Project Lanterns

Since I don't at all claim to be a DIY blogger (this is honestly the second project I've done all year), I don't feel too bad about forgetting to take the appropriate pictures for this post. So more than instructional, this just serves to show a little bit of the process and result. Doing a project like this is really case sensitive because measurements will be different, and you can use all kinds of different materials.

These paper lanterns have been around a long while waiting to be repurposed. I fell in love with them and bought them for my someday wedding before David and I even met (so over 4 years ago). We used them for decor at our little back yard wedding and then I became sentimentally attached to them, so I saved them.

Originally I planned to hang them directly from the ceiling at various lengths, and using ribbon, but I couldn't find ribbon I loved and without a ladder it would have been too hard to execute. So I decided that I would drape/swoop them instead, and remembered that I had this vintage blue sheet that I got at Goodwill months and months ago. 

These are to show how I attached the fabric so that it wouldn't be able to move or shift with time and get all wonky. 

I tied all of the lanterns in a string by the fabric strips using a basic knot, I wasn't seeking perfection, I like quirk. Then I added bows to the tops of all of the lanterns.

I wasn't patient enough to measure the fabric pieces in proportion to the swoop in front of the chosen wall, so I had to do some improvising, adding a piece of fabric to the center lantern and attaching it at the ceiling so that Lorelei couldn't reach it standing in her bed. The single swoop looked cuter, but I wasn't going to risk having her rip any more of them like the one you can already see in the last picture.   The last picture that does the project no justice, because I am truly terrible at interior design shots apparently. Haha.

Note: I wish I had outtakes of this to share with you! In order to hang the strung lanterns I moved all of her furnishings out of the way, brought our table in her room, and climbed on that to get it done. I'm crazy like that, or resourceful...

Midweek Music P.15: Eisley, Currents, "Drink The Water"

I've been a huge Eisley fan since I first came across them. Sadly that was only a year ago, I was late to the party. They have a new album coming out May 28th and this is a little preview put out by Nylon Magazine. I'm so dying over how pretty it is. Stacy is a real life siren...And the whole lot of them seem too cool to be real. Anyways, have a listen. :)

It Does Not Go Unheard

(No original source found, Pinterest)

As I start writing this all out I have the slightest inclination to want to apologize, but I decided that I will not. I will give you a disclaimer however, that this is very candid, very raw, and spiritual, which I realise does not appeal to all audiences. I have avoided sharing about my faith and spirituality here, and even lately avoided my spirituality on a personal level but I recently had a moving experience that opened up my eyes to many things, one being that I SHOULD share my heart.

I should start this story by admitting that for the last few months I have been soul searching, growing, and changing internally and some of this had led me to doubt my faith, to wonder if God was real, and if and why I was a believer. Something that has always troubled me in my faith was that it had to be so regimented. I felt as though, if I were a true believer in God I could not question what I was taught was Godly. To me, I felt trapped in a box by religion that said believing in my own notion of God, the universe, or manifest destiny made me a bad Christian. The thing is, I'm human. I am curious, thirsty for new knowledge and fulfillment, I believe in the power of my own mind, and I don't believe that things are, or even can be, black and white. And then there are so many things in this world that can elicit doubt and disbelief.

My first contraindications of God stemmed from becoming vegan, and wondering why God would allow so much unnecessary suffering to feed his flock. The "biblical" argument for that is that God put animals in the subjection of man after the flood. But doesn't logic say that it was because on an Earth covered in water there would be no plants for sustenance? And now that there are, wouldn't that have shifted? Do Christians put so much stock in history that they can not see when a practice is no longer relevant or acceptable?

Then I got back into yoga, and started reading a little about meditation, and Buddhism. The thing that appealed to me most about Buddhism is that it's more a scientific take on human thought and controlled emotion than about regiment and set rules. Buddhism of course is not without it's faults, but I find many practices worthy of adopting. Being the free-spirit that I am, believing in Buddhist practices and ideals didn't make me feel as though I couldn't believe in whatever else I wanted in unison.

I've also been in a spell in my life were I have felt so settled, not in upheaval, not overly excited, which can cause complacency and unfeeling. I've continued to speak to God, as I have my whole life, and beg the question, "Are you there?"

This is where things get real...as I laid on my daughter's floor last night pretending to sleep until she succumbed, my imagination was running away with me. I've had my paternal grandma on my mind a lot lately, so I was thinking about giving her a call, and I was thinking about seeing her in June when I go to Idaho to visit. Then it hit me, and forgive me if this is morbid, but there is usually a reason when I have someone so strongly on my heart (I'm an extremely sensitive, intuitive person), and so my mind went into overdrive with worry. I have this habit of imagining horrific things, not the gory or ghastly type of horrific, but the actions and reactions of grief surrounding bad circumstances. I found myself imagining that I lost her, I could see myself going back to her house and just sobbing, sitting in her quiet living room. I saw myself speaking at her funeral, of her life, her impact on others, on how she shaped me, and what she taught me, about how God's light was tangible in her,  how she inspired others to seek him (myself included) and how she was alive in her glorification of Him. That's when it hit me, this time my brain wasn't reacting to my heart telling me that something was going to happen to her, it was being opened up by God to see something bigger, Him. My grandmother has always been the one to gently nudge me back to His arms, and since she's so far away right now He found a way to use her as the answer to my question, "Are you there God?" And it did not go unheard...

As I laid there crying silent tears of realization, of regret, and then joy I felt comforted, and held like I have so many other times in my life when I needed it. This time I didn't even know I needed it, until He told me so. I feel like He was teaching me something about my love, and about Him, and that He took an opportunity to make me ready for something that He wants me to do. Right now I feel loved as I am, for what I do and don't believe, because His love never fails. I may have never known what that really meant before. It feels like being blessed, there is no other way I can describe it.

I share this here because I felt extremely compelled to. I may or may not continue to discuss things of this nature, depending on how my life progresses, but I hope that whether you hate or love it, you're glad to have heard my experience. I offer up and accept no judgment about spirituality in this space. It is an extremely personal thing and this is mine. Take it or leave it, and thank you for reading.