build a ball, launch a dream ~ also how to make lighted balls

friends from lake jeannette, westridge, fisher park, old starmount, historic aycock, kirkwood, sunset hills...and...even tampa and michigan's upper peninsula came by for an afternoon of fun and fellowship...and best of all, the transforming of hundreds of feet of poultry netting & thousands of mini lights into magnificent lighted orbs; like snowflakes, each one unique, as unique, in fact, as the people who made them. want to make your own? click here for directions to make lighted christmas balls.
photos: Millie Smith

Ball Making Workshop II

Jo, Mike, Zoë & Noa Slane know exactly what they're making...five georgeous lighted Christmas balls. You can see their creations here and all up and down Madison Avenue, between Beverly and Holden.

Ball Making Workshop Sunset Hills

We had so much fun teaching our neighbors in Sunset Hills and beyond. If you have photos of this time, please send to annefsmith@gmail.com and I would love to share them. IT was a beautiful day and a lot of fun for us. photo: Millie Smith

Got Seven Up In The 'Hood

Come see 'em here.

Millie and I had a great talk with some neighbors walking by while we were stringing up lights. Talked about magnolia trees, lost cats, and, of course, Christmas Balls. That's one of my favorite things about these lights. They make you seem friendly enough to talk to at 10:00pm on a dark, cold night, one block from Summit Ave.

I'll post pictures later.

Toad Hall All decked out

This is a photo of home last Christmastime after all the balls were hung and the ground illumination had been installed over protest from Jonathan. I enhanced and filtered Margo Bender's beautiful original photo in Adobe Photoshop. I like to call it Toad Hall ala psychedelic Monet.

Today at Toad Hall

Today we cast our new SpideyMan fishing rod into the trees a trillion times and hung 24 or so lines for subsequent hanging of the balls. We will repair the balls from last year with more new lights (i bought 12 more boxes of lights----the stock at the Target on Lawndale was getting low btw) so assuming we can stay awake (its 7:14 now) we will fetch the balls from their summer home in the attic of Toad Hall and we will repair, restring, and plan where we will hang what. We will try to launch the high ones from the reknown potato launcher hopefully before it gets too cold.

Lighted Christmas Balls at Toad Hall

this is how things looked Christmas 2005 at the corner of ridgeway drive and madison avenue. photo: Margo Bender