About Christine & WTSHB

Hello and welcome!

I’m Christine, the creative mind behind Where The Smiles Have Been—a place for easy DIY projects, creative ideas, printables, cut files, and inspiration for real families and real life.

I started this blog in 2014 as a brand-new mom looking for a creative outlet between diaper changes, nap schedules, and approximately 47,291 episodes of Sesame Street (long before Bluey entered the cultural zeitgeist, unfortunately).

A lot has changed since then. I'm now a mom to a teenager and a preteen (😱), so the projects, celebrations, challenges, and everyday chaos look a little different these days.

My creations have grown up with my kids, too, and are now shaped by more than a decade of actually making things, trying things, occasionally (read: often) messing things up, and figuring out what works in real life.

 

A Little about me

Before becoming a mom and full-time creative, I worked in management for a Fortune 500 company. I also have a Bachelor's degree and two Master's degrees in Psychology—I was a permanent student there for a while. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm a lifelong maker, a Pinterest enthusiast, and someone who has always had roughly 73 more creative ideas than time to make them.

Over the past several years, I've also served as a board member and volunteer with The Caring Link, a local nonprofit supporting children in my community here in northern Alabama. It's become an important part of this season of my life and another way I get to put my creativity to good use.

 

So, what's with the name?

Where The Smiles Have Been?? What's up with that?

Well, it's from a favorite quote of mine by a certain gentleman named Mark Twain:

"Wrinkles would merely indicate where the smiles have been."

That same sentiment is also eloquently sung by one of my favorite musicians, Jimmy Buffett, in his song Barefoot Children (if you haven't ever heard this Buffett song, it's definitely worth a listen):

"Wrinkles only go where the smiles have been."

It's a pretty good metaphor for life. Houses get messy. Projects fail. Kids grow up way too fast. Plans change.

We get wrinkles—literal and otherwise.

But those wrinkles are also proof that we've lived, laughed, loved (sorry, I just couldn't complete the trifecta), made memories, and had plenty of reasons to smile.

That's what I hope you'll find here.

Life is crazy. Life is funny. Life is creative. And if we're lucky, the wrinkles will show us exactly where all of our smiles have been.

Thanks for being here—whether you've been around since 2014 or just wandered in today. I hope you find something useful, something inspiring, or at least something that makes you smile.