Yep, it was a surprise for us, too.  For the record I agree that the wrong person went home. I’m aloud to disagree with the judges and this time i do.

Dan.  Oh, Dan.  There’s a lot of splaining to do, I know. And i know you guys aren’t seeing what some of us have done design-wise so i will break it down for you, designer by designer (at least on my team).  There are still 9 people in the game, so they can’t go into detail on each one of us, there’s just no time – but I can.  ALSO, WE STILL WORK IN TEAMS!!!!  so yes, its hard to have a breakout design when all the decisions are made together and they HAVE to be made together in order to create a pretty room…..

OK.  Flower district.  Fischer and Page, i’ve been there 4 trillion times and am actually pretty friendly with Chris the manager (btw, hey single ladies, if you want to meet a man that works hard, can lift heave stuff, knows what is pretty, and smells good all the time, go to the flower district – the guys that work there are all awesome and done with work at noon).

We didn’t have the world of flowers to choose from, but even if we did I would’ve chosen a wildflower because I love them very very very much.  They grow anywhere, don’t need any care, are effortless, loose, are always sculptural and under used…..oh….and super cheap.  wild and cheap.  like i like my men.

After getting our challenge, we all get our flowers and get into the van and start conceptualizing.  I wanted to do a billowing curtain around the bed to create romance.  Yes, Nina wanted to do fake applied….WAIT!!! WHY DIDN’T THEY STOP ME FROM CHEWING GUM IN THE VAN!!!!!  good lord that is not a good look for me.  how embarrassing.    Anyhoo, i’m not the biggest fake applied moulding fan, its a bit store display for me.  But whatever, it did add impact to the room.  Fact is that art (purchased) is not an option because of clearances, etc, so you have to do some sort of treatment on the walls or they will just be painted, then empty.  It was very very time consuming, however.

Ok, so back at the apartment we formulate the plan.  I’m going to make the room divider, Casey’s going to do the wall treatment in the bedroom, Stacey is creating an office, and Nina is doing a coffee table and a piece of artwork.  Dan talked about logistics and how its all going to get done.

We start shopping.  We go to Bo concept, Zarin’s fabric, a really good furny store downtown that i’m forgetting, and Gracious HOme (Dear gracious home, i love you, why can’t all hardware/home stores have your selection of great things?…seriously, why?ooh, also if you want to sponsor my blog I would accept, it’s about time i put it out there)  We get back to the space around 8:30 and start taping and painting.  Everybody is working together.  Dan helped me put up my rod for the room divider, which was necessary for everyone and for the room.  He volunteers to help because he is soooo much faster at everything so I agree to do clusters of pillows for him.  We are all just helping each other, worrying about our individual designs later.

We wake up the next day and I have  a bad feeling about Dan.  Dan and I had a conversation in the kitchen where we talk about the fact that he hasn’t decided what is specifically ‘his’ design yet.  He keeps saying that all of it will play to his flower and that he’s not worried about it -not in a cocky way, at all,  just in a ‘guy-who-hasn’t-gone-to-elimination-yet’ way.  He hasn’t been grilled by the judges yet on what he individually has or has not done, so he doesn’t understand how important it is to make sure that you can defend yourself.  We tried to explain it to him and he might have thought we were being dramatic (which I would’ve too, i’m pretty sure we said that going to elimination is worse than sitting in friday night west to east traffic on the ten which is the 11th circle of hell, 15 miles that can take 2 hours).

Anyway, he helped sooooooooooooo much because he’s got mad skills and is fast, efficient, works hard and is insanely pleasant to be around.  He’s the most chivalrous guy i know,  and insisted on doing a lot of stuff that he knows how to do so well – the hot macho guy stuff (he’s getting married in two weeks and i had the priviledge of meeting the lovely bride to be – more on that this week).

 Here’s the deal, its hard to stand out on teams (unless you are a mural person) so you end up kinda falling back and doing what you know you are good at.  I know that i’m good at fabrics, textures, accessories and sewing- so i sew a lot of the accessories. is that a copout?  I dunno.  I’m not sure what i would’ve done different.  Dan knows that he is good at implementing designs (and YES, he is great great great) so i think that he stuck with that.  AH, i hate thinking about it.  When the judges came into the room they asked us each what our flower was and how we implemented it into the room.  That was our chance to sell our selves and our flower (yep, i guess i talk like this now) into the room.  Dan didn’t really know, so I think it tipped the judges off that he might’ve not had much of an individual design concept.  Again, the judges don’t know what we do during the challenges, they only see the result (which is good and bad).

 I can safely say that he is the one person that I was legitimately shocked and sad about.  Everyone else so far seemed like it was their time, but for Dan….it was too soon.

I have to go to work.  i would love to call in sick and blog about design star all day long.  but money doesn’t make itself and mama wants a new pair of APC shoes, so i has to goes to works.

Because i’m a die-hard, frankly obsessed, Design Star fan I will be blogging about it everyday this week.  i’ll explain what each of us did in the space, how we got along or didn’t and why Dan ended up in the bottom two.

I’ll also post all the behind the scene pics which i don’t have time to down load right now.  I’ll answer any and all requests for DS info so if there is something you are dying to know, ask it and i promise to address it.

I also promise to never ever ever EVER chew gum on national tv again.  It is not helping my hillbilly reputation (although I had sweet, minty-fresh breath, yes i did).