Bears, Bears and More Bears!

How are you today? Its been an interesting few months here at "All That I Am" towers and life is certainly being a lot more upbeat, I've dropped a jean size, discovered I like prawns, started making the back garden granddaughter friendly, spent more quality time with said 22 month old granddaughter and acquired 10 of the 12 new alcohol pearl inks by Tim Holtz and I'm smitten, more on them soon I promise! I've been spending lots of time getting healthier lately, more on that later, but the extra time spent walking and doing workouts has given me less time to craft, and crafting helps relax me and keep me sane, so I've been trying to balance things to make more time to craft and unwind and as a result I'm trying to set some time aside to craft at weekend.

My craft desk currently has some yupo rainbows on it and an assortment of bear themed projects and a few dinosaur affairs, I seem to be yo-yoing between dinosaur themed projects and bear themed projects this past few weeks and I'm loving it, although I do need to change my themes up a bit because I have a few female friends with upcoming birthdays that I have to make cards for, one is a crazy cat lady like me, so guess what her theme will be?

This weekend along side finishing the Easter wreath cards I posted recently, I also managed to finish 4 new baby cards for my box. I'm trying to get more use out of my stash and think of other ways to use dies, stamps and embossing folders and these baby cards are classic examples.

The 'cable' embossing folder came with some freebie Xmas stamps at the end of 2018 and the cute little bear is from a Christmas themed Stampin Up set called 'Cookie Cutter Christmas' that I acquired recently. I have the matching punch as well which makes making these little cuties a doddle! The set also makes gingerbread men, Rudolph, an eskimo and a Santa as well as the bear, the punch can also be used with another set of cute little halloween characters but I haven't been able to find them yet as they've been discontinued by Stampin Up sadly. The bears and the gingerbread men can be used for a few different themes and I've seen the Santa worked as a soldier and also a little leprechaun 😁

I have a few Stampin Up stamps and a couple of punches, I went to a class run by a lady who lives not far from me in June 2018, I resisted buying SU stuff at first, and I've been to a few classes since and have become a regular, its been a great way of meeting people who live local to me that love to craft and I've bought some SU inks and some of the stamp sets, I do find SU stuff a little expensive, but the quality is good and as long as I buy sets that I know I'll get a lot of use from its fine.

I admit most of the sets I've bought so far are cat themed or floral, big surprise there lol! In fact my next purchase will be the cat punch that goes with the 'Spooky Cat' set I got last year and the 'Nine Lives' set I got recently and hopefully they will release other cat sets to go with the punch in the future.

I joined the monthly Stamperette's club that Tracey runs, I spend around £15 a month and as well as my goodies, I get some little freebies, last month it was some butterfly papers that I turned in to this project, the colours in the papers are so vibrant.

I'm rather chuffed with my fussy cutting on the butterfly. I do like these floating pop cards, I first made some of them them in November last year and I've made them a few times using different themes, I think a birthday bear version is on the horizon, I sure have enough bears to make it happen 😁

Another bear card completed recently was for a challenge in a group I take part in on Facebook and is now in my box ready to send to a male recipient, I used a stamp and die set that I got free with a magazine last year and had never used, something else I'm endeavouring to do this year, play with things that I've got as free gifts but never created anything with! It's silly the number of things I liked and had to have but have never used!

This colouring on this card is the first time I've used my Copics to colour, I tried to create a fur like texture, not sure if I succeeded or not, but I'm really pleased with how this furry little chap turned out. I have 36 Copic Ciao's at the moment, they are very expensive but I've been buying a couple each month and Si has agreed to buy me 6 pens for every stone I lose as an incentive, gets my vote and I got my first lot of 6 last month. They do colour very evenly and blend like a dream, but I do need more practice, so I'm going to stamp some images and take my copic's when I go on holiday and do a little colouring in the evenings.

One of the other projects on my desk that need completing are these cute little bookmark bears, which are part of a bookmark project I'm making using Mama Elephant dies and stamps. So quick and easy to put together and I have the dog, bunny and cat dies to play with yet. The plan is to make some bookmark gifts for friends and family and to make some cats sets to give to the Cat's Protection to sell.

Finally before I go, I thought I'd share a quick health update... I have now lost 8.5kg since starting the Livewell programme on 4th Feb 2019, and this week my blood pressure is down to an average of 123/87 which the Doctor said was good, and I'm pretty damn pleased with the reduction I've achieved in just 2 months, a big difference from those earlier readings on the 4th and 5th of Feb!

My cholesterol levels were good, a reduction to 5 from 5.5 last year, all the other levels were fine save the triglyceride's which are just over the acceptable range at 2.1 but the doctor is happy that the level will come down by next year as I lose more weight. She was so happy with what I've achieved so far that she said I didn't need to go back for a follow up appointment, she has asked me to keep checking my blood pressure once a month and report back if it starts to increase, but for now I can proceed as before and continue to get thinner and healthier.

My positive progress is down to being active at least 30 minutes a day, eating healthier, I have 1,850 cals a day and I make sure that I burn that amount plus another 500 cals worth of calorie burn through exercise every day and its working. I have a lot more energy, I'm walking a lot faster without feeling like I can't breathe and I am a lot happier in myself, and because my blood pressure has come down so much, I'm now allowed to take part in the Livewell exercise sessions, its taken a few months to get there but I am and can't wait to get started 😁