Many years ago, my parents had two Christmas sparkle balls that I thought were the most magical decorations ever. They were ingeniously crafted from plastic cups fastened together, with holes drilled in the bottom to insert lights. I inherited them after my parents died (or rather, I appropriated them rather than ship them to California to my brother) and displayed them for years—even when they began to crack and fall apart. We patched them up with duct tape, the universal fix-all. But over time, even the duct tape failed to resurrect the dilapidated ornaments, and we eventually had to let go of the beloved decorations.

For a long time, I held onto the broken pieces, dreaming of recreating my own sparkle ball. Hah! Anyone who knows me knows that I am not gifted with the “craft” gene. This, however, didn’t stop me from the misplaced idea that I actually could pull it off. After all, the design looked fairly simple—count the cups, figure out how they connected, and add lights. But, like so many of my overly ambitious projects, I never got around to it. I finally admitted defeat and threw the broken sparkle balls away.

Then came YouTube. Viola! Several videos on how to make sparkle balls with step-by-step instructions. It looked so easy! Surely even I could do it! Inspired, I ordered twinkle lights and plastic cups—not the recommended Solo brand because they were expensive. A plastic cup is a plastic cup, right? (Perhaps that was my first mistake.) I painstakingly drilled 3/8-inch holes in the bottom of each one. Surprisingly, drilling those holes is a lot harder than it looks. Then, I attempted to staple them together, as demonstrated in the video. Uh, no. My pitiful little stapler rebelled. Even big, strong Hubby couldn’t force those staples through the hard plastic cups. Plan B: I decided to improvise with tape. Scotch tape worked for about a day before everything fell apart. Next, I tried clear packing tape. Surely, something designed to hold heavy packages together would work. Uh, no, again.

Back to YouTube I went, where a crafter recommended using a heavy-duty P-35 stapler. Again, she made it look so easy. I got online and discovered that P-35 staplers are rather expensive. Plus, I couldn’t get exactly what I needed from Amazon, where I have fast, free delivery, so I had to cough up another $8.00 for delivery. Then, I waited expectantly for several days for my stapler to arrive. When it finally came, I couldn’t wait to try it out. Except for one problem. It came with no staples. REALLY? How hard would it be to include a few lousy starter staples? Back to the internet I went to order staples, which took several more days to arrive. By this time, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get to display my beautiful creation at all this Christmas.

But, to my delight, the staples arrived last week. Now, I only had to figure out how to load them, which is not as easy as it is with most staplers. I managed to remove the spring from the back and insert the staples properly. So far, so good. But when I went to reinsert the spring, the entire magazine slid forward, and I couldn’t push it back. Another YouTube search revealed the closest application I could find for my problem was a guy demonstrating how to remove jammed staples. Okay, close enough. Except he simply shoved the forward protruding magazine back into place with no problem. Not so with me. No matter what I tried, that stubborn piece remained out of place. So, I did what I always do in situations such as these. I waited for Hubby to get home and fix it—which he did in about two seconds. (Talk about feeling stupid.)

Finally, I could get down to the business of assembling my sparkle ball. Except some of the cups stubbornly clung to the little bit of tape still holding them together, so I was forced to finagle the stapler into awkward positions. Then, GOOD GRIEF, this stapler requires a lot of strength to operate! Nevertheless, I persevered, and amid a lot of grunting and groaning, not to mention sore hands, I emerged victorious! Except that my sparkle ball doesn’t look as perfect as the ones on YouTube. In fact, it’s somewhat lopsided. It only appears to be round if viewed from a certain angle. I don’t care. I’m still going to hang it up and trust that people can’t tell it’s lopsided from a distance in the dark.

I’m rather proud of my success. But I’ve abandoned any hope of marketing my creation into a lucrative business venture. So don’t be looking for any YouTube videos of me.