Handmade Cards

So I know I tend to post maybe twice a year.  I have been doing something creative though.

The inspiration came from a friend.  In high school she gave me a card for my birthday.  I generally love saving my birthday cards, but hers was exceptional because it was handmade.  She used a heavy paper (card stock) and several bright colors.  She put balloons on the front and a pile of presents inside and a pocket with a note to pull on the ribbon.  It was tied to paperclip attached to a note that said Get What You Want and a $20 bill.  She had handwritten Happy Birthday in fun loopy writing using a thick marker and a had added little trios of dots randomly in the open spaces and then used a fine ink pen to trace around the balloons and presents using dashes and dots in patterns.

I loved the details that went into every part of the card.  Finally, I decided I wanted to do the same thing.  I forked over money to the local Office Depot for card stock in multiple colors and began imitating her design with the 5 colors I had available.

Then I got inspired to try new ideas.  I made a train card for my nephew's birthday.  I had to think through each layer because I laid down tracks and the cars and wheels and the engine of course.

I thought I would make handmade Christmas cards.  I only send them out our immediate family and the few cousins or friends that send us a card, but I usually send out about 20 cards (16 siblings between my husband and I!) and I just didn't have time to make that many.

But I did make a Gift card for my brother who was moving to a colder climate for the first time ever and I thought he might want to spend money on warmer gear there.  (California doesn't have great cold weather gear)

So I made this card to put his gift card in:

Did I mention I have a set of fancy scissors?  Yeah, I use them for the cards too.  My mom gave them to me.  Thanks mom. I used a plain ink pen to make the dashes and dots.  And I bought a second set of card stock to increase my color choices.  For the inside I simply used my fancy scissors and glued that bright green card stock leaving a gap so I could slide the gift card in place.

For Mother's day I came up with a fun idea of tracing my kids hands and printing out a small head shot of them and pasting it in their hand print.  For the front I used a picture I loved of all of them.  I got a cute set of colored felt markers from the dollar store so I could use multiple colors for tracing with dots and lines.

We also got envelopes from Micheal's craft store that can hold a full size paper folded in half.  Perfect for a large handmade card you want to mail.  I have also made my own envelopes too.  When I cut the paper in half width wise and fold it in half I can make an envelope from another sheet of paper.  

I saved my favorite for last.  My mother's birthday card.  I got some lighter weight paper to try out more colors and to see how it works with the layering.  It works great.  So I used my fancy scizzors to make this card too.  

I wrote the poem for it too so I will type it here in case you can't read my handwriting:

Treasures are born each day of the year.

Each one is priceless and fills us with cheer.

We remember your day and the longer you live,

The more we are blessed by the treasures you give:

Treasures of teaching, kindness and love,

Your testimony of Jesus and Father above,

Treasures of service and work and play...

We celebrate you!  Happy Birthday!

You too can become a card maker extraordinaire!  The basic materials I use are:
Card stock white and colored, scissors, glue, and a pen.  Start from there and you will be surprised at the inspirations that can come to you.  Don't be afraid to add ribbon or other colors or ideas.  Anything you try will give your cards a personal touch.  Obviously the more details you add the more time you take for making the card.  Simpler designs can take less time and still look just as great.  Have fun!

For a baby shower card you could use the poem I wrote and posted back in January of 2011.

Pinterest, Pie and Pounds... Oh MY!

So I have some thoughts to plunk down before I lose them in the wind with homemade confetti from scissor loving 3 year-old and laundry filled baskets and homework detail.

Thanks to Pinterest my blog has gotten a lot more hits.  It is fun to see over a 1,000 views and most of them not my own.  I don't have anything against other people sharing my posts, I feel flattered actually.  I also don't plan to advertise.  I am not against extra income, but I don't like a lot of those belly fat ads that use the same picture to sell another scam gimmick diet.

Speaking of diets, I had a couple posts a while back (a couple pregnancies ago) about weight loss and such.  Jean Antonello is not alone in publishing that it is possible for a healthy person to lose weight naturally by eating normally.  I purchased her book How to Become Naturally Thin by Eating More and it basically instructs you to listen to your body and eat when you are hungry and stop when full.  Choose the best foods and you will get thin because your body will function better on healthy food.  She also recommended not weighing yourself.  It took me a while to accept that idea.  In fact it took 3 different people saying that.  I can tell you that I did go through my fourth pregnancy carrying far more weight than I wanted.  I had not lost all the weight from my previous pregnancy so my starting point was higher than I wanted.  I went to the doctor's office dreading my weigh in and praying that it would slow down.  But here is the amazing thing:
A week after my baby was born I weighed my pre-pregnancy weight!  
I was waking up one night and letting go of so much water.  I knew I had not drunk that much water but it was draining from me and I could see my ankles again.  It felt so good to see the pounds just drop in a few days.  I showed faith in my body and it had responded well.

Then a couple months later I was at a day for women sponsored locally by my church.  I attended a wonderful lecture about body image and what we are doing and teaching our girls in our everyday language and actions.  (Even sucking in the belly can teach your daughter something :0 )  She encouraged us to stop treating the scale like a god.  The real kicker was another lecture by a personal trainer.  She had 2 kids and no scale.  She never weighs herself.  I never had a scale until I started "dieting."  So I let go of the scale.  Today I do not know how much I weigh.  I want to get rid of the scale because sometimes I am tempted to check.  But I have not convinced my husband we don't need it so it still taunts me a little in the bathroom.

Instead I pay attention to my clothes and how they fit.  In the last 6 months I have gone from 1X tops to XL tops to L tops.  My pant size has diminished slightly too.  This has all been without regular exercise.  There have been spurts of exercise scattered here and there.  I also pay attention to how I feel when I am exercising.  How hard am I working?  Is it easier or harder than last time?  I can feel an improvement and measure it by how much easier it is to run or sprint or even when I do pilates, I can lower my legs to the 45 degree angle without my back arching.

So do I feel guilty when I eat?  No.  I just ate a piece of pie before I sat down to write this.  Hence the title includes pie. :D  Do I feel guilty when I don't finish everything?  I am still working on letting food go in the trash.  Especially stuff like french fries or toast that really don't taste good when reheated.  My body image still fluctuates.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see a beautiful, healthy woman.  Sometimes I see flab and stretch marks and dark circles.  What I find most interesting is when I look at pictures.  Some pictures look great and some I just see the parts of my body that I struggle to accept the most.

This pictures was a couple months after my second baby was born

This picture was not even a month after I delivered my third baby.

I have noticed a difference in how I feel emotionally.  For a few months I was having a hard time making it to the grocery store for fresh fruits and veggies.  (Would you want to take 2 almost potty-trained girls and rush over to the store between baby's naptime?  This is a store that does not have carts that hold 3 kids by the way.)  I noticed it when my period finally came.  YIKES!  I was so depressed.  I was not getting the nutrients I needed to combat that.  The depletion was supplemented well with vitamins but I didn't want to just take vitamins and eat carbs the rest of the time.  I went through 2 waves of depression and when I felt the next wave coming and I decided to walk a mile with the double stroller and get the good veggies and what a difference I felt the next day.  (Could have been that double high five I made mentally... Exercise and healthy food victory!) But when you are relying on your body to tell you what it needs you can get a pretty clear picture.  So trust your body.  Get the good foods and stop weighing yourself.

I want to add that you can keep trying until you find what works for you.  If you have a system that is working for you and you can maintain the goals you have using your system then don't try to fix it.  My sister-in-law has her own system.  She eats 3 meals a day and she does not overeat.  To quote her, "If I feel like having a piece of cake I can make a cake and eat one piece."  She is down to a size 8 and I am inspired by her.  My father-in-law was barely recognizable when we visited this year.  Healthy eating and exercise and has gotten his weight down and his health has improved vastly.  I am so glad to see people succeeding and maintaining their goals.

A month after I wrote this draft I learned that I am pregnant again.  I have gained 6 pounds in 16 weeks.  This is the lowest weight gain I have ever had in the first month let alone the first 4 months.  I continue to have faith in my body.

Oh yeah, and one more note, the morning sickness came and I also was nursing.  I started taking iron in the morning, right away because of my previous experience with anemia in my last 3 pregnancies.  I added multivitamins in the afternoon and vitamin D3 at night.  It is hard to establish new habits so a couple times I forgot my iron and I felt so sick the next day.  When I added vitamin D3 to the regimen my morning sickness diminished more.  So to me that proves that your body is trying to tell you something with nausea.  My best days during morning sickness have occurred when I got a good night's sleep and good nutrition.  I also learned that when I had a good day if I tried too hard to catch up on housework, I would feel sicker the next day too.  So I have learned to listen to my body when it is tired too.