Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
Friends of Mine, Good Housekeeping, how to, Style

Party On, Lane

the outside lane

Five months into the year, I finally kicked off my “entertain/socialize more” resolution from New Year with a little garden dessert party, which was very, very satisfying.  I know some really wonderful people, and I was happy to have so many of them gathered in one place.  I was also happy to feel like I could set up a good looking space for our dessert spread.

I showed you how I recovered my cafe table set for the party.  I recovered my patio dining table and chairs with a red-on-red tonal, print tablecloth by Paula Deen, also purchased at Ross for $4, and I used another $4 Paula Deen print as a tablecloth for a little card table, where we set up prizes and food.

I think things mixed and mismatched nicely.

 

For the party, I made brownies, mini-cupcakes, and soft pretzels.  My friend, Francine, made some amazing lemon sugar cookies, and we also had a cheese tray.  For drinks, we went through two pitchers of lemonade and some ginger ale, and those of us who imbibe had Birthday Cake cocktails:  1 part Cake flavored vodka, to 2 parts ginger ale, on the rocks.

Mini-angle food cupcake with chocolate icing (piped on with a ziplock bag that I cut the corner out of) topped with a mini-marshmallow.
And the mini-red velvet cake cupcake with cream cheese icing (same piping technique), topped with a stemmed, maraschino cherry. I based these off of one of my screen print designs. Food imitating art!
Cupcake Ninja! You can still order these, by the way. $25 for a tshirt. If you want one, contact me through lane@theoutsidelane.com.

 

So, great party!  No one cried.  No one threw up.  No one salted the earth in front of my door.  And Thor got to play with my friend Emily’s delightful daughter, who is the teensiest, most adorable, fairy-pirate I know.

Here, Thor coaches MissA on her frisbee grip.
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Art

the outside lane

I had the luxury of spending my lunch hour at the Dallas Museum of Art today, and I spent quite a long time moving slowly around the William Wetmore Story marble sculpture of Semiramis.

She is a beautiful work, carved out of a single block of marble, and as I revolved around her, I thought, “Really good art is  an excellent reason to believe in God.”  Mankind can do everything but breathe spirit into a body–sculpture like this?  How does that even happen?  I mean, I know the mechanics required, but how do you coax that beauty out of a chunk of rock?

I had the same feeling when I saw the David.  How do you chisel that perfection?  How do you get the fingernails, the curls in the hair, the veins?  And how do you do it without error?  Without accidentally chipping off a chunk of thigh?  It’s not natural.  It’s not human.  It’s supernatural.  It is beyond talent.  Beyond art.

The other day I told B that I wonder if the great artists of yore, given cameras, would bother painting, or if they would just take photographs?  Why bother learning everything necessary to paint The Coronation of Napoleon when you can just take a picture of it?  We agreed that Leonardo Da Vinci would have been a shutterbug–he had a lot going on!  But, I can’t imagine a decoupage version of the Sistine Chapel.  Actually, I can, and it’s cracking me up.  Michelangelo could have papered that ceiling with photos of posed models, as I papered my bedroom wall with my junior high crushes.

And on that note…

Good Housekeeping, how to, Style

How To: Recover Patio Seat Cushions

the outside lane

When I married Bryan, I inherited this adorable cafe table and chairs.  B’s mom lovingly, and carefully painted it bright red, and covered the seats in red and white canvas for us, and it was truly a great set.  But, years in the sun faded out the canvas, and then a year in storage didn’t do much for the fabric.  It was high time to recover the seats, especially since I have a little party coming up this weekend.

I am neither as good at, nor as equipped to cover chair seats as my mother-in-law (who owns a staple gun! I admire this woman so much!), and I am also cheap.  Lucky for me, I grew up watching Todd Oldham on MTV’s House of Style, so I know all about faking fabulous.  He used to do these great episodes about recovering chairs with old sheets, hot glue, and buttons.  I thought about that after a couple of weeks worth of me hunting for what I wanted on the internet failed, and I decided to hit up Ross and see what I could find.

What I found were three great, vinyl tablecloths for $4 each.  Just enough to cover the cafe table chairs, and give some new life to my other patio dining table and chairs.  Along with a roll of duct tape that cost about $2, I can spruce it up nicely.  Tonight, I worked on the cafe table.  Tomorrow night I’ll hit the bigger set.

I started with this Waverly tablecloth. It was felt backed, so I thought that would give the covers a little longer life.

 

I plopped a seat cushion down in the corner of the tablecloth (60″x120″ sized rectangle), and started cutting as though I were wrapping a Christmas present.

 

Those of you who have received Christmas presents from me will not be surprised to find out that I used an obscene amount of tape to secure the cover. I pulled and tucked, and taped as I worked for a smooth top of the cushion, and sides that were flat enough to fit into the chair rims. Duct Tape. Is there nothing it can’t do?

 

The finished product looked like this.

 

Thor gave the newly revived seats two thumbs-up.

 

I had enough tablecloth left to cover the glass top of the table, which has become smokey over the years. I tucked the tablecloth into the table frame, then went to work cutting around the edges like it was a pie crust.

 

And now, for $6, my little table is ready for the party. And when it’s said and done, I won’t feel bad about having to recover it because I only spent $6.
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Help Fight Hunger + Win Great Prizes = Yeah!!!

the outside lane

The Outside Lane has partnered up with JulieAnneRhodes.com to bring you the Grocery Rescue Recipe Challenge.

Check out Jewels’ latest blog entry to find out how to help fight hunger, and win some great prizes!  Together, we can keep people from going to bed hungry.  Because I firmly believe that the only time a belly should growl is when we’ve put it on a diet.