ONE banquet

Whew!  It's done!  On November 8, all our work on banquet decorations culminated in an amazing evening!  Everything was beautiful, the place was filled with 700+ guests, Lifeline staff, and "Lifeline families".   It was my favorite banquet so far! 

This year the decorating was practically stress-free.  Krisha sent a bunch of great volunteers to my house regularly for "work days" (not to mention my own kids who helped a bunch).  I got to meet lots of great new people AND make grand decorating plans!  Two of my favorite things :)

my favorite design element...every other thing was inspired by this

and this is my sigh of relief that all I have left to do is eat

I have been a TERRIBLE blogger lately!  I have not been sewing either. I will tell you what I HAVE been doing because I'm not lolling around eating chocolate ;)  As a matter of fact, I'm not eating much of anything but meat since I started the Paleo lifestyle but that is another blog post entirely.  And I'm being very overly-dramatic...I actually enjoy the paleo diet...mostly.

What I have been doing is decorating, kind of. At this time of year for the past 2 years I have had the privilege of combining two of my passions...adoption and decorating.  I mean, how many people get to do what they love AND contribute to a really worthy cause at the same time??!?  I am honored and humbled by the opportunity.  I am also scared out of my wits that I cannot pull off the look on such a large scale.  I am talking about our adoption agency's annual fund-raising event...this year the theme is "ONE"

Oddly, I have not mentioned my passion for adoption on this blog.  Mainly because the blog started out as just about my sewing and I didn't think it really fit.  But, what I'm learning is that this great PASSION is integrated into my sewing and every other part of my life.  And now, this blog is really about lots of little random pieces of my life because I get so busy doing all the "random" things that I don't have as much time to sew and blog about it.

So, for a little background...

We started our first adoption journey early 2006 and brought our daughter, Eden, home from China on April 2, 2008.  It was a long, beautiful, painful, amazing 2 years!  I would not trade a single day of that journey.  God has been so amazing to us in every detail.  About 6 months after we returned home with Eden, we started the adoption process again...this time we believe God has 2 boys waiting for us in Peru.  We are on day 1074 of that journey now. 

So, for the past couple months, I have been staying busy, along with a whole bunch of other amazing people, planning how to decorate the MASSIVE ballroom for this event.  We are having a blast!  It is so exciting to me to see everything coming together!

When we get together for "work days", I keep getting asked the question..."so, do you think this is the most tedious part?"  And my answer is that none of it is tedious to me!  It is invigorating and fun!  I feel like I am ALIVE when I am decorating, even during the seemingly "tedious" parts like cutting letters or spray-painting something.

I think the banquet hall decorating so very closely resembles the actual adoption process.  There are a lot of little things that HAVE to all come together in one BIG thing.  But it is a PROCESS.  It doesn't happen all at once.  It takes time, patience, work, waiting, cooperation, HELP, letting others do their part, lots of help, humility to ask for HELP, prayer.  Last year we all agreed that watching it all come together was such an amazing picture of the body of Christ...everyone doing what they were called to do and it all just fit together and it WORKED! 

So, as I look at these piles of "stuff" all over my porch, 

what in the world could this be???

and sewing room,

and overflowing into my husbands office...

I get an adrenaline rush thinking about how it will all come together on November 8!

Sarah Gray, Editor-In-Chief of my favorite magazine, Country Living, penned my exact sentiments in her editor's note this month when she said, "...in other words, I fear opening the door to scrutiny.  Like most nonprofessional decorators, I vacillate between out-size pride in my interior-design endeavors and crippling doubt: Does the whole thing read as offbeat genius or just, well, off?


Come and see for yourself!  November 8, Birmingham Sheraton...be ONE.

Black Night Stand

This is the story of a perfect little black night stand.  It is a LONG story.  It was supposed to be a short story, but that is my life.

The black night stand was the very last piece of furniture I wanted for our bedroom.  Next week it will be 4 years since we moved into this house and (as usual) our bedroom is always the last one I decorate.  Next time we move, I will not wait 4 years to complete our room.  (I lie, it will probably be the last one again...it is a moving habit now, I can't help myself.)

 So, I found the perfect little 3-drawer dresser at a local antique/flea market.  The shape was perfect, the size was perfect, everything was perfect!  Well, the color was not perfect (cream), and the smell was not perfect (decades of cigarette smoke which I didn't realize until I got it out of the musty flea market), and the top was not perfect (plastic laminate under the cream paint), AND the price was not perfect given the last three things that were not perfect.  The price WOULD have been perfect if I only had to slap a coat of black paint on it, which was my grand plan when I purchased it.  But, alas, when I arrived at home and started painting, the strangest thing happened.  As I painted, the cream layer of paint just started bubbling up and coming off with every stroke.....grrrrrr.  So somewhere in the life of this little dresser, someone had ignored the rules of layering oil base paint and latex. What is that rule anyway?  Oil base can go on top of latex but not visa versa.  Or is it latex can go on top of oil base but not visa versa?  I understand the confusion, I really do. 

Now I'm just discouraged.  Most of the time I relish a project but just this one time, I wanted an easy project.  This was not to be.  I was relating the story to my husband while we sat on the porch one night and telling him that I just wanted to cry.  (This was practically my FIRST flea market faux pas, you understand...at least that I can recall, wink, wink.)  And now we have a dilemma because I absolutely HATE stripping furniture!  I mean, I really, REALLY hate it.  And the dresser is sitting in the garage in my parking spot so it has to be completed soon because we have teenage drivers and all that moving around of cars so someone can get out to go to work or the movies or TJMaxx is just ridiculous.  I had to sleep on it and figure out what to do.

I don't know when it happened, but the next thing I knew, my darling husband was stripping my dresser for me!  He had gone to Lowe's and asked the guy what he needed and got the stuff and was STRIPPING MY DRESSER FOR ME!  Let me just say that my husband hates stripping furniture maybe even more than I do.  But he really, REALLY loves me (obviously).  Again, I wanted to cry...happy tears this time :)  I vow to keep quiet in the car while he is driving in honor of his act of undying love and devotion...starting tomorrow because I already screwed that up yesterday, blurg.

Over the long weekend we completed the dresser.  We had to prime (with oil base primer just in case...everything sticks to that) and paint EVERY surface of the blasted thing (because of the cigarette smoke) but between the two of us we got it done.  It is so beautiful I just want to cry every time I see it (I cry a lot, apparently). 

It all started with the bed

My darling husband, DW's nightstand.  His is new, albeit deeply discounted ;)  He likes new, I like old.

Both dressers are DW's, both are old.  Sorry, DW.  It's all about the design plan, baby.

Evidently the design plan...

was all about...

the curvy,

swervy

lines.  I love it when a plan comes together!  Amen.  Maybe I will get the pictures hung this year.

Door & curtains

Friday I FINALLY got my back door painted!  Soon ("soon" being a relative term) all my doors will be shiny black!  I love a couple coats of glossy oil base paint on doors.  If we ever sell the house, the future owners will hate me, but I can handle it.  The paint store guys will not convince me that latex these days is as good as oil base.  It just looks different.

So, since I got done around lunchtime, I decided I had enough time to hang the new linen curtains I got @ the Restoration Hardware outlet over spring break.  I should have know better...spring break was only two weeks ago...I can't possibly start and complete a project in just 2 short weeks, it hasn't had time to marinate yet.  Anyway, I started opening the packages.  There are four 96" panels, mismatched because that's how I am.  Two panels were Belgian linen with variegated stripes, the other two were handkerchief linen...all four in white.  I had also bought a panel in the flax color because I liked it and it was cheap and you can never have too much linen, right?  So, I'm opening packages and getting ready to iron when I notice that one panel seems different than the others.  Come to find out, it is 84" long and all the others are 96".  Blurg.  Now I'm picturing myself cutting off and hemming the other 3 panels, but when I measure the door and window I KNOW that I want the 96"s.  I don't like my curtains to be right at the top of the window, but up near the ceiling.  Now I spend about 30 minutes on ebay and other sites looking for another panel...no luck (which is why I got them cheap at the outlet and mismatched).  But then I remember that I have 1 flax colored panel left...please, please, please let it be 96" long!  AND IT IS!  I'm saved!  I stuck it in a bucket of bleach water overnight and when I woke up...It was white!  My mother says you can't trust how linen will act when you put water on it, but I'm fearless that way...I just plopped it in there and ran the water on it full blast!  My husband says I'm naturally a rebel.  I laugh in the face of warning labels and fabric care instructions.  Dry Clean Only...whatever.

This is my life.  I'm pretty used to things not working out quite the way you planned them.  But I think I really do enjoy figuring out HOW to make it work out when the plan falls through.

 ...and here it is!  TWO completed projects in one pic!  I almost forgot to tell about the curtain rods.  I found these great rods @ Home Depot in about 5 minutes.  This never happens with me.  I usually spend about 6 weeks looking for the perfect thing at the perfect price (cheap).  They are called "vintage doorknob" by (who else?) Martha Stewart.  $29 each!