Oh Christmas Tree, Oh, Christmas Tree...

[liralen]

Sometimes I just don't know how to say, "No."

About a month ago, the ladies that were suddenly taking over the church's Home Tour asked me to Decorate a 3' tall Christmas Tree for their silent auction. The money from the Tour and all the proceeds go to about a dozen different local charities. The OUR Center being a big benefactor, but there are also women's groups, children's support, and a bunch of other missions that we help out with.

Jet was on another origami kick, and he unwittingly dragged me along with him, and I decided to do the whole tree in origami ornaments, and do a knitted scarf in red as the skirting underneath. I think the tree's due tomorrow, and I'm still knitting, but the other bits can be seen in a little flickr album here. A few highlights were the umpteen piece dodecahedron, a couple of traditional Japanese chrysanthemum constructs with various types of stoppers, and some frogs and fishes for luck along with a few dozen traditional cranes in various types of paper.

Part of the insanity is that this morning John found out that our wireless hub had broken down completely. It was dead. We have a "only replace dead things" sort of policy right now for most of our big expenditures, and we only upgrade when we replace. The price on the N protocol wireless is now very, very good, so he simply replaced the hub. The upstairs computer is hardwired to our Internet connection. My replacement machine has the new protocol built in, and we only had to buy a plug in dongle for the laptop, so we're all good now, and the upload and download speeds are now phenomenal. I'm... amazed.

Comments

[sophiap.livejournal.com]

Those ornaments are gorgeous! I am in awe of people who can do origami and have it turn out right--my attempts always end up looking like escapees from the Chernobyl Zoo. Anyhow, the tree looks incredible, and I bet the knit scarf/skirt will make it even more so.

But yeah, I can understand what it's like to be unable to say 'no,' especially if it's something that's fun and for a worthy cause. I hope all goes well finishing up.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you like how it looks. Jet's pretty happy with the bits he was able to do, too...

And I'm starting to think that maybe it was okay to say "yes" to this as I am bringing something unique to it, as are all the other artists that the committee decided on. The main judge said that she was being pretty picky about whom she gave them to, so... I'm hoping it'll be good.

Jet also really loved learning how to make a dodecahedron. He likes calling them dou-ducky-hedrons. *laughs*

[sophiap.livejournal.com]

Jet's origami are amazing. As is the dodecahedron (I love his nickname for them). Really, all of the geometric ones--especially the multi-piece ones are just fascinating to me.

I'll be interested to hear what the other trees look like, and what approaches other artists took. The entire auction sounds like a wonderful idea.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I'll try and get pictures. It's the weekend after Thanksgiving so we'll be around. Hee.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Oh how wonderful! I love that you can fold a gyroscope from paper, and the ornaments are all so beautiful!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*beams* Thank you! It's really fun to make all those things from little sheets of paper. *laughs*

[incandescens]

Those are amazing! Lovely work.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*beams* Thank you!

[annieroo2.livejournal.com]

I do think you need to practice that 'no' word more often. It is very complicated and can be difficult to master, but I'm confident you'll get there one day. ;)

And hey at least we're talking a very worthy cause. :D

[liralen.livejournal.com]

XD

We are... or at least a few of them, so I'm hoping it does well. The ladies in charge of the whole thing really liked the tree, so I think it appeals to more than just the mathematically minded. *giggles*

Someday... *laughs*

[tallcedars.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping that no one tries to unwrap those beautiful chrysanthemum boxes.

We're on the same "only replace dead things" plan (well, the house was an exception). It's worked out well for the most part. I'll have to admit, though, that I'm starting to wish that our six year old laptops weren't still chugging along. Mine is now a Frankenstein assemblage from three different machines, but it keeps running.

Hmm... I suppose it would be cheating to teach the dogs to surf the web on them.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Well, the chrysanthemum ones are glued together, so I'm hoping they don't come apart. *laughs*

Yeah... that is the problem with the Plan, when things that are built like a brick just Keep On Working. Still, there's hope, as John's parents' Brick of a computer finally got so old it wasn't keeping up with half the protocols of stuff that was on the Net, so they replaced it for THAT reason of failure.

*giggles* It might be cheating, but it sure would be a *fast* way to get a broken laptop. *laughs*

Then again, John almost cheated this fall in buying me an old TT eventhough our Passat's working just fine. *laughs* We didn't cheat, yet, but I'm really really tempted.

[tallcedars.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I do like the way John's parents think. Some versions of Linux now require more memory to install than I have in this laptop, even after maxing out the standard configuration. Does that seem like a failure to you? *grin*

Too true about the dogs. I can just imagine Sunny going after the keyboard with those big paws of his.

After having owned a TT for nearly 10 years, I have somewhat mixed feelings about them. Details on request. I may replace mine soon. I can't even put one dog in it comfortably, and sometimes that's necessary. It hasn't risen to the level of "failure" yet. They are great fun to drive.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your more detailed thoughts!! *hugs happily*