It's that day of the year again

I've ended up not blogging very much these last two years, but I haven't give up on my two "traditions" of documenting the last day of the year and waiting for the first snowdrops and so at least two times of the year I'll remember this blog.

This year, it's been a very warm December (one day, earlier in the month they claimed on the radio that many parts of Sweden had had the same temperature as on midsummer's eve). Snow on a couple of days, frost on others, but most of the days have been warm for the season. And rainy. This last week or so it's gotten a bit colder, with frost staying on north side of hills and in the shadows through the day. To top it all off, when I looked out the windows the sky was blue with just a few light clouds and the sun was shining, but I didn't see the wall of clouds moving in from the west so the sunlight disappeared far too early compared to my calculations. All in all, not the greatest weather to photograph (not even moody fog like last year), but I do have a few more photos to show that back in 2012. You can't change the weather, just your own attitude towards it.

But first, a little DIY I made for christmas. We don't have an outdoor christmas tree this year either so instead I bought some string lights and made a tree shaped decoration on the still boarded up window (with the cat hole). As a reference, I think it's 60-something cm tall and the lights used are these. It's been a tad stormy since I put it up so it's not in the same pristine condition as it was, but it still looks decent enough, especially seen from the road.

[click pic for a close-up, where you can see how the lights 

have been strung in the left pic, which was taken in the 

afternoon rather than at night like the other two were.]

I don't have a long new year's wish for you this year. I simply wish that 2016 will bring you much joy and happiness, may it be a year when dreams come true and new dreams are born. May 2016 be everything you hope for and much more!

Accidental soundtracks

Do you ever do something while listening to the radio and it keeps repeating one song so much it sort of becomes your personal soundtrack for a specific thing. I associate the online/computer game Peggle with Fullmetal Alchemist and more precisely with the third intro (featuring the song Undo by Cool Joke) as I was watching the anime -- fell so in love with it! -- while being hooked on Peggle. Send someone away by José Gonzales feat. Embee is a song that makes me thing of another little online game I got addicted to (but can no longer find). Many of the current top hits are something I associate with a theme or activity online. And right now, somehow, the song Counting Stars (by One Republic) is repeated so often on P3 Star that it's become the soundtrack for my research/wanderings into mori kei. There's no objective reason to link the two, really, but in my mind the two are for ever intertwined now.

Sometimes the only stars you can count are the ones you put up yourself indoors. Though my string lights doesn't feel that romantic or mori (in my mind, I'm no mori kei expert). I'd like something like below in the window -- cute, simple and poetic. But then I remember the cats...

More dreamy lights from my Candlelight and light ideas pinboard:

What can I say? I love string lights...

Beaded string lights

Today is all about light in the winder darkness. I thought I could show you what I did last night in order to pruce up my plain string lights. And, yes, it's a string of blue lights and, yes, I chose the colour myself (though it was a couple of years ago when coloured christmas lights weren't that prolific so the choice of colour was limited).

Anyway, my idea -- after having seen different versions of it online -- was to embellish it with beads. Do something so that it would look nice even during daytime when the lights are off and the whole string hangs in in the window in plain sight, looking dull and out of place.

As I'm a seedbeader you might expect me to do something like this, but I really just wanted to do something quick and simple -- and in that finding a reason to use a strand of lampwork beads I've never got around to using in my jewellery as they aren't really my style (won them so nothing I picked out myself).

So what I did was simply to put the ruffled silverfoil beads on headpins, make loops and attach them onto the electric cords of the string light using rubber o-rings wrapped around the cord. The reasons for using rubber o-rings were two: 1) to make it easy to remove the beads when I want to, and 2) to make sure they won't slide back and forth.

I just made one mistake when ordering. Or, well, two but not counting how many o-rings I needed wasn't a problem as it turned out one package included 20 pieces which was just the same as the number of silverfoil beads on the strand. The mistake was choosing white rings. And this rubber is a pure, shiny white silicone rubber, not even a dull almost yellowed white rubber as you often see. My reasoning was to use white as the string is white, but I forgot that the metal of the electric wires shines through and the plastic had aged a bit and yellowed. So in the end, the rings were too bright and white to match the string as planned. And I missed that the seller had two different white rings -- of which the ones I didn't buy probably would've been a better match. Well, you live and learn...

Here's a comparison of "before" and "after". Or rather, of two parts of the string as 20 beads was about half of what was needed to embellish the whole string. Below is a couple of photos of the string lights hanging in the window.

Above unlit and below lit. From a distance you don't see that much of the beads when it's dark.

Not sure if I'll keep it like this. Not that I hate the simple embellishment, it's more that I want to do something more as the string lights themselves are so boring. Blue lights was fun at the time, but now some years later I just regret not choosing purple or plain warm white. And now I wish it was one of these instead.

Maybe I should try this idea (ping pong ball lights)? Or make one of these from reddish paper so the blue lights would create a purple glow? Maybe I could do the same with the first idea there too, paint the balls first? Either just red or purple or mixing colours.

What do you think?

A candle in the dark

Yesterday was Lucia Day. Before the gregorian calender reform that day, December 13th, actually became the date of the winter solstice because of the flaws in the old calender, something that explains the festival on the day which is a celebration of the light and a ritual to keep the dangerous darkness (filled with supernatural evils and dark magic) away.

This really is the season of light what with the outdoor christmas decorations everywhere (unless they flew away in the latest storm), advent lights on the sundays, lucia celebrations and just generally a compact darkness most of the time that make you want to light candles, lights and fires.

My sis and I love to light candles, but you can't really tell from my blog as I really don't have what it takes to get good photos in poor light (camera that can handle bad light, tripod, know-how). But yesterday I just had to take a pic of  the candle in my bedroom window. It's just a simple glass lantern from Indiska, which is also in dire need of a cleaning, but a photo of a candle against a dark background is always pretty, I think.

If I ever were to write a non-fiction book it would be about the universal ritual and love of lighting a candle.

The lighthouse at Kullaberg

In northwestern Skåne or Scania as the region is known internationally, you'll find two peninsulas stretching out into Kattegatt (that's the name of the sea around here, for those not familiar with Scandinavian waters). I live on the northern most peninsula, Bjärehalvön or just Bjäre. From here you can often get a good view of the peninsula in the south, Kullen.

At the tip of Kullen, in the nature reserve of Kullaberg, there's a lighthouse, called simply Kullens fyr (Kullen's lighthouse). It's the most powerful lighthouse in all of Scandinavia and one of a dwindling number of swedish lighthouses that are still in use. I have never seen it close up, but I've seen the light all my life. I especially associate it with going home from my grandparents' or returning for the nearest town, Ängelholm, as there's a long stretch of road going through the flatter southern side of the peninsula, giving an impressive free view of much of Kullen, including the tip with the lighthouse.

So of cause I want to take photos of the lighthouse light. Do you know how hard that is? First of all, you don't want too much daylight, but it shouldn't be too dark as my camera doesn't like that and I don't have a tripod. Then you have to time the lights (one revolution takes about 7 seconds) and hit the button at the right time, taking into account the time it takes for the camera to react (varies with different cameras). Of cause you have to focus in advance and wait for the flash of light, preferrably pushing the button a fraction of a second too fast so you don't miss it. Needless to say, I'm not a good enough photographer to master this. This is the best I could do -- even when using the several-photos-in-a-row setting I don't know what's it called.

Most photos were failures, but there were a couple when I didn't see that I got some of the light before seeing the photos on the computer screen. A pin prick of light so tiny it didn't even show on the camera monitor. That's just catching the first or last glimpse of light so it doesn't exactly show that most-powerful-in-Scandinavia light flash. I was about to give up, go how and thaw my fingers up, when I made a last attempt. And guess what? I got the light! But had moved the camera so it's amost out of shot...

Better luck next time, huh?

~*~

PS! You can read more about the lighthouse on e. g. Wikipedia or, in Swedish, at Sjöfartsverket's website. Did you know that no less than the astronomer Tycho Brahe was the administrator of the lighthouse (Skåne/Scania being danish in those days)? Of cause, back then it wasn't the same lighthouse with such an impressive light as today: the current building was constructed in 1898.

Glow-in-the-dark bead fun

As I've mentioned before I've got a childish fascination with glow-in-the-dark beads. And after having seen this project, I came to think of GITD Hama beads and what if I could use that technique and those beads for something... The lightbulb moment came months ago, but it was just yesterday that I got some cheap beads and was ready to realise my idea. And here's the result.

The beads are cut and then put on the thin cables, one bead for each light. The result is a "double" light garland that is either lit up by the LED lights or glows in the dark (as long as the bead "charge" lasts). I couldn't get any pics of what it looks like in the dark so I made this illustration based on one of the photos:

Nice, huh? My very own little night sky. Now, if I could only charge the beads enough for the "stars" to shine a little longer so I could enjoy it a bit more every night...

(Just remembered: this isn't my first indoor night sky project: when my sis and I had to repaint the corridor between our bedrooms, we painted a silhouette landscape and used glow-in-the-dark paint to illuminate the sky with stars. We used real constellations as templates so you can find e.g. Orion and the Big Dipper on the ceiling and walls, but not in the right place in corelation to one another.)

UPDATE: There's a step-by-step tut at my other blog available now. You'll find it here.

 *

Talking about home decór projects, why not take a look on my new makeshift lampshade? It really is just something I threw together, something to make the lightbulb feel less naked and austere until I can come up with an idea of a proper lampshade. One that doesn't include fluffy pale pink tulle because I may be a romantic but I don't like girly pink and frilly stuff like that.

If you take a really dark photo it can look quite spooky: