Craft Hour

I know, I know, it has been quite a while since my last post; but I've been busy! ;)

What have I been busy doing, you may ask? Well, there's the obvious work, family, life, etc. However, last week was spent gathering material and working on a craft project. My friend, Amy, had a baby shower today and at first I was stumped as to what to give her and little Miss E. So, when looking for great gift ideas, what's a girl to do? Check out the Pottery Barn website of course! They have the cutest baby/kid stuff! I love the Pottery Barn look in general, but their children's items are just fabulous!

I found the perfect item, only to discover that it was backordered until JUNE. Did I mention the shower was today, March 27th? I'm no quitter though, so I kept perusing their website and found another item that I fell completely in love with! But alas, it was backordered as well. Have you realized how awesome Pottery Barn Kids is yet? This time however, I decided (along with some influencing from my friend Candy) to duplicate this amazing gift. If you can't tell from the pictures, it's a giant butterfly mobile. Knowing there was no way in hell I was going to cut out 50+ butterflies, we found (thanks to Candy) someone who owns a Cricut. If you have no idea what these awesome machines are, check them out here http://www.cricut.com/. Once we received the butterfly cutouts, it was just a matter of assembling everything together. A big thanks to Candy for assisting with this task!

The picture on the right was after stage one, it's basically just the butterflies hanging from the hoop. The picture on the left, was the completed mobile. Amy's nursery is gray and soft pink so I decided to use soft pink tulle to hang the mobile from the ceiling. The picture on the far right is the entire gift all wrapped up and ready to go. I felt kind of weird giving an entirely homemade gift at a baby shower, so I also bought two little outfits for Miss E (which turned out to both have butterflies on, totally not planned!). Candy had a black basket at her house, so I painted it white and wrapped it all up with more pink tulle. As many of you know, I absolutely hate pink! However, for this project it wasn't so bad, especially since pink wasn't the focal point, the mobile was.

I can honestly say, this mobile was the most fun baby shower gift I've ever done. I think it is going to look fabulous in Everleigh's room, I hope she and Amy both like it! :)

I also made a little something to send to another friend of mine who had her baby last week. Although, this gift is not near as big or extensive, it is equally special! I can't post pictures since it hasn't been mailed yet and I don't want Heather or Ryan to see Miss Ellie's gift before it arrives. I'm hoping to get one last thing for it this week and get it in the mail by the end of the week!

There could possibly be more crafty updates in the near future. I'm contemplating a few ideas and with a little inspiration from Amy and her craftiness we shall see what happens! Check out her awesome ideas/creations for sale over at http://thefingerprintsoflife.blogspot.com/.

Ps. I know the pictures are loaded on here in a rather haphazard way, I haven't quite got the hang of that yet. But you can still see them, so that's all that really matters. ;)

Six Degrees of Friendship

As I've previously mentioned, I love reading several of my favorite celeb's blogs. (#1 http://www.sophiabush.com/blog/ , #2 http://www.bjgofficial.com/) I highly recommend checking them out at some point. A few days ago I started reading GOOP (Gwyneth Paltrow's Blog) and happily discovered some great articles/ideas! You should definitely check it out over at http://goop.com/! After perusing the site for a while, I found an article about friendship. For those of you that have not (or will not) check out her blog, it's divided into several categories and then Gwynie poses a question/idea/theme and has guest editors/writers/friends/whoever respond. Most entries have several responses so it's pretty interesting to see the variation.

Now, on to the friendship article - which you can find here http://goop.com/newsletter/71/en/

As per her usual, there are several responses to the posed questions regarding old friends and growing apart. The next to last article is my favorite, because it basically hits the nail on the head. We all make friends throughout life based on varying circumstances. Whether they are childhood neighbors, that classmate you bonded with in junior high because you both felt out of place at that time, high school sports buddies, college roomies, party friends, or drinking buddies. They've carried us through the years and helped make us who we are today. Because let's face it, our friends influence us in ways that we may not even realize. But as we grow up and become real world adults (AH!), we all start taking different paths and sometimes those paths aren't going in the same direction. High school friends or college drinking buddies start to see that their plans (hopes, dreams, visions whatever you want to call them) are completely different from when they became friends 5, 10, 15 years ago. I'm sure some of you can pin point specific friends that fall into such categories, I know I can! I can also say that I no longer have a long time childhood friend, because things changed the second she became engaged and once married, that was it. I still have many great memories from our years of friendship, and remember them fondly.

We all think we wont/don't change, but let's face it we do. We have to change, the world would be an incredibly boring place if we didn't. But what to do with a friendship you've carried for so many years with amazing memories? Just let it go? The GOOP article addresses this. Several authors talk about possible solutions and how to approach the situation. I've never really sat down and talked to a friend about "divorcing" them (that childhood friend and I had more of a falling out over the situation than a parting of ways) but let me know if you have/will do it, I'd like to hear how it goes. In my other experiences with old friends, we've just sort of grown apart. We are no longer besties or bff's, we're not enemies, and don't hate each other either, but we're definitely not the friends we once were (I don't know if it's just me or if they realize it too).

I've always considered this to be "learning who your real friends are", but Gwyneth's GOOP article really got me thinking and evaluating all the friendships I currently have, and looking at each one and deciphering what kind of friendship it really is. I decided that I possess a couple of the greatest life-long friends a girl could as for and beyond that the rest are just friends, old and new, they may come and go, but the lifer's will always be there. No matter how long we go without talking or seeing each other, it's as if no time has passed. This self reflection into my friendships also taught me that I censor information when talking with different people. Now of course, we all do this. But, I personally have several friends who at various points in my life were considered in the "circle of trust" and would have never been censored from such important information! Alas, things change. I believe there are only 2 people still in that circle after 10 years, and I can say with no hesitation that those 2 will be there for the rest of my life.

I know to some this seems harsh or scary, but in reality it's just life and reading that article started me thinking, which led to some major evaluations. Hopefully this didn't bore you to death or upset you in creating your own reflections. I just thought there might be some of you that would like to journey through the friendship world with me (and all the other readers of GOOP who were swept into that article).

xoxo

kris

Hobbies

I've decided that I need to come up with some new hobbies. While being an avid sports enthusiast is something that I love and am very proud of, something new is still needed. Today I started a new, all be it small, craft project and it was so fun! I'm thinking that I may start doing random crafts just to see where it goes. I have something a little bigger/time consuming in mind to go along with part of today's project, however I cannot divulge the information just yet. If the bigger portion comes to light, it will be a gift and the receiver could possibly be reading this. (If you are, hehehe!) I really hope idea #2 will materialize! With Candy's assistance/supervision I think it will turn out fabulous!

Luckily, spring time is here and one of my previous hobbies can return to my life - bike riding! If it doesn't rain this weekend, Saturday will be my first ride since the fall. For that matter, I guess I can resurrect another old hobby and start golfing again. Since Candy moved to a golf course, it will actually be very convenient! ;)

This is a short post, just wanted to brainstorm some ideas for hobbies and also let you know that I didn't create this blog and then fall off the face of the planet. More to follow soon, promise!

xoxo,

kris