treat yo' self

Before we go any further, it is extremely important that you watch the following 25 second video. I know that it is a lot to ask of you, since we aren't really video BFF's yet, but we will be. Just... just do it. Consider it backround information vital to the rest of the blog. And also laugh, because laughing is good for you. So saith me.

See! I told you it was funny!

It was a few months ago that this clip kept coming to mind. And why wouldn't it? Parks and Rec is hilarious, and I am oh so glad that it just keeps getting good ratings, because when I like a TV show it almost always means it is going to get cancelled. But not this time! At least not for now... hopefully I didn't just jinx it.

ANYWAY. Beside the point. Although not really. Just keep reading to find out.

The concept of Treat Yo' Self is something that my friend Alyson and I adopted almost immediately. We started saying it for anything and everything. 

Diet coke sounded good? TREAT YO SELF. 

Like a pair of earrings? TREAT YO SELF.

Feel like going to the craft store for no reason? TREAT YO SELF. 

Go to the movies and pay full price for the ticket AND popcorn? TREAT YO SELF.

Want to wear sweats to the store? Don't treat yo self. No. I am staunchly against this. After all, you should never leave the house unless you are prepared to meet an old enemy or a dashing stranger.

All of the treating, amazingly, didn't get out of hand. But we did realize that we had been finding ways to deny ourselves simple joys by not indulging little whims. We were responsible with our treating- if we couldn't afford a shopping spree, we obviously didn't go. But if we wanted a milkshake once a month and the only reason we weren't having it was because we didn't have a "real" reason to, well that was silly. So TREAT YO SELF became a part of our lives.

It was no surprise then when I was driving one day and I decided that the girls in our youth ministry needed a reminder of how much God loves them, and that the event should be called "TREAT YO SELF." So Alyson and I got to work on gathering donations for manicures, pedicures, cupcakes, friendship bracelets and all sorts of fun girl activities. Since we work with girls from middle school all the way through college, we wanted to keep it classy but fun. So we turned our gym into a spa and invited all the girls to come treat themselves to an afternoon of pampering. Here is what we ended up with.

The straws I made to go with the lemonade punch        Our box centerpieces for elevated cupcakes

All the girls while we were wrapping up                       The bracelets we made

It was a great success. Fun was had by all! And it was so simple. It doesn't look like much, and it is hard to completely transform a big space like that, but the girls got the message: God loves them, and they are valued by the people around them :-)

p.s. sidebar: I arrived at my parents house tonight to find that my little brother (he's not little... I guess. He is 13. But he will always be my little brother.) had gotten me this pillow. It is one of my new favorite things :-)

Happy weekend!

these are a few of my favorite things

Wow, it has been a hectic few weeks!
Amid all the craziness of running a new program, school getting out, and like eight thousand family events, I am back.

AND I am starting a new feature on my blog!

This is an idea I got from a morning radio show a few weeks ago, which I never usually listen to. But on this particular day, I had forgotten my iPod. As I was flipping through the stations looking for anything that my overly critical musical tastes might actually enjoy. Instead, I found a morning show, and what they were saying really caught my attention. One of the guys was talking about his 6 year old daughter, and how she had asked him what he was most "into" in that moment. He answered generically with family and work, but she was not satisfied. She told him it had to be things and trends that he was particularly taken with at that moment in time; that no matter who he was talking to these things seemed to always come up. I loved her examples: doll shoes, Justin Bieber's new album, and miniature hand soaps.

I have been intrigued with this conversation topic for a few weeks now, but everyone I try to explain it to just gives me a funny look and doesn't really get it. Which is when it dawned on me: it is hard to actually talk about casually, but it is PERFECT for my blog!

So from now on, the third Thursday of each month will be Favorite Things Thursday! I will list the three things I have not been able to stop talking about for the last four weeks. You get the point :-)

So I am proud to announce the first ever FAVORITE THINGS THURSDAY! Yes, I know it is Tuesday. But I am just so darn excited about this, it couldn't wait anymore. I promise from now on they will be on Thursdays :-) Enjoy the ramblings of my crazy brain and the things that it seems to like the most.

1) minty nail polish

Mint has been the biggest trend of the summer so far, and I have been just as into it as everyone else. Pretty much every store I go into I get magnet-pulled toward minty things- even my iPhone cover is mint. But in the midst of the deep mint sea we are swimming in, I have found one particular thing that I love above all else: mint nail polish. I have loved it so much that I have gone through three different kinds in the last year finding my very favorite shade. Finally, I found "Re-Freshmint" by China Glaze.

It is perfect! I first found it when I was getting a pedicure for my BFF's wedding in April. I wanted something fun and springy, and this little gem popped right off the wall at me. It isn't too green, and even in some lights it looks slightly blue. And, bonus, it looks just as good on tan skin as it does on my pasty white exterior. I can't even tell you how many compliments this nail polish gets. It goes for about $7 a bottle, which is more than I am usually willing to pay for polish: I paint my nails so often (about twice a week) that it is pointless to get anything more than $2 polish. But for this shade, I was willing to make a concession :-)

2) pic-stitch

Pic-Stitch is a super handy little app. If you are like me, you love to take pictures of various events and happenings in your life and then share them with the rest of the world. I know they are all waiting with baited breath to see what I am eating for dinner ;-)

Here is an example of how handy my new fave app is: Last weekend we took my dad putt putt golfing for fathers day, and I took about 6 pictures of us and the gorgeous water-feature-only course. I wanted to share the event with my expectant public (ha!) but how was I supposed to choose one picture? I wanted one of the score card so that I could show off my skillz (yeah, with a z.) but I also wanted one of the sweet waterfall, or maybe one of the man we were celebrating. Enter pic-stitch! It allows you to combine several different photos into a variety of different arrangements for between 2 and 4 photos. Mine looked like this:

The family, the scenery, and the scorecard- plus I only had to tweet once! Pic-stitch also will export your creation directly to any other photo app you like, including Instagram. I whipped this sucker up in about 3 minutes- with easy to use features and in-app editing tools, I can't get enough of pic-stitch.

3) silhouettes

I am a craft geek. I love paper, scissors, chip board, modge-podge, all of it. A few years ago, my family was at Disneyland and my aunt had silhouettes cut of her two daughters. My mom toyed with the idea, but they were expensive and not all of her children were present, so she passed on the opportunity. On the plane ride home she said the only thing she wished she would have done was get those silhouettes cut of my brother and I. Being the amazing and thoughtful daughter that I am, I promptly filed that little bit of info away into my brain. Sure enough, two months later, my mom got not one, not two, but SIX custom and framed silhouettes- one of each child, one of all three of us together, one of my parents first dance at their wedding, and one of the dog. The bug was caught. I haven't been able to get over them since. I love the way they look. So clean, so classic, so beautiful. I even ventured into scenery and words- I made this for an old teacher last week:

I am also working on a silhouette necklace, but cutting something that small and that delicate is taking much more time than I had originally planned. I will post it as soon as I finish it :-) While I am not at expert level yet (where you just look at a person and cut their silhouette as they sit there and pose for you) I have recently purchased some special tools for better outline cutting- like a swivel-head Xacto knife. And it won't stop there. I just ordered "Silhouette Art: Papers, Instructions and Patterns for Making Modern Heirlooms" from Amazon.com and can't WAIT for it to get here. In the mean time, I will just keep drooling over silhouettes on Pinterest :-)

So there you have it! Favorite Things Tuesday is going to be so much fun. Next month, my roommates and I are having a favorite things party! I can't wait to tell you all about it. 

What are a few of your favorite things right now?