What Do You Mean, Who’s MacGyver?

Early last week I received a text message at work informing me that Nicholas had broken his glasses right at the bridge.

It was surprising because he has Flexon frames, so you can twist his glasses into a pretzel and they’ll pop back to their original shape. A little investigating revealed that he was goofing around at his grandparents’ house and thought it would be a great idea to slam his face into a couch cushion in a dramatic display of “boy-ness” . Of all the things to break a Flexon frame, I never would have thought a couch cushion would prove to be the ultimate challenge.

I think of all the times I winced and covered my eyes while I watched him play aggressive games of dodgeball at his Scout meetings, and all that time I was ignoring the real threat.

Upholstered furniture: the silent killer.

The frames were still under warranty (the good news) but it was going to take a few days for them to come in (the bad news). This meant that Nicholas had to risk life, limb and dignity every day walking around with his glasses taped at the bridge. It actually wasn’t so bad because his frames are approximately the same color as duct tape, but they’re also such a micro-thin wire that the tape jobs weren’t very stable and didn’t last very long. The two sides would pull apart again with very little effort.

The first day back at school he tried leaving them off for the first part of the day, I was afraid that they’d separate and fall on the floor during classroom chaos and the lenses would get damaged or stepped on – then we’d have even more issues. He started getting a headache after lunch, though, so he had to abandon that operation. By the time he came home that afternoon the glasses were in two pieces again. It’s next to impossible to wrap tape around wire that thin and have it hold. There just isn’t enough surface area for the tape to stick to.

After he went to bed that night I went down to the toolbench area in our basement and stood in front of Tom’s “wall o’ man stuff” surveying my options for creating a more reliable bond. The Internet had suggested that these Flexon frames can be soldered, but I can barely manage to glue a piece of paper to another piece of paper without incident so soldering is most assuredly outside my wheelhouse.

(Plus we don’t own a soldering iron, or I probably would have tried it. I’m glutton for punishment like that.)

I tried a few different taping techniques that failed consistently. Then I thought perhaps I could try a few different materials to fuse the two sides of the wire together before taping, so I tried a small piece of foam rubber (nope), a bead of hot glue (nope), some poster putty (almost sort of worked, but too squishy when wrapping the tape) – then I gave up on that idea and briefly considered taping the glasses directly to his face.

In a last ditch effort I started going through a big plastic “wadget organizer” that we have with rows upon rows of drawers. Those drawers contain every random little screw, bit, nut, washer, clamp, hook, whatever that we’ve ever had left over from our various home improvement projects. A treasure trove of things waiting to be repurposed!

And in one of those drawers I hit the jackpot.

Jackpot!

Picture hanging wire.

It’s not rigid at all. It’s even more flexible than the frames. But I was able to untwist it and remove half of the smaller metal threads to make a much thinner strand of wire, then I secured one end around the nose piece on one side, gently wrapped it around the broken bridge halves a few times then secured it around the nose piece on the other side. After that I wrapped it in tape because it was SUPER shiny and the little wire ends were pokey. And although it was a bit more bulky than tape alone, that fix held strong for 5 days until his new frames came in.

Through recess, gym class, reckless “boy-ness” and all. The individual sides had no place to go anymore. They had no choice but to stay taped.

I was positively drunk with delusions of grandeur.

When he woke up the next morning I showed him my FEAT OF ENGINEERING and proudly proclaimed “I’m like the MacGyver of eyeglass repair!”

To which he responded “What’s a MacGyver?”

And then I came crashing back down to reality.

An (unconventional) Giveaway | This Could Change Your Life

Never one to make grand, dramatic statements – I’m going to host a little personal giveaway here featuring a product that has revolutionized my life more than almost any other product I have ever purchased – ever.

See? Not dramatic at all.

If you’ve already listened to this week’s episode of The Digi Show, Episode 30: Everybody Has Stuff, then you’ve heard me talk about The (sounds dirty but it isn’t) Wet Brush that I purchased on a whim a couple of weeks ago.

It popped up as one of the hot sellers in the Health & Beauty category on Amazon when I signed on to re-order a few of my “I Don’t Just Roll Out Of Bed Looking Like This” supplies, and I was immediately intrigued because “The Wet Brush” sounded a little dirty which always makes me curious.

Lo and behold it was about to become the solution to a long-standing problem in my life, which is that I step out of the shower with what amounts to a head full of dreadlocks. I can manage to get a comb or a brush through my hair with a judicious (read: insane) amount of leave-in conditioner if push really comes to shove, but for the most part I try to either wash my hair at night so it can dry while I sleep or I blow dry it in its fully dreadlocked state and then stifle a series of screams while I brush through it afterward.

I mainly try to go for option 1, despite the fact that I HATE sleeping with wet hair.

I bought The Wet Brush with a fair amount of skepticism, but based on the sheer volume of glowing reviews and the fact that it was only $7 I figured I had nothing to lose. To me it looked like a regular brush, like every other regular brush I’ve owned in my life. Even when it arrived I took it out of the package and gave it a firm raised brow because it didn’t look any more revolutionary in person than it did on the Internet. The bristles seemed a lot thinner and more flexible than other brushes, and if anything that made me more skeptical because I figured they would collapse at the first sign of trouble and declare defeat.

The next morning I showered as usual and decided I wasn’t going to give The Wet Brush any advantages. I didn’t put any detangling products in my hair afterward, and if anything I towel-dried it a little more aggressively than usual to build up the giant mess of knots and tangles ahead of time. I really wanted to be right about this brush being a gimmick.

But this stupid little brush went through my hair as though someone embedded magic in it. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

I figured I was losing my mind a little so I quickly ordered one and had it sent to Christine so she could try it out. She confirmed my results.

The Wet Brush has magic embedded within it.

Somehow tangles just melt away. I’m not even sort of kidding when I say that this little $7 brush has shaved at least 30 minutes off of my prep time – time I used to spend picking at individual tangles in my hair only to hit another one right away. Also, I can blow dry my hair much faster because I’m starting with a nice, sleek head of hair rather than a knotted up bird’s nest of awfulness.

And for the first time in as long as I can remember I can now administer all sorts of girly leave-in treatments to my hair while I’m in the shower, I just drag the magic brush in there with me and I can comb deep conditioners and keratin treatments through my hair LIKE BUTTER.

So now I want to give three Wet Brushes away to my blog readers. Because for some reason I feel like I need more people to confirm that I am not losing my mind.

And also? I want to revolutionize your life. Or your daughters’ lives – because you’ll note that a ton of the reviews on Amazon are from moms who previously had to drag their long-haired daughters kicking and screaming to the hairbrush. This brush could save mother/daughter relationships all across the land. This brush is a peacemaker!

Giveaway Rules

Note: You must be a US resident and have a valid US mailing address to enter. (Sorry International readers! I’ll be leaving the shipping up to Amazon so shipping is subject to Amazon’s Prime Membership Shipping Policies.)

Leave a comment below to be entered for a chance to win one of three Wet Brushes shipped directly to you (you’ll need to supply me with a shipping address). Your entry must be posted by 11:59PM EST on Sunday, March 4th. Post about this giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and/or your blog to receive additional entries (you can use the handy buttons below, leave a separate comment for each). The winner will be announced here on Monday, March 5th.

Good luck everyone!

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New Release | Worn

I’m really excited about this collaboration, and based on the reaction to the preview I posted earlier this week it seems as though many of you are, too.

I think that I took Krista Sahlin ( blog | store ) a bit out of her comfort zone on this one – as a matter of fact, I know that I did, because she mentioned it a couple of times. No stranger to color, Krista had never tackled a completely neutral product before, but she wasn’t about to back down from a challenge.

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

I saw this quote and it resonated with me on both a philosophical and a physical level. I love new, shiny things as much as the next person – new toys, new experiences, new friends. But the time-worn and tattered bits of my life are often where the love lives. It’s what compels me to pull out the old, dented and battered cake pan from my grandmother every time instead of the bright and shiny one I received as a gift a few years ago. Memories live in that old one, and everything just tastes better when it comes out of it.

So whether it’s your child’s favorite old beat-up stuffed animal, a relationship that has withstood the test of time, or an heirloom passed down through your family over the generations – I hope this product inspires you to document the things that you treasure the most – imperfections and all.

I’m thrilled to announce that Worn, a collaboration with Sahlin Studio, is now available for purchase in my store and at The Lilypad.

You can save 20% on this collaboration through Sunday, February 19th, 2012.

Free With Purchase Offer

Through 2/23/2012 you can also receive a collection of 9 element + photo clusters for your pages FREE (a $3.99 value) with the purchase of the full digital kit.

NOTE: You must add both products to your cart and the Worn Clusters will zero out, no coupon necessary.

Inspiration From The Flock

[Show as slideshow]

by Becky

by Crystal

by Dana

by Julie

by Kelly S

by Lex

by Nicole

by Rachel

by Renee

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Landing Soon | Worn (with Sahlin Studio)

Worn by One Little Bird and Sahlin Studio

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New Release | Everyday Koa Tags

I’m in love with wood veneer lately, I can’t get enough of it. Wood veneer is like the new kraft paper for me, it’s classic and goes with everything.

The other day I sat down to create these little sentiment flags out of some Hawaiian Koa wood veneer, and I thought it would be fun to wrap them around a staple. It’s sort of a word art + fastener hybrid, simultaneously allowing me to add a little footnote to my photo or journaling block and also adhere it realistically to the page.

Two birds. One stone. (Not that we’re in the habit of stoning birds here at One Little Bird!)