Today I am very excited as I have reached the target weight I set myself. It is still on the heavier side of the health bmi section but I am still over the moon about it.
I've been trying to lose weight for ages. Since moving to Devon my weight has gradually gone up adn up. And it was not for want of trying to cut down and exercise more. But nothing I tried worked. Its not helped by having an underactive thyroid and being over 50/perimenopausal. So I decided to go for a weight loss programme. I was going to do the Joe Wicks one but it was a LOT of money. I still wonder if I should have done that as exercise isn't happening much and is a large part of that one. But instead I chose the Freedom Diet which was half the price but basically is just a load of diet sheets. However I'm not knocking it because it has worked and I have lost a stone now. The diet sheets are tailor made (I don't eat meat) and I have hardly ever felt hungry so that is all good. I have slipped in a little alcohol every now and then and eaten out too but slow and steady has done the trick. I had kind of ground to a halt so I would like to thank that horrible bug for getting me back on track. I lost 2lb then and another 2 since! (I don't recommend the bug but at least I had a reward!)
I haven't got many before and after photos, except in a bikini and no-one is seeing those on the internet!
The best I can do is one taken last February and one last Saturday when I was dressed up as Ginger Spice (as you do) for the local charity 80s/90s dance.
As you can see, plenty left to lose if I want to but I'm a healthy weight and happy with it. I don't know why Phil chose to take the photo from the least flattering angle ever but there you go. Here is a better one with Sporty and Baby Spice and several girls from the 80s. (who just reminded me of my teen years!) Oh and one chap...
Anyway I expect the Spice photos will be coming to a scrap page soon.
So lets get on with some crafting news shall we...
this week on Daring Cardmakers the theme set by the lovely Sharon was Mirror, mirror
we were tasked with using something reflective on our cards. It could be foiling, shiny stickers, miri card, or even mirrored tiles.
I had a great idea using silver miri card. Only I didn't have any. I did have a lot of gold miri card over from Christmas Messy Church crafts so used some of that. I wanted to make a Valentines Day card so went for something quite simple (well I always do!)
Once more I went for that rectangle die cut with the faux stitching. This time I cut out watercolour paper so that I could paint lots of hearts on it with my Kuretake paints. It might have been neater with pencil lines but you can tell its hand drawn this way! I die cut the letters using Wplus9 Whimsy alpha dies. I've used them before but never on such thick card and love the embossed edge that you get with the thicker gold card.
For the inside I die cut a cross stitch edged heart and added the rest of the letters. I've got lots of the stick it stuff for sticking down letters but forgot until it was too late so used my old friend the xyron x150 refill sticker maker (I don't use the little machine as you get to use more sticker by just using the inside refill bit!).
And there you go. All I need now is to remember to take it with me next week when we go and visit Carys in Bradford for the last holiday there before she leaves.
We have a new place to start visiting though - Hywel has a new job starting soon in Halesowen near Dudley/Birmingham so that is where we will be for our Easter hols, helping to buy and assemble furniture. His new company have a relocation officer so he is doing the had work of finding suitable accomodation!
(which is more exciting than me losing weight. But only just...)
I had a day off yesterday and enjoyed doing some colouring in of stamped images and also making a scrapbook page for fun. It turns out that the Go Now Go paper line by Shimelle is very similar to Fancy Pants on Trend 2 so I was able to mix up embellishments and stickers. (And also going through my random selection of bits to stick on as well)
When I took my mother and sister in law to Rockfish, a really lovely fish (and chips) restaurant in Brixham where all the fish is freshly caught, the batter was sublime. But ma in law only likes a little so asked if the leftovers could be wrapped up for her dogs. She was tickled to have them returned in a posh little box!
I wasn't sure how to stick on the clouds. "Love" went through my little xyron machine but the clouds were too big. So I dotted some glossy accents on the back and it looks like a pattern. I'll do that again.
The photos of the layout are not great - it snowed this morning and is still rather dark with white yet dark clouds covering the sky. Lots of excited children as snow is rare in Devon. But it didn't settle.
I'm still practicing with the lettering (thanks for the kind comments last week!). This one is done with Kuretake Zig watercolour pens. Its better but I still can't always get enough differentiation between thick and thin letters
Next week it will mostly be crochet as we will be away but I might take my writing practice stuff with me too.
Do have a look at the Daring Cardmakers blog as there are some really terrific mirror ideas this week