Decor

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DIY Decor: Pillows in Progress, or Making a Beautiful Mess

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When you visit a craft fair or art show, you see shelves and racks and cabinets filled with beautiful finished products. Fat colorful coffee mugs rounded to fit the cup of your hand, stunning framed photos of frozen waterfalls or birds in flight, the striking drape of a woven wool and silk scarf: their unique beauty stops you in your tracks, earns your admiration, perhaps even secures your ownership.

What we don’t see at the fair are the hours the artist spent bent over the pottery wheel, the precise balance of brute strength and fine pressure required to throw a symmetrical vessel. We don’t witness the lopsided learning curve or the moment of inattention that sends a blob of clay whirling across the studio. We don’t wait with the photographer, bug-bitten and motionless, in the field, or feel her boot crack through the ice that covers a trail of mud. We aren’t privy to the knotted tangles of thread, the beads lost under the radiator, the two discarded muslin mock-ups in the sewing room.

Or the cat who insists on helping.

Anyone who’s ever made anything knows the truth: The creative process is messy. And hard work makes more art than does inspiration.

The same might be said of love and relationships. Continue reading →

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Bratty Bride Goes Shopping

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If “Bridezilla” and some of the other wedding reality TV shows are to be believed (and I’m not so sure they are—no bride I’ve known has had anything so much as resembling a meltdown), there are at least a few ladies who think their “bride” status entitles them to be bossy, demanding, and downright rude. Planning a wedding can be stressful and time-consuming, but whenever I get the urge to complain, I try to stop and remind myself of one key thing: every last piece of it is a privilege.

It’s a privilege to have found a partner who returns my love and shares a desire to commit to a life together. It’s a privilege to have caring family and friends with whom to celebrate our joy. And it’s privilege to have the resources to throw a party with beautiful decorations and  abundant food and drink. These are not things to be taken for granted, and they’re assuredly not a license for temper tantrums and testy outbursts.

So I’m confident “Bridezilla” is well beyond my basic crankiness capabilities.

I’m embarrassed to admit that a little alter-ego I’ve come to call Bratty Bride is not.

 Meeting Bratty Bride

When you’re planning a wedding, everyone, it seems, has an opinion. Vendors and wedding professionals—the photographer, the florist, the DJ—are supposed to have opinions; you pay them well for their expertise, and when they share their knowledge, it impacts your vision and helps you make decisions. But then there are, oh, say, the overly enthusiastic dental hygienists, or the nosy sale clerks whose advice seems entirely derived of their own nuptial dreams and utterly divorced from the reality of yours.

It was whilst I was on the receiving end of such advice that I first met my inner Bratty Bride. Continue reading →

Elves on Shelves and Other “Traditions”–or, Why I Can’t Stand Unity Sand

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It’s that time of year again: Christmas carols ring through every shop, holiday cards outnumber the bills in my mailbox, and the Hershey’s kisses “handbells” make me giggle every time the last little bell says “Shwew.” A seasonal shift is evident on social media, too, as friends share recipes for crazy-good sounding cookies and post pictures of children sitting on Santa’s lap and little elves sitting on the toilet pooping peppermint candies.

Ah, the “Elf on the Shelf,” icon of the 21st century Christmas. According to Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell’s 2005 children’s book, the diminutive Elf is a scout for St. Nick who hides in various places around the house to watch and report on who’s naughty or nice. The toy, understandably I think, garners equal amounts devotion and derision. For those who have children and can share in their daily delight at discovering what that crazy Elf is up to now, it’s a funny and charming pastime. As a long-time single woman whose home was once broken into by the neighborhood voyeur, I find the idea of an odd little man popping in and out of my house and spying on me…icky. Sinister, even. Besides, don’t we have the NSA for that?

Still, just because their cute is my creepy, I don’t begrudge my friends their joy in elfin antics. And I hope none will begrudge me my confession that the same celebratory ritual that brings others great happiness makes me shiver in revulsion.

I can’t stand unity sand. Continue reading →

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DIY Decor: Vintage Finds Cakestand

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This is a quick and simple project, and a great way to create a unique pedestal cakestand that will (ahem) “elevate” your wedding (or holiday) pies, cakes, or cookies!

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Supplies for the project
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A few weeks ago in “Perfectly Imperfect,” I shared some of the thrift store finds I’m re-habbing to use as part of our wedding decor. First up, turning mystery object #7 and plate #2 into a cakestand with character. For those of you (still) wondering: mystery object #7 is a vintage toothbrush holder! It was obviously in need of a coat of paint, so I selected Valspar Signature, satin finish, in “Trolley” to coordinate with our wedding colors. (Note: A lot of hardware and home stores now mix and sell half-pint sample sizes, which makes it easy to purchase just the right color for a small project.) Continue reading →

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Perfectly Imperfect: Beauty, Brokenness and DIY Decor/Before

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“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” -Marilyn Monroe

Perhaps one reason I resist aspiring to perfection is my long-time love of vintage and antique goods. Perfection is a shiny veneer, pretty enough to look at, but usually a temporary state—and, frankly, a little boring. Wear and tear tells a story: a little rust lends a venerable charm, a few dings show an object was used and valued, a crooked hand-sewn seam or repair imbues an inanimate linen with tangible humanity. The Online Etymology Dictionary describes the root of “imperfect” as deriving from the “mid-14c., imperfite, from Old French imparfait, from Latin imperfectus ‘unfinished, incomplete’.” All of the imperfect objects in the gallery, above, were found at thrift, consignment, or antique stores, and all will become part of our wedding decor. When I look at them, I see the beauty in their imperfections, and the possibilities in that beauty. They are indeed “unfinished and incomplete,” though my goal is not to “perfect” them, only to highlight their inherent loveliness and enhance it by finding fresh uses for familiar things.

“To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.” – John Ruskin

Continue reading →

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DIY Decor: Pieced Pillow Covers

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Mom’s first pillow
Fabrics by Kathy Davis
My design sketch

Pillows may seem like an unusual form of wedding decor, but our venue has a number of long, plain wooden benches.  Adding groupings of pillows will, I hope, create some pops of color as well as soften up the modern lines of the venue’s interior space. Plus, my mother Margaret is a quilter extraordinaire, and I love sewing and fabric arts. Designing and making pillows is a great way for us to collaborate across the miles and share in the fun of the wedding-as-creative-canvas. I also plan to re-purpose some of the pillow covers for home decor after the wedding—another good reason to choose wedding colors reflective of those I love and live with every day. To save money as well as storage space, we’re creating slip-on pillow covers that fit pillows we already own (my blessed mother measured every throw pillow in her house). Each pillow cover we create for the wedding will be one-of-a-kind.

For the pillows featured here, Mom purchased a suite of fabrics online and supplemented from her stash. Most of the fabrics are from the Happiness, Blossoming, and Journeys collections by Kathy Davis for Free Spirit fabrics. I drew the (very rough) sketch to illustrate what I envisioned, a pillow featuring multiple fabrics in stripes of uneven widths. Using my sketch and the fabrics she’d selected, Mom created the beautiful pillow in the rocking chair shown in the large photo, above. The orange fabric, from the Happiness collection, is called “Sweet Words” and features words like “happiness,” “joy,” and “beauty.” Perfect for a wedding celebration!

Our Process

Folding to find a design
All stitched up
Pillows one and two

Continue reading →