One year I made my own cards on blank paper. I got a very fancy filagree wreath stamp...don't quite remember but I think you stamped on some type of adhesive. Then you covered it in a powder and then heated it which caused the powder to melt and become dimensional. Then I hand colored each one with water color pens. I got another stamp for the inside that said Merry Christmas or some such holiday wish. It was a lot of work, but it was fun. Not sure I have any left...

I'm thoroughly enjoying this post - love Mtn's suitcases and her DH's originality. These are some of the presents DH wrapped, you can see the elegant brown wrapping paper with his custom calligraphy. Notice the large white one? The one covered in paper towels with the crude lettering on the side? He put this under the tree after I went to bed on Christmas Eve and he made sure that it was the last one opened. Under the paper towels was a brown cardboard box with round holes in it from Longfield Gardens, the kind they use to ship flower bulbs. He reminded me not the shake the box and I assumed it was full of bulbs packed in peat and dirt. I thought it a little odd because we had recently planted a hundred or so bulbs and I was not looking forward to planting more in the middle of the winter. I opened the box and it was full of styrofoam peanuts, the kind that fly up and stick to your clothes and hands. My grand daughter immediately dug in and giggled when she discovered that they clung to her arms and belly. There was another, smaller box at the bottom and inside was a beautiful tsavorite necklace and a little note that said he had finally found a birthstone for me that was prettier than the traditional garnet. He was quite pleased (me too) with his little charade.

Our window were the typical glass pane. My husband sprayed them white so from the outside they look like shades. Yours are obviously different and you only want to do half. Looking at your examples I think neither choice is ideal. Since you do have other natural light, I personal would close them both in. For me, glass block is not particularly pretty. Added to having half of one window on that wall. I know people like to save windows at whatever cost. One of ours was a bathroom that we added using space from the back of our garage. We couldn’t keep the window and have an efficient layout. This was an extra bathroom for our oldest daughter. She absolutely loved it not having a window!

That finish is pretty bad--IKEA normally does better. It's possible they are having COVID issues. I wonder if there's any way to find out. I'm guessing you were unable to go see them in person? Be interesting to see a display made with a (hopefully) good run. (The Bobdyn isn't wood and probably takes paint differently. And probably comes from a different production facility.)