I went to Richmond last weekend for a much needed weekend with my girlfriends. It was exactly what I needed. I miss them and wish I could see them all the time.

When I arrived to Cristina’s house Friday night, it was dark out and from the street there appeared to be a notebook piece of paper taped on the door. It seemed odd, she had just texted me that she was home. What could it say? So, I grabbed my bags out of the backseat and headed to the front door. When I got to the front door, it was a white metal door wreath bucket thing. There were snowmen on it. And it demanded that we let it snow. I chuckled. My friend Cristina is AWESOME and I could not love her more, but homeslice is seriously busy. Full-time job, two kids who are swirls of energy and adorableness, a dog who eats anything and everything, a great guy, a crazing running/workout schedule. Homeslice ain’t got free time, yo. I was kind of not surprised that the winter decoration was still being rocked, and I could not wait to replace it with something more appropriate for the season.

The next day, I met Elizabeth at my favorite Richmond dining establishment to break fast. We caught up and laughed and ate delish omelets and discussed home decorating things. We ran some errands (going to U-Fab and looking at fabric counts as an errand, right?) and met up with Cristina later that morning. The three of us hung out all day. It was awesome and heartbreaking all at the same time. Awesome because I was with my ladies, and heartbreaking because I had missed them and knew I was only there for the weekend.

Anyhow, somewhere in the day, I brought up the winter decoration on Cristina’s front door. Cristina said to remind her to bring the “egg wreath” out of the garage later. Mmkay. I knew the egg wreath wasn’t coming out because I knew when I come back long after Easter has come and gone, the egg wreath would still be there and we’d be back at square one. BREAK THE CYCLE.

Let me just go off course here and say this: I don’t know why wreaths have become so important to me and such a part of my life. Other than a Santa wreath at Christmastime, I don’t remember wreaths being part of my childhood front door. Or maybe they were and I wasn’t paying attention. I’m good at not paying attention to stuff sometimes. But now, I am all about some wreaths. I hate seeing our front door without a wreath. I don’t know what flipped the switch, but here we are. Meanwhile, back in Richmond…

We’re talking about wreaths and Cristina says the best idea ever – Nicole, your house-warming gift to people should be a set of four seasonal wreaths. I love this idea for so many reasons. Let me number them for you:

1) Who ever thinks to gift someone a wreath for their new front door? No one. There will be no chance of a double gift.

2) Who ever thinks about hanging a wreath on their new front door? No one. There are boxes to unpack, circuit breaker boxes to find, figuring out which switches go to what.

3) I hate the wreaths I see in stores. They’re all the same. And they’re so uninspired. For example, I live in a row of five townhouses. Two of the front doors have the same wreath. Then there’s our front door that has a beautiful one-of-a-kind wreath. The other two doors don’t have wreaths which is a whole other gripe.

When Cristina first said this, I was like “oh, that’s a cool idea.”  As the days have gone by, it is occurring to me that this is the most brilliant, inspired idea ever.  I have so many ideas!!!  I’m telling you, I don’t know why I’m so inspired by wreaths, but I am.

Sunday, Cristina had to attend to some family stuff so Elizabeth and I roamed around town and had so much fun hanging out.  I told her I had to make Cristina a spring wreath before I left town.  I had to.  So to the craft store we went!  Well, as soon as I consulted Twitter about where the new Joanne’s is located.  (it’s still on Broad St., but now it’s in the Marshall’s shopping center, btw)

We picked up a straw wreath (my fav to work with), and something…  What were we going to put on it?  Hmmm.  I knew I wanted something bright and cheery.  I was thinking I wanted to use fabric somehow, but I wasn’t sure what or how.  As we were walking around, checking stuff out, there was this end-cap displaying pre-ruffled strips of cute, bright, cheery fabric.  Ding, ding, ding!  We have a winner!!*  There were three fabrics on a piece of cardboard.  We wrapped it around the wreath a few times to make sure it was workable.  TOTALLY WORKABLE!  Next up, some ribbon for hanging.  On the way to the ribbon I picked up some yellow fabric in the remnant section just in case the ruffles showed the wreath form.  Oh and some pins, because I didn’t have my supplies with me.

We headed back to Cristina’s house (she was still handling family stuff), sat down with our new supplies, watched Project Runway while whipping up a cute spring wreath fit for my friend’s door.

So my fun lady weekend ended with me making a wreath.  I am not surprised by this at all.  Below are pictures from my weekend.  And the wreath, of course.

The wreath

FourSquare is just rubbing it in

Best way to sell tacks!

a rainbow of fabric at u-fab

cristina needs this fabric in her house… somewhere, somehow

best painting ever over cristina’s youngest daughter’s bed

cute planters at joann’s

birthday cake ice cream at the best ice cream place in richmond

i have been wanting one of these rva stickers and elizabeth totally had an extra – yay!

when i got home from my adventures, my #stitchswap was in the mailbox – so cute!

*Chicken dinner is implied.