Welcome to the Nest

I am out of the dorms and into the apartment! At APU, sophomores get to live in on-campus apartments and I moved into my home sweet home this last week. My roommates, Ellen and Sarah, moved in as well and we are just so excited to be living together. We have deemed the apartment "The Nest." We wanted to name the apartment something that would be appropriate and we loved the imagery of it being something we made together, and it's somewhere where we can snuggle in and feel safe.

We furnished the apartment to suit seating for large groups as Sarah and I will be Discipleship Group leaders this year and Ellen is an Alpha leader. This means that we will have three different groups of freshmen in our apartment each week. Ellen will have around 10 "Alphies" under her wing, and Sarah and I will have up to seven under our own. We are so excited to see the community that The Nest is able to facilitate!

Here's a little of what we've done so far!

This wall will eventually be full of our photos. 

We made this with a little bit of Modge Podge,  a few pieces of scrapbook paper and a lot of Jane Austen love.

These are each of our states with a golden glitter heart at each of our hometowns: Grand Rapids, MI; Ft. Collins, CO; Tacoma, Washington. 

The terrifying cat you see behind the adorable Ikea milk bottles is Lucifer.  

A New Year, A New Look

Welcome to sophomore year! In just about 20 days, I fly back out to California for the beginning of my second year in college. How did I get so old? The adventures of this year include: moving into my first apartment, getting paid for my journalistic writing for the first time in my life, and leading a group of freshman girls while we do life together.

After a summer working at Hiawatha Youth Camp, I am so ready to go back to school. For most of my life, I've gone up to the Upper Peninsula to be filled up with knowledge of the gospel and to be filled with the spirit. Usually, I go home and the "Jesus high" slowly fades until the next summer.

This year, however, I went through a year of consistent spiritual growth. This completely changed how my summer affected me and my faith. Instead of being filled up, I was completely poured, wrung and squeezed out. After so many months of being consistently filled with the Spirit, God was able to use me as His servant in ways I've never been used before.

There will absolutely be more information and stories and retellings of how God worked this summer, but for now...some fun.

These are the success stories of the photo booth photos from my last post! 

DIY: Photo Booth Props

Hey all! It's been awhile, but I thought I'd post a craft I just got to make! These will be used at the camp I work at for a photo booth at the big, end-of-the-week dinner! I'm so excited to see how the photos will turn out. Here's how to do it for whatever you are planning too! 

Supplies:

• Foam sheets in assorted colors
• Wooden dowels 
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors/Exacto blade
• Sharpie

I started with a template for everything I made. There is a great one here! Thanks to Kensie Kate for her post. Or, if you're brave you can make your own! I traced the template with a Sharpie and cut it out with the scissors or Exacto knife (usually for the glasses). For the bow ties I added a long, thin strip of the same color foam to wrap around it to make it seem more 3D. I then hot glued the props to the dowels! Viola! Simple, easy and fun way to spice up your photos. I paid around $20 for all the materials start to finish (excluding the hot glue gun supplies). 

Pinterest Post!

I just did this to my nails yesterday! 

Check out my Pinterest boards!

Source: Uploaded by user via Hunter on Pinterest

Dorm Decorations:

Paint Swatch Calendar

I found this on Pinterst! It worked out so well, and I'm so excited to put it up in my dorm. Instead of buying a whiteboard or bulletin board calendar I'll use this!

Dorm Decorations

I got this idea from graduation open houses:

So many people had their photos strung up on strings with clothes pins. So, I bought some thinking I'd do the same. Then, when I was going through things in my room to either pack/throw away in preparation for college, I found all my old nail polish. Throw the two together and viola! You have cute dorm decorations. I'm going to hang photos, notes, etc. up on a string or ribbon in my dorm!

Watch out for more dorm decorations coming soon!