years! One day there was nothing and the next day bam it was there! It was disgusting and I wanted it gone ASAP so I broke out the big guns and with ease was able to remove 10 years of hard water deposits in 15 mintues! Check out the before and after pictures and find out what tools you need to remove hardwater deposits like this. http://decoratedchaos.blogspot.com/2013/04/r...

My DIY hubby did a great job of taking a throw away 10-light brass chandelier with shades and turning it into a beautiful mason jar chandelier and anchor piece for our kitchen redo.

The little platforms around the fake candles were the perfect size to accommodate the rings for the mason jars (clear quart size). He began by hot gluing the rings upside down onto the platforms. Painter's caulk was used to smooth out the transition between ring and platform and a 40-watt chandelier bulb was chosen to eliminate any heating concerns.

He applied an aerosol primer over everything (minus jars) first and then top-coated with a gloss white aerosol. Next, and probably messiest part, was caulking around the rings. The accent color (Annie Sloan chalk paint leftover from our china hutch project) was 2 coats of paint applied to the rings and arms. The perfect last touch was adding a dimmer switch for lighting variations. Score one for my hubby Tim!

Stop by my blog to see a precise tutorial on my new favorite project!

holiday items by Holiday. In most cases, my clients have random boxes of holiday stuff that is all mixed up between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The first step is to have a specific box/container for each holiday. During holiday season, The Home Depot has sales on a variety of different colored containers. I recommend purchasing color containers that coordinate with the holiday, i.e. orange container for Halloween, Red or Green container for Christmas. This is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get organized. By putting all of your Halloween items in a big orange container, not only are they centralized in one area but you can easily find/identify the contents based on the color of the container. The second thing it accomplishes is creating a well protected sealed container that bugs, rodents and elements can not get into, so you don't have to worry about any "surprises" when you open up the container next holiday season.

Now that all of the holiday items are in the correct container the question is: Where do I store them since I only access them once a year? The two best storage solutions are: Shelving and Ceiling Storage. Shelving allows you to place multiple bins on the various shelves and create a centralized place to store all of your holiday items. The other solution is ceiling storage in the garage. Most garages are 9 to 11 feet high and have a lot of wasted space in the ceiling area. By installing a ceiling storage unit similar to the picture attached, you are able to utilize "dead" space in the garage. There are many different ceiling storage units but I like the ones that allow you to lower and raise the shelf with a crank system. This helps avoid using a tall ladder and trying to manipulate large bins. By lowering the shelf, you can easily access any item without creating a potential hazard. This type of storage is ideal for larger items and items that are not utilized on a frequent basis.

Hopefully these pointers will help you to stay organize and allow you to have a happy and safe holiday season!

Update: I would like to address the two biggest questions I've received regarding this project:

Question #1. Where did I get the daisy lids? I have included three links on my blog where you can purchase them. One link takes you to gold ones, one takes you to silver ones, and another takes you to a link selling the lids with the jars. http://www.acasarella.net/2013/03/mason-jar-...

Question #2. Does the thread get tangled as you pull different strands through? So far the answer is no. And by "no" I mean that you can keep pulling strands through the lid and they all come out smoothly and uninterrupted. They do, however, seem to get twisted around one another. The twisting does not seem to be an impediment, though, as the strands still come through the holes just fine.

I don't know if this is because of the washers I put between each spool or if there's some other reason it's working for me, but I have almost completely unraveled a few of the spools in order to test it out. I hope it works as well for all of you!

#Recycle