Category: Projects

Hospitality: A Pep Talk

Entertaining

As I mentioned, we’re hosting a gathering this weekend to celebrate our daughter’s baptism. It’s a wonderful thing, something we look forward to and which we will remember fondly when it’s all over.


I’ve done all my usual things.  I’ve dreamed up fabulous menus, thought of all kinds of pretty little finishing touches for everything from bathrooms to desserts, written a list of projects to finish that is longer than all the projects I’ve done this year.  There is no shortage of ideas in this head of mine!  As the weekend has drawn nearer, however, many items have been crossed off the list as reality sets in.  Last night the whole family joined in and helped to clean bedrooms and bathrooms.  The essential rises to the top and the nice-to-do settles to the bottom.

As I’ve done this, I’ve been pondering my little cycle of preparing for out of town company.  Why is it that I expect my perfect house, my perfect self to be ready for gatherings?  I know that it won’t really happen, but I impose the standard on myself anyway.  Why do I behave as if my house shouldn’t look like ten people live in it when ten people really do live here?  Why do I worry and stress when I know that it will all turn out fine, just as it’s done every time before this?
And what about the cost of stress for my family?


I want to live graciously.  I want to have  a gracious home, a gracious family, a gracious demeanor, a gracious smile.  I want my home to be a warm and happy place where people feel at peace.  I want to give thoughtfully, to entertain cheerfully, to live with a calm and happy heart.  And perhaps most importantly, I want to prepare for all these things graciously as well.

Sandy Coughlin wrote, “Gracious living is the butter on the warm bread of common life.”

Isn’t that beautiful?  Does it make you want to go bake some bread to share with a friend?  It does that to me.  It also reminds me that gracious living isn’t something I should focus on only when guests are expected; it’s something I should offer to my family every day.  People who are gracious make it look easy, but really they’ve worked at cultivating this talent.  It’s a talent I am determined to develop.


Sandy Coughlin is the author of the blog, Reluctant Entertainer , and earlier this year she published a book by the same title.
Having read her blog here and there, I purchased the book when it first came out, and for me it’s been a gem.  While many of her tips and tricks were things I already knew, I enjoyed it because she sounded real and down-to-earth.  I also enjoyed it because as I read the book ideas and insights were opened to my mind concerning how hospitality and graciousness relate to me as a mother in my relationships with my children.  Heavenly Father can use anything to teach us what we need to know.  I learned a great deal and wrote pages of notes.

“Hospitality is more about creating the right mood than the perfect piecrust,” she writes.  The key, in her opinion, is to seek excellence instead of perfection.  “Excellence is working toward an attainable goal that benefits everyone.”

It’s so easy to get it backwards, to think that we must create the perfect environment so that the right mood can prevail.  With all of my little ones I’m in a stage of life when the environment is far from perfect.  If I let my success hinge on that one thing alone, I cannot succeed, and there’s nothing that will destroy my mood faster than the feeling that I can’t succeed.  While having a tidy and presentable home is important, it is NOT more important than the feeling in my home.

Excellence, on the other hand, is win-win.  It blesses all of us.  Unlike perfection, excellence can be attained – not in all areas at all times, but in some.  Ultimately the secret to success and to graciousness is in “being relaxed and engaged when you greet your guests at the front door.”  Life is about people, relationships.


All these thoughts have paraded through my mind this week.  There have been moments of stress and moments of peace.  I look around my house this morning and see many loose ends to tie up.  I see fingerprints all over walls that I didn’t get to.  I also see a newly organized pantry and a guest room that is ready and waiting.  There is excellence in a few areas and great need in others.  I see three little ones who need me to be their mother in the midst of  all my daytime busy-ness.  I have simplified many plans and kept my sights set on one or two.

Most of all, I’m excited.  In a few hours someone will notice the car pulling up, and eight sets of feet will run from different parts of the house to greet grandparents who have sacrificed to spend a couple of days with us.  That  moment, the moment of pounding feet and noise converging on the front door is what it’s all about.

I look forward to greeting my parents, my brothers and sisters and others at the door with a smile on my face, ready to engage in the opportunity to make memories and build relationships.  My two year old said to me yesterday, “I don’t like when Grandma and Grandpa go.  I like it when they are here.”  It will be wonderful to see them, precious to see my daughter dressed in white with her Daddy for her baptism.  We’ll bask in the blessing of being together.  And the dirty fingerprints won’t matter.

Hopeful Homemaker

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Baptism Invitations

Paper

This beautiful daughter of mine turned eight last month, and will be baptized on Saturday.


She is blessed  with a golden heart.  We marvel often at her sweet and sincere goodness.  We’re so excited for her special day.  This means that there will be a flurry of activity in our home this week as we prepare for family to gather in honor of her decision to enter into this sacred covenant.  Among those activities is the creation of her invitations, something that should have been accomplished at least 10 days ago, but at least I’m doing them!


Projects like this are created from my old stash of scrapbook supplies.  I went with  a simple design, printing the information on the photo and mounting the picture on a piece of white cardstock.  I then cut pieces of my favorite vellum to cover the entire invitation.


After some experimenting I settled on a simple white ribbon woven back and forth across the top to hold the two layers together.


I’ve said this before, but there is something beautiful in stacks of paper and supplies all lined up together.


I love the shades of white, the subtle gray produced by the vellum over the photograph, the shadows, the way white helps you see texture.  I never tire of white.  Simple and elegant.


I added a simple strip of white cardstock with a charcoal gray design stamped across it to cover the text on the photo below.  This makes the invitation easier on the eye as you aren’t drawn to try to read two layers of text on top of each other.


And underneath the vellum…


This is a project I was tempted to skip when I missed the window to mail them at an appropriate date.  I’m grateful for telephone and electronic communication!  Still, I felt like I should do it, and now that they’re finished I’m so glad that I did.  When the children came home from school and saw them, I was so happy to present my daughter with her own invitation to keep.  Interestingly, my almost twelve year old daughter ran immediately to her room and returned with the invitation I made for her baptism four years ago.  My heart whispered to me that what I had done was important, and I’m so glad I followed that prompting.


Now they are en route, and although they’re late, I hope they will still serve as a reminder and a memory.

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Punctuation Baby Quilt

Quilting and Sewing

It’s late but it’s done!  I think it’s also really cute.


This half square triangle quilt was made using the Punctuation collection by American Jane for Moda.  I really like the happy colors in this line, and think that it lends itself well to a baby boy quilt.  Paired with a beautiful blue solid, I made this quilt with one charm pack.  The quilt measures approximately 42 inches wide by 46 inches long.


I used straight line quilting on this, carrying the horizontal and vertical lines across the green border to the edges of the quilt.  I then quilted on the diagonal, going opposite the line of the half square triangle squares, but kept the diagonal quilting in the center of the quilt only.  I’m very pleased with how the quilting went.  I feel that I’m getting better at it, but I’m also aware that this is a very small quilt.


If there was one thing about the quilt that I struggled with, it’s the fact that the charm pack came with so many squares of the pinstripe fabric, two of each color.  I didn’t realize when I bought it how little it had of the more graphic designs.  In spite of this, however, I think that the quilt came together nicely and, on the whole, is colorful and interesting to look at even with an overabundance of that particular print.


For the back I used the alphabet print in red, which I like a lot.  It seemed fitting for a little boy born at the beginning of the school year, the sixth child in his (quite amazing) family.

And for the binding I went with the same blue solid.  I like the way it works with the blue quilting lines that go through the green border and meet the binding. I feel like it pulls the whole quilt together.  The binding was machine stitched.  I’m getting faster at it, and think that I may have found a way to sew it on that I like.  I need to bind one more quilt to see if I’m right.


And lastly, my favorite part of the whole quilt:


That’s his footprint!  When he was a couple of days old I had his grandma trace his foot so I could make this little tag .  I simply embroidered it and then stitched it to the corner of the quilt back.  I really like it.


Because of the tag I decided to simply wrap it with a ribbon.  Now it’s wrapped around an adorable little boy, and I hope they love it.

Hopeful Homemaker

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