Go ahead and call me crazy...

post from Suburban Spunk on 30 November 2011 11:34:49 PM. © Suburban Spunk

I sorta went overboard with decorating for the holidays this year. I usually like a serene, clutter free home, so spending 3 days putting holiday decor up was intense.

It started innocently enough...a traditional tree in our great room.

Then, the mantle got a little sparkle. I usually put up snowmen on my mantle that belonged to my mom. However, I've never been a huge fan of them, as they along with other holiday creatures like penguins and santas seem a little cluttered and not my style at all. So, I decided to keep it simple with greenery, pine cones and bits of red.

Next up, our second tree in our formal great room. This silver/white tree is my absolute favorite. It can be seen from out front window and seeing it glow as I pull up every night makes me smile.

My favorite ornament of all time is this angel ornament that belonged to my great-grandmother. The vintage sweet face is precious.

So, you might be thinking that 2 Christmas trees isn't too crazy, right? Well on a recent trip to Target, I decided to pick up a skinny, simple $20 tree for our bedroom.
That's right...we have 3 Christmas trees currently up in our house. Justin says it looks like Christmas exploded in our home...I say I'm just really in the holiday spirit this year.
I used simple bronze ornaments hung with cream colored ribbon that I got on Target's after-Christmas sale last year.
I used leftover fabric from my DIFFA Dining by Design event to cover the base, originally seen HERE.

We are hosting Christmas Eve at our house this year and I cannot wait. Please share your favorite holiday dishes, as I'm looking for some new recipes to try out!?
Happy Holidays! xoxo, S

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Hookin Up with HoH #77

post from House of Hepworths "hoh" on 30 November 2011 10:47:48 PM. © House of Hepworths "hoh"

If you want an extra entry in the Dremel giveaway, don’t forget to join their twitter chat Thursday night from 6:30-7:30pm CST (details in the giveaway post). So, are you new here? I throw the Hookin’ Up with HoH Party every week to give all of you a chance to find other awesome blogs to [...]

This post is sponsored by:
Ribbons and Bows Oh My!
My Job Chart
Simple Fit
DISChangers

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Mint Tin Alarm

post from Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog on 30 November 2011 08:04:59 PM. © Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog

Mint tins can be used for a lot of great projects. They are just big enough to be stuffed with some great electronics. This Mint Tin Alarm by Aaron from x2Jiggy is a great example of this. The video has a great beat and check out the cool schematic, no hard to read symbols here! [...]

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It Came from Outer Space (1953): John Quarrels
with the Sherif

post from Do It Yourself Videos - Metacafe on 30 November 2011 07:00:00 PM. © Do It Yourself Videos - Metacafe

The clip John quarrels with the sherif from It Came from Outer Space (1953) with Charles DrakeI gave you an order, now get going!Okay, Sheriff.But I wouldn't want the responsibility.Well, I'm playing it your way, right down the line.Even clearing everyone away from the crater.That's the way you wanted it, right?It's got to be right.What are you doing here? I thought you we?re going to sweat it out at home.They paid me a visit, Matt. They took some of my clothes.Why do you suppose they'd do that?I don't know.It's couldn't be that they've been lying to you, could it?That old mine they've been hiding in. There were three men working it.They ever tell you what happened to them?What do they want with so many of us? What are they planning, Johnny?Are they telling the truth, or what?You keep throwing these questions at me.All I can do is guess.Now your clothes, too. Could be any one of them.Stop working yourself up, Matt.It's hot enough without raising your blood pressure.Yeah.Did you know, Putnam, that more murders are committed at 92 degrees Fahrenheit...than any other temperature?I read an article once: Lower temperatures, people are easy-going.Over 92, it's too hot to move. But just 92, people get irritable.That clock...Don't do anything.Look at him. Walking around like he belongs here.The sooner they finish, the sooner they'll clear out.How do we know when they're really wearing our clothes...or Frank's, or George's, or Ellen's?We've come this far, we've got to see it through.What do you mean? How do we know they're not taking over?They could be all around us and I wouldn't know it.Hey you! Wait right there!
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How to Make White Hot Chocolate

post from How to of the Day on 30 November 2011 07:00:00 PM. © How to of the Day

White hot chocolate is a delicious variant of the usual hot chocolate. While some people will argue that white chocolate isn't "real chocolate", for a lot of people, it's about the taste and it's a taste that they really enjoy. This wonderful taste transfers well to a hot drink. Try it on a cold and wintry day to build some cheer. This will serve 1. Double it for a shared treat.

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http://www.wikihow.com/Make-White-Hot-Chocolate

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Gnome Fair Isle Beanie

post from Cut Out + Keep on 30 November 2011 06:34:21 PM. © Cut Out + Keep

I love me some fairy tale :)

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http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/gnome-fair-isle-beanie

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Zigzag Fullen Bar

post from IKEA Hackers on 30 November 2011 05:35:40 PM. © IKEA Hackers

Materials: Fullen Sink Cabinet, Metrik Handles

Description: We have a nook in our apartment that's too small to fit a bar cabinet. My husband and I are classic cocktail fans and we needed a place to store some of our bottles and a place to display our tiki glasses. The Fullen sink cabinet was small enough to fit in the space.

1. The legs were grey plastic which looked cheap so I painted them with Martha Stewart Polished Silver Metallic Paint.

2. I got my hardware store to cut a board into a 23" x 15.5" rectangle for the top, which I painted white and topped with a coat of clear acrylic.

3. I attached the top to the base with contact cement.

4. The chevron pattern was made from wood grain contact paper. I drew one zigzag onto the Fullen box and cut that out as my template to trace onto the contact paper. I did one door at a time, but I wish my contact paper had been wide enough to go all the way across so that it wasn't so difficult to match up the doors.

5. I attached the doors to the cabinet and used an Xacto knife to make the pattern on the two doors match.

5. Drilled holes to attach what I think are Metrik handles.

~ Heather Sherrod, Houston, Texas

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In Korg iKaossilator 2, Beatmaker for iPad,
iPhone, Extended Collaborative Features

post from Create Digital Music on 30 November 2011 05:04:48 PM. © Create Digital Music

The stream of iPad and iPhone apps for musicians gushes endlessly, but among that river of software, there are some visible trends. Demanded by users, features for sharing between apps – and other mobile artists – flourish. Hardware heavyweight KORG has been one of the developers that’s been especially good at offering that kind of … Continue →

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Improving the Menorah kit

One of our favorite little kits is our Deluxe LED Menorah kit. Since we introduced it two years ago, one of the most common questions that we get asked is this: "Can you use candle-flicker LEDs in it?" And that turns out to be a very interesting question.

The simple-- but, alas, naive --answer is "yes." We have discussed candle-flicker LEDs in the past, and in most cases, yes you can directly substitute them for regular LEDs.

But if you do go ahead build up a menorah kit with the candle-flicker LEDs, what you will find is that the performance is simply terrible: Not only do these LEDs fail to perform properly-- (there is no "candle flickering"), but they actually exhibit behavior that we might categorize as "not even wrong"-- the LEDs are not particularly steady either, but are rather a bit weak and jittery.

The reason for this is that in the kit, the LEDs are not left continuously it, but are instead continually-- and far too quickly for the eye to see --pulsed on and off. This is done because the menorah kit uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) dimming to produce a range of different brightness levels. Not only does the menorah have two different selectable brightness levels, but it also has the ability to softly "fade in" and "fade out" the LEDs when they light up or switch between the brightness levels.

In most ways, this PWM dimming is a wonderful thing. It allow us to create these gentle fades and different brightness levels, and allows us to really fine-tune the performance for better power efficiency. While this worksextremely well for regular LEDs, each of the so-called "candle-flicker LEDs" is not just an regular LED, but is actually a regular LED packaged with a tiny integrated circuit that executes the "random flicker" program. And, that chip canonly execute its program properly if it's left on continuously. If instead, it is continually pulsed on, we might indeed expect to end up with the kind of jittery, inconsistent behavor that we do see in the kit.

How could we go about fixing this, if we wanted the LEDs in our menorah to flicker? It would be straightforward to remove the dimming features from the software, and actually use the self-flickering LEDs in a mode where we leave them on continuously. But in doing so, we would lose a couple of our favorite features: the gentle fade-ins that make the kit so elegant, and the ability to have multiple brightness settings.

So that's a tough choice: Do we forgo flickering, or live without our elegant gray scale fades?

But fortunately, there is a way out. The right solution is to remember that we do have a microcontroller-- an ATtiny2313 --running the show, and to start acting like it. If we go back to regular (non-flickering) LEDs, we should be able to write a "random walk" flickering algorithm and add that to our existing firmware. In doing so, we can keep our original fades and brightness modes. We also can keep the kit price the same (since we don't need the more expensive flickering LEDs), and as a huge added bonus, we can now turn on or turn off the flickering at will-- something that you can't do with LEDs that always flicker.

Today we're releasing the new version of the menorah kit software, and shipping it in the kits. And, we made a little video (embeded below) to show off the new flicker modes and what happens when you try and use flickering LEDs with PWM:

The new source code-- Menorah kit software version 1.3 --is available here, and it can be used to upgrade any older Deluxe LED Menorah kit as well. :)

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http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/flickermenorah

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