise anyway. 
2. No one wants to know about the food?? Is this because ya'll doubt my kitchen clout? I'm going to develop a complex here soon. I hope you're prepared for that, it won't be pretty. 

And now for the winning topic as voted on by 6 happy little mouse clickers: Games!!  I can hear the "Woohoo" echoing throughout the Internets, or maybe that's just the dog asking to go out? Either way, here we go.

Farm Animal Sort

  The first game of the day was the only one that ended up being outside. I had originally planned for all of the activities to take place in the yard, but Mother Nature decided to put the kibosh on that idea. I had found these cute rubber duckies that were disguised as other farm animals:

So my mom and I made a duck pond to put them in.

 The high end water feature is just a Rubbermaid plastic bin with a blue sheet laid in it and some cattails and a fern for a little added ambiance. Then I told the kids that they had to put those crazy animals who thought they were ducks back in the barn where they belong.

The barn is just an outdoor canopy tent thing that I used red plastic table clothes to make 3 walls and red crepe paper to make the front. White crepe paper made the Xs for that barn door aesthetic. Inside the barn, we made pens for the animals using yard flags, crepe paper, and mini-trellis things I got on clearance from AC Moore.

 The trellis had a picture of each animal so the kids knew where to place the duckies. I was originally going to use rope to make the pens, but I was afraid the littles might trip on it and fall. So I went with crepe paper so it would just break away if someone walked into it. For older kids you could probably use the rope. Or maybe even barbed wire depending on how rowdy they are. (kidding. unless i'm not)

I probably could have done this game inside too, but I spent a lot of time thinking, planning, gathering and assembling the barn, so by golly someone was going to go out there and play in it!  And I do believe the kids thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated all of my hard work.  In fact, I think I heard two of them discussing my mad skills. They probably would have stayed out there longer if all of the adults hadn't been there to drag them back inside to the air conditioning.

Explaining the game. I am a teacher, dontcha know. 

Strategizing our plan of attack by the pond. 

Round up those animals kids!

A job well done. High fives all around. Now get inside, it's hot yo!

One note, I had ~10 guests participating and 24 ducks. This was not enough. At all. I'd say you'd be good having about 5 per farmer. Maybe even 10 if the weather actually cooperates and people aren't rushing to get the game over fast so they can go back inside. 

Animal Noises: 

   The gist of this game is that each kid gets an animal card

and has to make the sound of the animal. It helps to review these sounds with the little ones. Again I'm a teacher, it's what I do. Then they're supposed to find other guests who are making the same sound. Originally this game was going to be outside and they were going to put themselves in their proper pen in the barn. Which would have gone really well I think. Unfortunately, we were inside in a circle on the floor. 

And the guests seemed a bit hesitant to get up and run around looking for their animal friends. But they did enjoy making noises. At least my son did.

So after one round, I abandoned that game in favor of 

Pass the Parcel

Jeanne says this is a very big game in her homeland of Ireland. It's kind of like musical chairs but with passing a package that has been wrapped several times around a circle instead of the whole find an open chair thing. Each time the music stops, the person holding the parcel unwraps one layer. Whoever unwraps the final time gets to keep the prize. MellonTip #1: Use different colored tissue paper for each layer. 

The kids really liked this one, though a few of the younger ones had a hard time relinquishing the parcel from their chubby little hands. I found a crowbar to be helpful when that happened.  We played 3 rounds. Afterwards, I had little animal figures for anyone that didn't get to win a prize. This kept everyone happy. Which brings me to MellonTip #2. Have all of your needed game materials handy in a central location. I use a basket: 

Piñata
 Self explanatory, but the pictures are fun so I had to share.

They hit it

and hit it

and hit it some more.

But that stubborn bovine had no intention of breaking open. So I had to take matters into my own hands. Finally that stingy cow gave up the goods--it may have involved me throwing the heifer down on the ground and going all Body Combat on it. I'm not sure as I kind of blacked out for minute or two there. The next thing I knew, there was candy all over the ground around me and the Holstein was in shreds at my feet.

The kids got their sweets so they were happy. That's the important thing here. Not my rage issues. Remember that.

Egg Gathering

I hid plastic eggs in shredded paper-filled baskets for the kids to find and then put in mini-egg cartons to be shipped off to the market. I'd planned to hide the eggs in hay in the barn, but I think this worked well too. The cow print plastic table clothes helped to contain the mess a bit.

This game was an independent activity in conjunction with the

Art Table

 Here we had:

• balloons that could be decorated with stickers to look like a pig, cow or chicken. MellonTip #3: include a balloon pump.Kids will cheer. Parents will thank you. You will be Queen.

• Drawing paper with markers, pencils, and foam-farm shaped stickers.
• A paper plate craft to make even more farm animals. Moo!
• A trash pail.

And that's it. Well, I did have that other thought of renting piglets for the kids to chase all over the yard, but Drew vetoed that idea right out of the gate. Which is probably a blessing since I don't think I'd like to have had those slippery little buggers running all over my house when the games got moved indoors. Point Drew. 

Mini-Birthday Pictures and Grilled Chicken Salad

Yea, I know those two things go together like milk & orange juice, but those were the pictures from my most recent iPhone photo dump. So, I figured I'd save precious blog space and combine them into one post. Very economical of me, eh?

So, Chase's birthday was yesterday, but the big party isn't until July 24th. Did I tell you I'm combining the kids' celebrations this year? See, I'm all about conserving resources these days. Going Green and stuff.

Anyway, I couldn't let the child's actual birthday go by without at least a little acknowledgment. So, we sent donuts to school. And he got to pick what we had for dinner. He chose spaghetti and Dinoco meatballs which are just regular meatballs that I tell him Mr.The King made in the hope that he might actually eat them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I also picked up cupcakes and a candle. We sang happy birthday, and Chase blew out his candle. I forgot to tell him to make a wish though--do I need to turn in my Mama wings?

 The boy's favorite color is blue, so of course I had to get cupcakes with blue icing. And that right there is a testament to how much suffering I willingly endure for the happiness of my children because that icing was M-E-S-S-Y!

Everything within a 3 ft radius was stained blue. Their teeth, clothes, mouth, table, Iverson. We were a family of Smurfs. Smurfs with full bellies. Bellies that somehow escaped being dyed blue. This time.  

Chase rushed through his cupcake because he'd spied the little present I'd thrown together for him. He had seen the tell-tale packaging of a new Car from the Piston Cup Series peeking out of the bucket, so he could barely contain his excitement long enough for me to snap a picture.

It is worth noting that he did not have nearly as much enthusiasm for the book that will help him practice writing his alphabet. Does he not know that he's a teacher's son?

Tonight for dinner I made my imitation Boston Beanery Chicken Salad. The Beanery is a restaurant in Morgantown where we ate many a meal, and the chicken salad was what I ordered most often. The best thing about the dish is the addition of french fries on top. I think this is a Northern WV/Pittsburgh thing because no one around here puts french fries on top of anything which is a real shame for my taste buds, but not so bad for my waist line.

Anyway, the salad is really simple to make. It's just your typical salad fixings: lettuce, cucumber, onion, boiled egg, bacon, carrot, etc. Then you add the chicken on top. Depending on how energetic I am, I either bake chicken breasts, use a rotisserie chicken, or the Perdue short cut chicken strip dohickeys. Then you throw hot fries on the chicken, top with cheese and add a garnish of bacon. Hello deliciousness, goodbye healthy arteries! My only real tip here is this:

Assembly line construction. While the potatoes are frying and the chicken is grilling, I lay out the plates and add the salad components to each one based on preference. For instance, I like cucumbers, Drew doesn't; I like A LOT of salad, Drew tends to go heavier on the cheese, bacon and chicken etc etc.  This way, none of those tasty veggies get wasted by Drew pushing them over to the side of his plate. Everyone's happy.

Almost as good as the restaurant one I'd say. Which reminds me--Where's my tip?

Mellon in Oz

I think most moms would agree with this statement: "I want to look stylish and put together, but I don't want to have to think too hard about it." Right? Now, I'm not talking high-fashion, land-in-the-pages-of-Vogue stylish. No, what I'm talking about is looking stylish enough to feel confident that no one is whispering about my lack of fashion sense as I chase my kids all over the playground. The solution I have found is this:

A neutral base. I tend to lean toward the grey spectrum, but I thought I'd switch it up a bit for this post and go with navy blue instead. I am a wild child. So this outfit is pretty simple: tank, short-sleeved cardi-type shirt, jeans and flats. Perfectly presentable. This is where you start--or even where you end if it's been one of those days where you were lucky to even get to brush your hair. But, maybe you don't want to be quite so plain jane. Maybe you want to add a little personality all the while keeping in mind that caveat of not having to expend too much brain power to get there. This is where the statement accessory comes in. It's all a matter of how far you want to take it:

Maybe you just want a small pop of color like these red flats and a dainty gold charm necklace. Or are you feeling a bit bolder? Click your heels three times...

Simply throwing a cap on my head makes the look feel like it has more depth. But perhaps you're not really a hat person.  Try this then:

A solid color scarf and heels--ideal for walking down the yellow brick road. Too warm for a scarf?

Try a brightly colored necklace instead. I could go on and on, but I think you can see how the statement accessory can liven up your daily uniform. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't warn you that the statement accessory works best as a single entity. Things can get messy when you try to make all of them play together. Then you end up with an ensemble that even the most brainless of us would know to avoid:

I think I better get to clicking those heels again.

Crafting with Mellon

Ok, so the title is a smidge misleading. There is no crafting involved unless you consider stabbing a candle crafting. So I have these candles, right?

And they're nice enough. But one day I found myself getting fidgety after having been kept on hold by the doctor's office for 10 minutes. So, I did what any other completely sane person would do in that predicament: I repeatedly stabbed one of the candles with a flower pin that was lying next to it. Turned out that I kind of liked how the pin looked stuck in the candle. Even wax cylinders deserve a little bling don't you think?

I'm kind of excited about this discovery because I love pins--especially vintage ones--but I hardly ever actually wear them. So, now I'll just go bedazzle all of my candles with them instead. I think this very involved, complicated technique would also work for those misfit earrings that you just can't bear to toss. Oh and here's where the candles are right now:

As you can see, I'm still playing around with this mantle. I got my 4, which I love, but I'm not sure about the candles there.  I'm thinking I might scoot the L4 toward the middle and maybe have the clock overlap it a bit. Like a collage. A Mellon Collage. That would totally be considered crafting right? So now you know the secret of my patented decorating method: keep trying things until you eventually find the composition that works. It's an art form really.