On 3-D Snowflakes, wooden stars, and sibling rivalries.

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I am not an art-and-crafty kind of person. That isn’t to say that I don’t like arts and crafts. Quite the opposite, in fact. I appreciate home- and handmade goodies as much as the next person. I especially love anything having to do with glitter, but that’s an entirely different post.

The problem with arts and crafts is that I suck at them. I have a feeling it’s my perfectionist personality, but put a glue gun or paintbrush in my hand and I start hyperventilating. Some people find it relaxing; I find it entirely too stressful and time-consuming.

Which is why you might be surprised to learn that I made this little piece of awesome at work the other day.

How long did this snowflake take me? Only approximately 2 and 1/2 hours. That’s nothing, right? RIGHT?!

Ok, fine. So it took me forever. And so it only took my assistant manager an hour or so to make hers. And so hers was approximately twice the size of mine. WHATEVER. My process was complete with tantrums, paper cuts, and utter confusion on why I couldn’t cut the paper the right way. Basically, mine was made with STYLE. (And at least it eventually got made, right?)

The whole debacle was very reminiscent of the time my grandma took my sister and I to paint wooden Christmas stars. Growing up in a town that was/is predominantly LDS, I was often given the chance to be arty and crafty. After the first few failed attempts, I quickly learned to say no. But who can say no to a Christmas-themed event with family? (Plus they had food, and let me tell you, those mormons make some delicious food.) And so off we were to paint a wooden star.

This star was cute. And it still is cute to this day. Definitely one of my all-time favorite endeavors. Basically, the game plan was this. Paint the star exactly like the model they provided us with. How could I mess it up? And really, I didn’t. It turned out exactly how I wanted it to. I was successful!

So what was the problem, you ask? The problem appeared when my star was compared to my sister’s.

A little background on my sister. She’s a pain in my ass. I love her to death and will forever jump off the end of the dock at the cabin in the summer time, but she somehow always manages to one-up me. And never on purpose, which always makes me feel that more inferior. Which is good, because she always challenges me to do more with my life, but is mostly bad because she’s always one step ahead of me.

But back to the star. My sister decided she was above following the directions. And so, she took some creative liberties. And came up with a star that kicked my star’s ass. Did anyone even notice that I had actually managed to finish a craft project and that it actually came out? Nope. They were all too busy ooh’ing and aah’ing over how my sister had managed to blend the colors in the hat so well and how her star’s face had so much more character than anyone else’s.

Obviously, I have sister-issues*, as most people with siblings do. I probably need therapy, and someday, I’ll probably actually go. And then I will probably be forced to burn my star and my sisters star as a metaphor that I have accepted our differences and truly let them go. But for now, I will always make sure that my star is on display instead of hers.

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*Like I said, I love my sister. This post was in no way meant to dredge up any drama. In fact, I wish she was here instead of Russia. Christmas won’t be the same without her.