Mirrored garden streamers tutorial

Mirrored 

Garden Streamers 

by Jude at 

Dolce Cape Cod

Years ago, I received a present of small mirrored streamers to hang in my garden. They were simple sets of mirrors on either end of a string a few yards long.

They were made to be draped over branches to catch the sun, with the mirrors working as counterweights to hold the streamer in place, The streamers are quite magical when the light  reflects off the mirrors, and they're especially enchanting when a gentle breeze catches them; sparkling fairy circles of light dance across the ground.

It's like jewelry for your garden!

 

 I thought these would be easy to make -- and they are, now that I've worked out the kinks. Most of my effort came from finding the one and one-half inch mirrors and figuring out which kind of line to use. I found many suppliers of one-inch mirrors, but the smaller size just didn't produce the proper effect.  Fortunately, I finally found an inexpensive supplier of the correct size mirrors here. The mirrors come packaged as a cute little rolled paper cylinder.Each one-and-one-half inch mirror is 14 cents, or $10.08 plus shipping for 72 mirrors. Pretty darn inexpensive, don't you think? You'll need four mirrors for each streamer.

I also went through several prototypes using various materials to use as the streamer string that connects the sets of mirrors. Fishing line was a nightmare -- can you say "big, fat, tangled, snarly mess?" 

After that,  I decided to go the natural route, and used hemp twine. I hung the dangles outside one afternoon, and spent the next morning picking up sliced twine  from the ground where the pieces of streamers had fallen after the rough edges of the branches halved them. Next, ribbons. Very pretty, but also not  transparent, so the streamers lost the magical hey-where-did-that-light-come-from effect.

.

Finally, in Home Depot, I found just what I needed: twisted mason line. The price for the mason line was just a couple of dollars, and it was made of nylon, polyester and polypylene. There are times when a good, strong, man-made fiber is just what you need to survive outdoor conditions. This is one of them.

Okay, are you ready to make these for your own garden or porch? Here's my tutorial. It's only the second one I've created, so I'm very eager to hear your comments, and I'm really, really hoping everyone likes it; please come visit me here on Cape Cod at www.dolcecapecod.blogspot, and tell me what you think, okay?

Mirrored Garden Streamers
from www.dolcecapecod.blogspot.com

Supplies you'll need:

One and one-half inch mirrors 
(Each streamer uses 4 mirrors)

Waterproof glue (I used E-6000 and Gorilla Glue, and both worked very well)

Mason line

Equipment you'll need:

Scissors

Plastic clips or clamps


Here's everything I used, lined up on my 
"work" table on the patio:

Step One:

Get your supplies ready.

For each streamer, lay out four mirrors, reflective side down.

Measure out and cut a piece of mason line several  yards long. I  used the fabric tip rough measure way: Just hold the line from your  nose to your outstretched arm. Twice.

Step Two:

Form the end of one line into a small coil, looping the end of the line through the coil several times to fasten loosely. Repeat at other end. (If you don't coil the line into loops, the weight of the mirrors will pull the string out from between the mirror sandwich, and you'll be left with string hanging down with mirrors on the lawn. There's a reason I know this.)

Step Three:

Place looped ends on mirrors and cover liberally with glue to secure.

Sandwich with other disk, and clamp securely with the plastic clips.

Step Four:

Let dry thoroughly, according to glue instructions.
I left mine to dry for 24 hours. Longer is even better. In the meantime, start making more for your friends and family; they make great gifts!

Step Five:
Drape your streamers from branches. Watch mirrors waft, spin, dangle and catch the light.

  

Smile.

Patrot's Day

I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on Horse back, under a Tree. When I got near them, I discovered they were British officer. One tryed to git a head of Me, and the other to take me. I turned my Horse very quick, and Galloped towards Charlestown neck, and then pushed for the Medford Road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to Cut me off, got into a Clay pond, near where the new Tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went thro Medford, over the Bridge, and up to Menotomy. In Medford, I awaked the Captain of the Minute men; and after that, I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington.

Those are the words of Paul Revere; pretty thrilling, don't you think? They're from a group of legal depositions which the Provisional Congress of Massachusetts compiled to prove that the British had fired the first shot at Lexington. You can read the entire account A letter from Colonel Paul Revere at the Massachusetts Historical Commission's web site.

Today is the anniversary of that ride, and Massachusetts celebrates it as Patriot's Day tomorrow. If you ever come to Boston (please do!), you can visit Mr. Revere's house in our Italian neighborhood, what we call the North End, and you can view his masterful silverwork in the Museum of Fine Art. If you like, you can read more about Paul Revere and his ride to Lexington at the Paul Revere Memorial Association's website. And, of course, you can also read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem,  below. 

Enjoy, and Happy Patriot's Day!

Paul Revere's Ride

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower, as a signal light, --
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, --
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, --
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British regulars fired and fled, --
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, --
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860.