WHERE I'VE BEEN

Yikes.  Life has been full lately--maybe fuller than I'd like.  I've been blessed recently with some great new clients and new design jobs, and with Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations thrown into the mix, it feels like I've been unable to catch my breath!  I've noticed around the neighborhood that almost everyone has their trees up, house decorated, and I'm sure smelling like cider and salted caramels.  With the exception of our outdoor lights hung (thank you, husband), our house remains completely void of Christmas decor, and smells like diapers and last night's leftovers (sorry for that image) :)  I intend to have a decorating blitz this weekend, but I do have a good excuse for being this far behind.

In recent years, I've had the privilege of providing leadership on a couple of decorating committees at our church.  I work with some really talented and innovative individuals, who have been awesome at taking some of my design ideas and transforming them into beautiful sets.  A couple of years ago, I sketched up a backdrop that turned into a glorious winter wonderland:

The backdrop was about 12' tall by 30' wide--it needed to be to have impact in this large of a space.  Here it is complete with Christmas trees, decorations and LED lights:

A huge undertaking, with a lot of talented and innovative people to pull it all together.  It was so much fun for me to design in this type of atmosphere--certainly not what I have the opportunity to do everyday!

So fast-forward to this year, and we decided to go with a more simplistic, nature-inspired scheme.  It did take a while to pull together, but not quite the magnitude of what was done previously.  I really like the result though--

The main backdrop was created with "boxes" that we built, painted and attached birch to make them look like long planters with tall trees.

The length of the "planter" totalled 24', and we added simple natural garland to continue the theme.  The billowing fabric on the back wall is actually long tablecloths with a metallic thread running through them, which I sewed together so we could have 20' long panels.  Here's a look at the work in progress--almost finished:

The effect is really pretty, especially when its lit with different colors of LED's which cast beautiful light up the fabric panels and birch logs.  Overall, this is a pretty simple concept with really basic materials, but it creates enough drama and the feel of Christmas to make an impact in this large space.

So that's what I've been up to, and it didn't stop there for me last weekend.....I'll post about that next week :)  Time for me to get my act together and decorate my own house now!