She's on the list!!!!

Didn't get chance to post this yesterday so thought I'd share today:

It's official my Mum is on the kidney transplant list!!!!

Shouting it from the roof tops!!! YEAH! Now begins the wait I guess, which is weird cos you're hoping for a donor but knowing what that entails is pretty gruesome really.

Anyway just wanted to say HURRAH, that she's finally on the list.

Keep that phone on Mum!!!

Di

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Card Sketch July #3

Finally able to get the images posted! Been trying to upload these for THREE days! Sheesh! I tried this morning to finish uploading the images but it wasn't happening so I went grocery shopping, chilled out at the pool then tried again. Dunno what the problem was but everything is working now! Stupid technology!

I decided to use some of the MAMBI paper stacks that seem to be piling up around my scraproom. So hard to cut into pretty paper but we have to right? No more hoarding! I keep having to remind myself of that. Got the base of the card done, then went hybrid for the brown panel and the stamped design. Love using the Glitz CDs for cards, they make it SUPER easy!

"Happy Birthday" hybrid card by Di Hickman
Supplies: Cardstock: Georgia Pacific; paper: MAMBI; Font, ribbon, stamped panel: Glitz CD; Bling: MAMBI; Ink: Tim Holtz;

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"Hang 10" card by Jan Tatomir
Supplies: Trabsparency: Hambly; Cardstock: Bazzill; Punch Outs: My Minds Eye; Ric-Rak: Making Memories; Decorative Scissors: Fiskars

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"Congratulations" card by Jo Willis
Supplies: Papermill card, Dovecraft and Rob & Bob papers, All Night Media stamp, Nestabilities die-cuts, Doodlebug ribbon, Lakeland sentiment stamp, black gel pen, chalk ink, rhinestones.

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"Mermaid Birthday" card by Louise Connell
Supplies: Cardstock ~ Bazzill; Papers, ribbon, sentiment stamp ~ Doodlebug; Stamp ~ Greeting Farm;

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"Hello" card by Pearl Liu
Supplies: Graphic45 Communique pps ,Making Memories Black velvet scalloped ribbon , Gold distressed stickles.

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"The Good Stuff" card by Chrys Rose
Supplies: Bazzill Cardstock, Collage Press paper, American Crafts stickers, Daisy D's rub on, DCWV chipboard, Kaiser Craft pearls

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"There's always tomorrow" card by Lizzy Davidson
Supplies: flower paper from papermill three butterfly buttons from gcs international, ribbon offray, greeting by k and co

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"Happy Fathers Day" card by Jackie Price
Supplies: Misc Scraps, cricut - coffee mug, My Little Shoebox alpha’s

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"Get Well Soon" card by Linda Flinders

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Di

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imeem!

Was gonna post a new creation today, but I interrupt the blogness to bring this to your attention:

www.imeem.com

Seriously good site! I used pandora before and though good I get annoyed that I can't skip more than a couple of tracks. Well with imeem you can listen to whole albums by your searched artists! I've been poppin away to some rockin tunes this morning whilst doing chores and cleaning my scraproom. Right now I'm listening to Pink :) Seriously if you're online as much as me it's a godsend!!! Go, try it!

New creative stuff soon! I just got a box of goodness over the weekend from my DTs so I got lots of new stuff to play with :)

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Just Cards Vol 14

I got my copy of Just Cards in the mail recently (Vol 14) and thought I'd share my cards in this issue. The following are scans from the magazine. Look out for this mag on newstands now!

Monogram card on top right of left page. I sent this one in a LONG time ago, but they save them I guess and wait for the right issue to publish them!

Brief foray into stamping. I sent this in for their stamping mag, but they put it in this mag instead. I don't really mind I just like seeing my work in print :)

A card I made for Boxer using one of my sketches. Nice and simple yet elegant. Loved the orange color scheme, and Boxer has coordinating buttons for almost all their papers so element picking is a breeze!

Another old card they used for this issue. The scan went a bit wonky with the colors on this one. It's actually more pastels than a hot orange!

Gonna go hit the pool this afternoon, soak up some sun, and then get busy making some cards :)

Di

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My fitness/health continued

So I posted on Friday with some info on what I've done to lose weight/fat and I said that I'd be back to chat about wobbly bits and the six pack so here is the low down on that :)

Many of the comments/emails referred to "toning up" wobby thighs/butts and bingo wings. Here's the thing: there is no such thing as "toning". You can do one of two things: either lose fat or gain muscle, or both! So decide which you want to do and work towards it.

The truth is you CANNOT spot reduce, so you can do all the ab crunches and squats you want but the fat will go from where the hell it wants to (usually murphys law dictates that it'll go from the place you want it lose it from last). That's not to say crunches and squats etc are useless though, cos any exercise is good as you're burning calories and fat. The real trick to weight loss is to lose fat and retain lean body mass, so keeping up with the exercises is good for that, especially lifting weights! You want to be lean not skinny fat! Muscle is good! It means we can do more, eat more and makes us healthier!

So the six pack. Yep I am working on it! When I was instructing before I had the 4 upper rectus abdominal muscles defined and I am on the way to getting that again. The way to attain that is through hard work and dedication, exercise and basically losing body fat % which means eating clean. Eating clean is eating very little processed foods, making sure you get your daily water intake and then doing core exercises. I know I have the muscle for the 6 pack, I can feel it under the layer of fat, so I need to reduce the body fat so I can SEE it! I do exerices to work the Rectus abdominus & obliques but by far the best exercises IMO are the planks. If you haven't heard of them do a google search for abdominal planks, they are really good for core conditioning. Oh and nope I don't use an "ab-doer" or the rolling cage things, useless IMO nothing you can't acheive without the equipment so save yourself the money! The exercise part I have down, no problem, the water is fine, it's the eating clean I have trouble with. But I'm getting there! I'll keep you all updated with my 6-pack progress :)

I also wanted to say, if I could give you ONE peice of advice, that would be throw out the scales! Take measurements instead! If you can't stop weighing yourself then just weigh in monthly. Trust me it's so much more gratifying to SEE shrinking butts/thighs than to lose 1lb on the scale! I'll update at some point with my inch loss so you can see the real result of losing weight/fat.

Have a great Sunday!

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one small step!

Update on my July Project which if you remember is getting back on the Flylady system and organizing my scraproom!

I am slowly but surely getting somewhere with all these scrap supplies! This morning I went through my paper stash and finally purged my Imagination Project and some One heart... one mind product. It's in a box sitting on my porch ready for a freecycler to collect! I've been hanging onto these for 18 months, I've used some, set aside some for my family (Mum your box is filling up) and I just cannot hang on to them anymore! The kicker came today when I found 3 stacks of paper from MAMBI, Basic Grey and Daisy Bucket and other pads of paper from more manufacturers. Then the mailman delivered a DT box of goodies and I knew I was done. Gotta get rid of the old to store the new. Plus mags won't publish projects with product from manufacturers that are no long selling their products, so I made a huge step and boxed it up and shoved it on freecycle! Better to bless someone else with the supplies than them sit in my room for another couple of years unused!

Earlier in the week we gave away a dining table on Freecyle, and I posted a few other bits and bobs today. The kitchen/dining table is one of our major hot spots and my plan for this weekend is to get it finally cleared off (been working on it all week) and then keep it clear for a week. It's a total clutter magnet though so we'll see how that goes!

I know a few of you were joining in with the scraproom organizing so how are you doing? I'm gonna go get busy for another session and see what I can purge this time!

Di

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My fitness/health routine

I've had a few comments (here and facebook) and emails asking about how I lost my weight, how I am keeping it off, what I am doing to get my six pack and how I can help other, can I reveal my secrets? .... etc, etc. Well here's the rub people, it's no secret :)

The science part - is that pretty much that if calories out is less than calories in then that equals weight loss. It's no secret, we all know this! We just want it to be easier, but unfortunately it isn't. Despite the email spam telling us that the fatburning tablets and acacia berry drink will help, fact is that if the diet food/fads etc worked why are there so many on the market? Why is the market for diet pills/shakes/foods increasing if they work? And if there are more of them and they all worked why is the obesity rate getting higher and higher? Because fad diets aren't a long term plan.! We KNOW we should choose fruit and yogurt over cheesecake or chocolate lava cake (damn souplantation!) but we're human, we get tempted, the solution is portion control and getting back to eating healthy again afterwards! Dont' fall into the diet trap! Lose weight healthy, get a new lifestyle for your new you!

The most important things to remember are:

• Get checked out by a doctor, especially if you have health issues! Make sure it's safe for you to embark on a lifestyle change!
• Train smart. Start slow and build it up! Going in like a bull in a china shop will mean injury, soreness and you quitting before you get started!
• If you aren't sure what you are doing get a trainer (goes with the above point really) BUT make sure they are qualified! Too many people calling themselves fitness and personal trainers when they don't know their glutes from their gastrocnemius.

Anyway here is what I've been doing the last 6 months:

• My 'eating plan' basically consists of 5 meal times a day. Breakfast, post workout, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner. Ok and sometimes a "liquid refreshment" in the evening if I feel like it, lol.
• Don't starve yourself! I eat around 1500 - 2000 calories a day, depending on how much exercise I do. Yes if I exercise more, I eat more! Also I have 3 cheat meals a week, where I don't track the calories. Those are usually my high exercise intensity days. If I go over these 3 meals I don't panic I just get back to my plan the next meal/day.
  
• I use www.livestrong.com to track my calories in vs calories out (exercise) and check my macros (protein, carbs, fats) but basically the site does it all for you if you input the data! I hate math and this site does it for me so YAY :) I'm not a frantic tracker, somedays I track somedays I don't. Pretty much after a few weeks you'll know when you went crazy ;)
  
• Check your portion sizes! Seriously! America has a huge portion size problem, it's so easy to get suckered in to eating the whole thing, then find out it was four portions worth of food, eeeks! I used my measuring cup set to see what a portion size of pasta/rice etc was and I was WAY off!
  
• Aim to lose weight slowly! Slower it comes off, the longer it'll stay off! Aim for 1% of your body weight each week. So if you weigh 150 lbs then aim for 1lb - 1.5lbs loss a week.
• Try to be more active in your daily life. I walk the dogs three times a day, just a mile at a time but it gets me out and about three times during the day, rather than doing a three mile walk once. I also started swimming in the pool last month. It's only a small pool and I am in there about 10-15 minutes before it bores the pants of me, but I just find swimming boring lol. But it all counts!
• Exercise! Getting up and moving is all well and good, but you do need proper exercise sessions. 45 mins -1 hour, 3-4 times a week. I personally exercise 6 days a week, with Saturday off as my rest day (I still walk the dogs, swim etc though). I alternate cardio/weights days and do ab work every workout day.
• Yep I lift weights! I lift heavy too. No women won't get bulky like a bodybuilder! Unless you workout with weights for 3 hours a day, take steroids, or have some excess testosterone floating around in your body women will NOT bulk up! What will happen is you'll get stronger, you'll burn FAT (yay!) and you'll see some definition due to the fat loss. THIS IS A GOOD THING! Also weights are good for bone density so you'l reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Include all major muscle groups, aim for 8-12 reps & 2-3 sets. The last 2 reps of each set should be tough, not impossible, and not enough that your form suffers. If it's too easy through rep 12 and you feel you can keep going: Increase the weights!
• Cardio, whether you walk, cycle, run, do aerobics, swim, jog, walk the dogs, chase a ball round a pitch etc whatever your passion just do it! Warm up, 10-15 mins, 30 mins cardio, cool down, stretch. Remember too that if it gets easy it means you need to step it up a notch! If you walked 4 miles in an hour, think about increasing the duration or the intensity, either walk longer or kick it up and add some running in there!

Ab work is a whole other thing and this post is already way long, I'll cover that another day, maybe tomorrow? I also want to touch on a few other things I noticed in some emails about solutions for wobbly thighs, expanding butts etc but I need to go eat, lol!

If you have any questions email me or leave a comment, I'll try and post something or email you back :) Oh and alternatively if you live near me hire me as your personal trainer, email me! lol!

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