Cant change it up Thursday

I'm sorry to post that I have been sick this week. Today I am not going to yoga cause I felt horrible after last week and could barely participate. So I hope you all take your vitamins and use your hand sanitizer!

Change It Up Thursday

Sorry I am so late posting today! Today was jammed packed! I took my kiddo to school and my friends kiddo cause she is sick. Hey I try to help when I can! So I did go to my yoga today but did not go Saturday. My daughter's fundraiser really needed me there. Then Tuesday my yoga instructor was sick with the flu. So I was lucky that she felt better today! So I finally was able to get to do yoga! It was a wonderful stretch and really pushed me. I rushed home after and took a quick shower and then work and then basketball practice for our son. My Thursdays are packed!!!!! So for change it up I wanted to point out that I am still caffeine free and soda free!

So my change it up??? Instead of a sandwich or fast food for lunch and dinner I have had salads this week. I add chicken, spinach salad and frozen corn with balsamic vinegar dressing :-)

So what have you done this week????

I really need to scrapbook. Maybe Sunday????


Always,
Brans

OUCH!

So today I am in sooooooo much pain! I guess it is to be expected but I had no pain after Tuesdays class but now after Thursday. UGH! I can not stop though. I will be going to GASP two yoga classes on Saturday! I will be taking beginning yoga and gentle yoga at One Core in Rosamond, CA. Saturday classes are taught by someone else. So I have a bit of anxiety. I hate new things! Anyone else?

Have you tried any new things lately? It could be anything from trying a new technique with scrapbooking? New dish you cooked?

So I am still no soda and caffeine and only drank water yesterday! Lots and lots and lots of water. Someone recommended to try at night to get a large container of water with mint, lemon and cucumber. Might need to try that ASAP! I will take a picture and post!

1st CIUT

Change It Up Thursday (CIUT)

 

 

So I have made some life choices in the last two months to better myself and take better choices of my body. I believe on Thursdays I will let you know how my change for my life and body are going. I don't like to weigh myself. I like to go off of how my clothes are fitting. Makes us girls feel much better than a number! Well let me give you a little backstory. I used to be really skinny. I mean too skinny. At 19 I was 5'8" and 105 lbs. I was healthy and could eat anything.

 

After my two girls I kept 10 lbs each. It looked good on me. Then the boy came. Darn those boys! LOL! I kept 20 lbs from him. Also after baby #2 I ended up have horrible Endometriosis and already suffering from Fibromyalgia but undiagnosed. So 6 months after baby #3 was born I chose to have a full hysterectomy. A great decision but not for my weight.

 

 

My body hated me after my surgery. I am now at 170 lbs. To boot I have a short torso so it is all in my gut. UGH! My husband is amazing and loves me for me and doesn't care about my size. THANK GOD!

 

A few weeks before Christmas I got the dreaded flu. YUCK! Due to the flu I stopped caffeine. I was not a huge caffeine person. A cup of coffee a day and a coke a day. Figured I already hit the withdraw might as well leave it behind. It was not hard. So I was still drinking sprite until about 1 week before Christmas and stopped that as well. Figured I would be less tempted to have coke if I stopped it all. It was easy! Now my problem. I hate water. I will get back to that in a minute.

 

I asked for a gym membership at a new class oriented gym in my local town for Christmas. I got it! Due to my job and family plans I was not able to go until this past Tuesday. All I want to take is Yoga. Something that is easy on my joints and helps my core. So I took the beginning yoga class. I LOVED LOVED LOVED IT! The instructor was so sweet and cute. She asked if we had any medical issues and I told her I had fibromyalgia. She had it as well and that is why she took up yoga! Kindred spirits! WOO HOO!

 

 

It was a great class. So today I am heading out to it at 10:30 am. Saturday I want to go to the Beginning Yoga and the Gentle Yoga but my daughter has a rummage sale at school during that time. I might still go. She is 17 and I can be there in the morning.

 

 

So water...I seriously can not stand to drink water. It is boring and has no taste. Give me some iced tea and I would be happy. Well I brought a water bottle to my Tuesday class and totally drank the whole thing and then another 2 bottles throughout the day. I knew I should drink lots of water for my muscles so they do not get stiff. Well yesterday I drank another 3 bottles! So I am so happy to keep going with it. Crystal Geyser will be my best friend! No iced tea yesterday at all. I did though have a Starbucks Vanilla Frappe though. LOL. Hey we can't change overnight without a slip here or there.

 

 

Let me stress this is not a New Years Resolution. I started this before New Years. I do not believe that life changes occur overnight. So I am not living my life one day on 12/31 and a different way on 1/1. So if you want to make some changes on your way of life...start today. Do it slowly. You will more likely have success from what I have read. Comment. I want to follow you and your journey as well. Inspire each other!

 

 

Always,

Brans

Loving CHA 2015 Mega Show

So I was ecstatic to be able to go to my second year of CHA Craft and Hobby Association 2015 Mega Show in Orange County CA. Luckily for me I am pretty local. I am about 3 hours away.

Well I started my morning at 3 am. I wanted to look pretty. LOL! Curled my hair, put on makeup and dressed comfy cute...you know the cute jeans with brown boots and an adorable light shimmer light brown shirt. Got in the car and prayed I would not get in another car crash (that was my last year going to CHA). I was so luckily to drive and meet Melissa from A Creative Journey with Melissa. That was an hour of pure HECK driving. Ugh...welcome to California traffic. Once Melissa and I  met up she treated me to some awesome coffee (I am caffeine free for 2 months and soda free for 1 month) and these awesome blueberry soda cakes! So after an hour of me driving...Melissa took over in her car and drove for 2 hours!

We got to the show 1 hour before our classes started. I ended up taking three classes before the floor opened at 11 am and then took a floor class at 3:45 pm. To read about my morning classes please click here.

Once I walked onto the floor I immediately walked to the Teresa Collins booth and the Teresa Collins ScrapBox booth right next door. I am inspired that Teresa is bringing back acetate and vellum but making it new and fresh. This is not your 2002 acetate trust me! Expect her signature gold in her lines. You will not be disappointed. Now for my dream!!!! The ScrapBox designed by Teresa! It is stunning! It has a decorative topper, beautiful clean white, interchangeable front glass to put your own material or paper or photos in, and her gold touches! Just LOOK LOOK LOOK:

I then saw the most beautiful wings created by tabs from Scrapbook Adhesive. They are truly stunning!

Next I was drawn to CN Crafts AKA Chickaniddy. I am obsessed with their Yippee line. Some of my favorite papers is Picnic Party and Walking on Sunshine. Their enamel shapes with this line is so adorable! They are very price friendly!

While at CHA it is inevitable that you run into someone that you know. Usually that someone is due to the industry. Well I was apart of an amazing scrapbook group for over 2 years about 10 years ago. We met once a week and cropped, drank wine, and did swaps to create kits. We shared kids birthdays and created life long friendships. Since I moved 1 1/2 hours away out of Los Angeles I don't get to see them very much. I was so surprised to see Lea Oliver! She is as beautiful as ever and retirement looks good on her!

I soon stumbled upon a stunning display. If you watched Maleficent you knew you needed to look at this display and booth. The display was by Cousin and I was drawn into the only jewelry booth at the whole show.

So the group I spoke of above gave me a bit of a nick name. They called me the "Ribbon Wh*re"! Seriously they did! So when I say the May Arts Ribbon I almost fainted!!!! They had this one line that I was drawn to. It looked like a patterned dyed stretched burlap. Then I touched it. It was soft and moldable. Came in about 8 colors but someone else was obsessing about them too so I don't have all the colors in this picture.

So the booth with the Dear Lizzy line just made me happy! It was packed inside...DUH so I was going to go back later and did not get a chance. So sad :-(

The next booth I ran into was the one that contained the Imaginise Milk Paint. Doesn't it look beautiful? My creative juices were so flowing seeing these paint powders!

Next came one of my favorite booths...I am officially obsessed with Crate Paper and their Craft Market line. The designer Maggie Holmes is beautiful inside and out. The sales staff was so personable and truly inspired me with all of the coordinating products. Craft Market had some stunning papers. My favorite is some of their specialty paper such as the Gold Glitter Pattern. Their muslin bags would be so cute to decorate with their products for gift tags etc. Hope to touch this line soon on my scrapbook table!

So next booth is one of the most colorful booths at CHA and always is. Love Love Love the Doodle Bug Booth. They had three sets of paper lines that I was inspired to use. Especially since they are Spring and Summer style and it has been in the teens at night in my home!

Another beautiful and color filled booth is Echo Park. I normally ask before I take a picture. I think this is their designs and artwork and hate when someone thinks it is ok to "steal" that. So I forgot and took a picture. Their rep said excuse me mam no pictures. I started apologizing and she started laughing. She was messing with me and I loved it! She read me so well! LOL! Their Happy Easter by Laura Passage & Nicole Seitler as well as Soak Up The Sun by Alisha Gordon made me want to scrapbook that exact moment!

So while waiting in line for food...BTW I had a great healthy sandwich LOL...we realized that Joy MacDonall was behind us! She was the host of the PBS show Crafting at the Spotted Canary! She is so beautiful and flipping funny! The person you saw on TV is the person you get while waiting in line for food!

One of the last booths I spent time in was the G45 Booth. One thing about the G45 booth is you always get an experience. They even have their reps dress up!

A few other booths that I did not take pictures of but adored and had great conversations at:

I loved the Modge Podge booth. Those two are hysterical and so creative! I made a cute jar that I am going to finish and give to my daughter Julia. It will look beautiful in her old world inspired Paris room.

The next one was Pink Paislee. I loved their paper and cute embossing folders with Citrus Bliss. Only thing I wish is that they did an embossing folder of the flamingo!

The Deco Art booth was inspiring and I was able to play with the Metallic Lustre. It was great! You can use stiff brushes with it or even you GASP fingers! You can put it on thick to cover an ugly paper or light to enhance a beautiful paper! I just love it!

Paper Wizard was so great. I just love their theme kits. I especially love that they have Cheer stuff! What is great is that it is a family run company. You do not see that often anymore.

The Sizzix booth is awesome of course! They had a great MC with lots of Scrapbook stars!

Scrapbook Customs was awesome too. I have actually received product from them recently with my daughter's high school for papers!

Last but not least is the Martha Stewart booth. It was lots of fun. I made a cute mini book decorated cover with her stencils and paint. I have never seen a better stencil than hers.

My last class was one on the floor at the end of our day. It was with Chameleon Pens. Oh wow I love love love these pens. Each pen does about 10 hues. So each pen is about $6 and the big set with 20 pens is $99. With other pens each pen is a hue so that would be $8 a pen (minimum) x 10 hues than x 20 pens! That would be a minimum of $800 for the same effect with a lot of training. These are so easy! I did a leaf with finding my light in 1 minute! BTW she did that hair in 1 minute! Here are a few pictures.

So I hope I was able to get you excited for the new products coming out in your local family owned scrapbook stores.

Always,

Brans

CHA 2015 Mega Show

Wow is all I have to say! Yeah right! So I was able to go to CHA for one day, Monday January 12th. I was able to meet some amazing people! The booths and products were so yummy! To top it off I got to take some classes as well!

I was so lucky that Melissa is so amazing! She signed me up for 3 awesome classes! My first class I took was Affiliate Marketing by a company called CJ. I learned a lot if you want your blog to make money. I do not think that is for me. I like to just share what I do and have lots of fun! My second class was my FAVORITE! It was by Theresa Cifali and was "Making the Most of Instagram". Oh wow did I learn a ton!!!!! She displayed 3 top performers in Instagram. One had a huge following. Another was target audience focused. The third was a craft site that was very product focused. I learned how to really work my Instagram and increase my following. My third class was Creative Blogging. I really liked this class. It had a fun teacher who was not tech savvy (same as me) and but knew what she was talking about. Helped my focus and realize I need to revamp this site! So changes are to come...BUT before that I wanted to let you know that tomorrow I will be posting pictures and tell you about my fun time yesterday!!!!!

Now I need to eat some oatmeal and get ready for my yoga class! Yes stop laughing! It is part of my life change! I will talk about that later this week too! Maybe Change it up Thursday????