Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Martha Stewart Moment

I love me some Martha. I know-- hard to believe, especially since I'm not crafty at all, and have no patience-- oh, okay, talent-- for it (I craft only under extreme duress or on someone else's behalf-- Christmas stockings that MRN insisted we make ourselves because it was a "life memory;" or hundreds of paper butterflies for the centerpieces of my niece's 1st birthday party (yes-- HUNDREDS). But crafting is something I wouldn't do voluntarily).

Despite all this, I still enjoy READING about crafty-type of projects. Martha Stewart, Real Simple, the now defunct Blueprint (also a MS magazine). I like to know all the creative stuff that people do, and how they make things beautiful. And then I want to know where I can buy it (I mean, come on-- how many people have time to MAKE hundreds of paper butterflies-- those suckers took me about 4 months, and two of them I was on disability leave from work, so what else did I have to do?). But every once in a while I pick up a useful tip, I store it somewhere in the back of my overcrowded brain and it pops up in a lightbulb, Martha Stewart kind of moment.

Today was one of those days.

I was sitting on the sofa looking at a candle holder in the window sill and trying to work out how to get all the layers of built up, stubborn wax out of the 8 glass votives. Then it hit me: "Martha!" I remember reading in one of her magazines that if you put the glass holders in the freezer, the wax will pop right out.

Riiiight-- well, why not try it? Beats chiseling it out, heating the class, pouring hot water in it, or any of the other really messy things that I would generally do (hence the years of build up...). So in the freezer the 8 little glasses went and, WAH-LAH! it actually worked! ten minutes, glasses out, turn 'em over and out came the wax. No joke! it was that easy!

What can I say? It's good to have a Martha Stewart moment every once in a while.

4 comments:

M. L. Benedict said...

I didn't know that! Yay, Martha. Yay, Mikie!

maikib said...

i should caveat that 6 of the 8 worked beautifully-- the remaining 2 are being stubborn. But Martha... errr, I will defeat them! :)

Maggie said...

If you want more of these kinds of secrets, get Martha's "Homekeeping Handbook" - it is a bible in our house. And the best part: ROB actually requested it for Christmas a few years ago! If he wasn't married to me, I swear he'd try to land Martha. I'm not kidding...

ao_hoku said...

dang, never would have thought of the freezer. now i can cherish those candle holders instead of chucking them after a couple of voltives have melted their way in. thanxs mikie!