Something Beautiful

One of my greatest joys in life is making things beautiful. Maybe not necessarily in a typical way, because not everyone perceives beauty in the same way. But the more I discover what beautiful is to me, the more I realize that I hold it as one of my highest values. I don’t think this is superficial. The Lord himself values beauty. After all, he created it! He created His children with different opinions, personalities, & interests, and He meant for us to sparkle and shine for Him in unique and beautiful ways. As children of the King, we see His world through individual eyes. In many ways, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Over time, I have come to decide that beautiful is hand-crafted. Beautiful is so much more than this, but hand-crafted is one aspect. I absolutely love making things. Pretty things. This is not to say that I can’t look at things that are dark or masculine or outside my normal realm of thought and find them beautiful, because I can and often do. But when I have in mind to make something beautiful, it’s usually something that will speak to my personal aesthetic.

My personal aesthetic takes center-stage when seen in the light of my secret career aspirations: toiling away all day in the sugar heaven of a cupcake shop or surrounding myself in a sea of florals as a florist. (Don’t fret, friendlies, I love ministry and am not going anywhere soon! These will hopefully be my old lady jobs.) My yearning to be the one who coordinates the outfits of the Ann Taylor LOFT mannequins totally makes sense to me now, as does the delight I find in painting my nails. I am not super artistic, but I do think I was born to create. And every so often, I indulge in a little bit of hand-crafted, creative fun that I hope will translate into something beautiful.

Today I decided to do just that. I went to the diva of craft stores, Hobby Lobby, in search of the items needed to create the perfect wreath for my new place in Tuscaloosa. In my mind it was a early housewarming gift for myself and Rachel for when we report to campus (which Lord willing will be soon- I'm 75% of the way there!), kind of like the joy of an early paycheck, only prettier.

In the neighborhood where I lived in Birmingham there was a wreath on almost door for just about every season, and the crafter in me dreamed about the day I’d have my own house with my own wreaths. Now, before you judge me as a crazy crafting-wreath-lover, you must know that you’ll never catch me with one on my door for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, George Washington's birthday, or any other seemingly insignificant holiday. So Christmas, Easter, Fall (cause it’s my special season) and Fourth of July (for my patriotic BFF) it will be. If I get that far. Today witnessed the creation of the standard Fall wreath and nothing else. We’ll have to see what the Rachinator says before baby wreath gets some friends.

Not at all where you thought this blog was going, eh? From a narrative on one facet of beauty to my most anticipated craft project of the year to date, my train of consciousness (much like my creative energy today) is on the loose!

After 30 minutes of strategic browsing in crafter's paradise, I emerged with these raw materials.

And after 1 hour of careful assembly, my wreath was born!

You likey? It's cool if you don't, really. But I can venture to say that most 70 year old ladies around the world will.