Christmas Food...

We were home in our own house for the first time ever and we made our first Turkey ever.  It turned out perfect, thanks to a few phone calls to my mom!

A Christmas of firsts!

Colorado...

In May before we headed out to Australia, we had a vacation planned to go to Colorado - to see some family and do some hiking.  I never posted any photos because we left in a whirlwind for the other side of the world, but I thought I'd share some here - in memory and hope of nice warm weather and hiking...

Merry Christmas...

Wishing you, your families, your friends, and everyone in your life a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I pray that you would know the peace and joy that Jesus promises us; that you would know the truth of his love in your lives.

Come Let Us Adore Him...

Here is a quick look at our home and our decorations.  This year Matt's parents have come to celebrate with us.  It is our first Christmas in our own house.  Very exciting to us...

Before...

 

After...

Christmas Tree...

We went and got our Christmas tree a few weeks ago.  It's been a few years since we cut it down ourselves because normally we are going out of town for Christmas, so we just get a small tree and then enjoy the one at our parents' house.  Our first year after getting married we were broke since I still didn't have a job and we opted for Chinese food as a treat instead of getting a tree that year, ha!

In Vermont, where I grew up, most people cut their own trees and we always cut ours as a family.  We would take turns having the final say on the tree.  I remember it was a ton of work for my dad - we traipsed out in the snow as a big group, picked and chose, argued and coerced to get just the right tree.  After we finally had one, my dad had to get down on the ground and cut it with a hand saw and then he had to drag it back to the car through all the snow and sometimes mud, depending on how cold it was. 

At the place we went to on Saturday, we were a little put off because you got to ride out on a wagon to the trees, then point to the one you wanted, and the workers would cut it for you with a chainsaw, then put it on the wagon for you, take it back to the farm, twine it up and then load it on your car for you. 

WHA????

We opted for our own walking in the trees, choosing and cutting ourselves, then Matt dragged it back, nice and sweaty as Christmas tree hunting should be!!

I will say if I didn't have Matt I would have been super thankful for the wagon option, so I can understand  doing it that way - but I'm thankful that I have Matt and that his back isn't as lousy as mine lately so he could cut and drag.

Upholstered Coffee Table...

We have been doing a ton of projects since we got back to our home.  We haven't had a TV since we moved into our house last June - with Matt working from home it seemed like too big of a distraction and just not what we wanted to spend our time doing for now.  We knew it wouldn't be forever and this year we were blessed enough to have one given to us for Christmas.  We put it in the basement near my studio and we aren't getting cable or even instant Netflix - just movies and watching online.  We hope this will keep us from becoming obsessed with TV.

It has also caused us to take a look at the downstairs space to freshen it up a bit.  I made a few pillows for the couch and a matching curtain for the little window.  Matt had a basic coffee table that we thought we'd freshen up a bit, so I upholstered it.  There are lots of ways to upholster, but I have a favorite go-to version I thought I'd share here.

Here is the table beforehand - simple, nice, but a litte boring.

I cut a piece of foam that I got a JoAnns with a coupon.  This foam stuff is not cheap, so don't freak out when you buy it.  This piece with coupon cost me about $35 for the 2" foam.

I measured out where I wanted the buttons and drew it on the foam first to get a good visual layout, then on the back of the vinyl.

I use marine vinyl for almost everything, since I have tons leftover from grad school when almost all of my work was made of vinyl.  (See art website here).  If you want crazy variations of vinyl to buy, this is my go-to online store.  Also, your local fabric store will have some.  If it's not a chain fabric store, you might find some really funky options.

At the cross sections of my grid on the vinyl, I poked tiny slits so I could find them once I was working on the finished side.

Then I laid it on the floor, lined up the foam on the vinyl and then lined up the table upside down.

This is the hard part - stapling - lots of muscle needed.  I had Matt actually stand on the edge I was stapling for extra weight, although I'm not sure it really added anything.  I generally do one long side in its entirety and then really wrench on the opposite side.  Not much of a science, more of an art...

Once it's looking pretty decent, I flip it back over and prepare to put the buttons on.  I am sure that there are a million places to buy screw on buttons, but I can never seem to find them when I need them (and I usually want to do one of these projects now, not after I order something online), so I have my own method.  I have a load of cheap washers that have the inner hole just big enough that I can fit a screw through it.  So we just took the screws and the washers and screw them into the table through the vinyl and foam.  It takes some force, but pushes it down really nicely - adding security beyond the staples and giving it a really nice upholstered button look.

Then I took the buttons I had made from some old fabric and epoxy-ed them onto the washers.  So when picking the washer size, make sure the outer diameter is something that you can hide behind the pretty button.  Also, pick a button that has a little space in the center so that the head of the screw will have some space and the washer and button will make good contact for the epoxy.

The epoxy doesn't leave a lot of room for re-doing later on or modular taking apart, but I have disabled some upholstery I had made another time and if you give them a good yank, they pull off fairly easily.

So now we have a great red upholstered coffee table to watch movies in front of...

Christmas Wish List...

With Matt still looking for a job, we aren't going to do much for each other this year, just enjoy each other and being home after a lot of traveling this year.  At the beginning of 2012 - we wrote our goals for the year and we had listed 5 dream places to go in 2012 and we hit all but one!  They were San Diego, Colorado, China, Australia and Oregon.  Oregon will have to wait!

But now we are home and waiting on God to find Matt a great job.  We are praying for something that will challenge him, get him back to working with other people and not at home by himself and a job where he can really contribute in a positive way to the company. 

So I am getting used to not shopping and not even looking online as much anymore, but of course there are a few things that have caught my eye...

1-Topshop; 2-Piperlime; 3-Asos; 4-6pm; 5-Nastygal; 6-Shopbop; 7-forwardforward; 8-etsy; 9-Stylebop

Missing Me So Soon?

I thought it would take me longer to miss Australia.

Don’t get me wrong, I do NOT miss the little apartment and watching too much TV because we didn’t have any projects to work on or stuff to make.  We’ve gone crazy in our home already – taking on about a million DIY at once (and then starting even more while most are unfinished!).  So that I love and that I don’t miss.

But my job – ah, my job... 

Now I’m back and I feel a bit displaced.  People are happy to see me in my old office, but no one is particularly interested in what I brought back intellectually.  I don’t yet know what my new role is and I’m actually a bit bored (this won’t last, I know!).  I’m still supporting the team in Australia, so that is still a thread of feeling needed, but other than that I’m not sure where I belong anymore…

It all feels a bit anti-climactic actually.  It feels like it should have had a bit more closure – like graduating, you get a ceremony.  Getting married, you get a ceremony and a vacation, having kids, you get a kid.  But I just came back and came back to my old desk, wearing my old clothes…  I think I should have had a bit more of a ceremony than this… 

International Justice Mission...

Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of all the down-and-outers. Speak out for justice! Stand up for the poor and destitute!" -Proverbs 31:8 (MSG)
 
I am still figuring out what this blog is really about and some days I struggle with whether or not it quite encapsulates who I am yet.  I certainly love fashion and travel and home projects, but much of my heart is for the poor and increasingly for those entrapped and enslaved. 

Human Trafficking is getting a lot of publicity these days, and it should - the more people who know about it and are working to fight it and END IT the better.  I just wanted to share a bit about an organization that we support as much as we can each month - just to give you an idea of some of the amazing things happening right now to free men, women and children from slavery.

International Justice Mission was founded in 1997 and they work tirelessly to stop slavery.  They work with local agencies to train and educate them so that the crazy cycle can be slowed down and eventually stopped.  They have a few different facets to the work.  They work with local authorities to go in and rescue those who are enslaved - busts as it were.  They work to  prosecute those that perpetrate slavery in the countries that they work in.  They also provide after care for those that have been rescued.  The most impressive and amazing thing about IJM to me is, the money I have given them funds them literally going in and freeing slaves. 

I cannot tell you the incredible feeling of getting an email from IJM with the most recent story of modern day rescue happening half a world away - maybe right now.

I thought it would be worthwhile to share something beyond you or me today...

Here is the official spiel from IJM's site on who they are and what they do:

International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that brings rescue to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local officials to secure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to ensure that public justice systems - police, courts and laws - effectively protect the poor.
IJM's justice professionals work in their communities in 15 field offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America to secure tangible and sustainable protection of national laws through local court systems. 
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Remembering Fiji...

So we are home now - back to Philly and while we are certain to miss Australia in the cold months to come, right now we are happy to be home in our spacious and lovely home.

It's no surprise that we have started in on about a hundred projects right away.  Hubby is job hunting which makes us (by us I mean me since he is as cool as a cucumber) oscillate between hope and terror.  I'm trying to get over jet lag to spend time in my studio.  So far I have made a curtain for our basement window, and have a pile of sculptures we pulled out of the closet that I'm going to try to revamp for wall hangings.  We figured if I'm going to keep them (Link to my art site), then maybe we should try to look at a few of them instead of hiding them away in the closet under the stairs.

I'm still working on a style/scheme for our guest bedroom that I'm determined to redo for very little money, so more on that in the months to come...

With Hubby not having a job, we will also be making a lot of our Christmas gifts this year.  Which is actually pretty fun, but I just need to think of some great ideas!

Right before we came home from Australia, we took a few days and went to Fiji for holiday.  This was our final break and our 1 week of summer.  It was just starting to warm up in Australia when we left and we knew when we got home it would already be beyond sweater weather, straight into jacket and hat weather.

Fiji was beautiful. 

We laid around just relaxing, reading, talking and enjoying the sun.  Next to us was the actual raft they used in the Tom Hanks movie Castaway, so that was weird and cool.