When you don’t feel well, it’s a total drag and negatively impacts not only your well-being, but your work and the people around you. We often treat our symptoms, but forget that many ailments can be traced back to bad habits and a not so ideal lifestyle.
I’ve always been generally healthy and luck to have no major ailments (knock on wood). But I go through the seasons of sickness and more so now, with age, have noticed how much harder it is to plow through difficult times and to bounce back from sickness. There’s also the years and years of wear and tear on my body (and mind) and so I really need to help myself and make a change.
I’ve realized how important is is to build a strong foundation for a healthy lifestyle with good habits, because then it’s not a struggle to “do the right thing.” As a mom, I’m also realizing how important good habits are and how they make life so much easier! When we have a good habit, it all works automatically and it isn’t a struggle. This is especially important for my kids, they just do certain things because it’s become habit. But if I haven’t helped them develop those habits, it’s a constant struggle!
If we are what we eat and do… then it’s supremely important that we know what we are eating and doing and how all of it makes us feel in the end. I think that is the missing component sometimes. From the data collected, we have to realize if it’s making us feel good or not.
I decided to created a daily health log where I would write down my food intake, but also how I feel throughout the day. It’s so helpful to have this all in one place, so that you can easily see patterns and connections.
Use this log for at least two weeks and truly understand what you are doing and how it makes you feel. I recommend starting with logging your food intake, but you can also add in water intake, exercise and even bowel movements. Whatever you want to track, just make a quick note and log how you are feeling. You’ll start seeing connections of when you haven’t eaten well and feel hungry earlier in the day or when you eat something un-agreeable and feel bloated or digestive issues.
Just download the printable log in your preferred paper size from the links above and even photocopy so you have a bunch ready. Stick it in a binder and keep it open with a pen ready, in a location, such as the kitchen. This will ensure you remember to log everything down.
If you want to get to a healthier place, then you need to know where you stand right now. That’s why a daily log is so important… because we never remember all the details – you’ve got to write it down.
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BTW, I regularly use essential oils and supplements to help support my well-being, as well as balance my emotions, improve focus and kickstart my motivation. From improving my immune system to alleviating sleeping and digestive issues, I always look for natural solutions for betterment and change. If you are ready for a change, learn more about how I use essential oils here.
I love creating my own paper embellishments to decorate my notebooks, snail mail and journals. Here’s a peek into my process of making a set of embellishments from scraps I have on hand for an affirmations travelers notebook I will be creating.
If you want more videos, be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel here.
Lately I’ve been trying to practice my knitting again to actually use some of my yarn stash. I’m very much a beginner and know how to cast on, knit and purl. Yep, that’s the extent of my knowledge! In the past, I’ve only ever made scarfs and this month I decided I would tackle making a pair of socks. I know, it’s a big leap! But I am determined to use the yarns that I have, rather than just hoarding them for their pretty colors!
It made me think about how we often can gift yarn to friends or even make something yarny to gift to them. So I decided to create a rainbow colored yarn notecard that is a super fun printable for all your yarn-related correspondence!
It’s super easy to print out these notecards – 4 on a page – trim and include a little message in all the happy mail you send out. Whether it’s a completed project you are gifting or some yarn stash you want to pass along.
You can download your free printable rainbow notecards using the links above – whether you like LETTER sized paper or A4 for us Europeans. I have not included any watermark or copyright/design credit in the design, so you can use the notecards without any other writing or distraction. But please know these are for personal use and you can certainly share by directing folks to my blog here to download. Thank you and enjoy!
I’m a fan of watching creative youtube videos and even more so when they actually inspired you to take action! I’ve always been a fan of Ali Brown and decided to join in on her challenge #honeysslimpickins as well.
My son, Christopher, is 4 years old and home for Easter break, so I asked him to pick out 5 items for mama to play with! The idea is to create something with the random supplies chosen by your honey!
It was definitely a fun experience and HUGE props to anyone who does video. It takes an enormous amount of time to record, edit and voiceover! I apologize for the thousand times I say “um” and “so”! Here’s my video:
But I seriously enjoyed the process and like the page that I ended up with – unexpected, but it is what it is! Made me think about how this challenge is so much like real life – you are dealt whatever hand (junky or not) but you have to work with it anyway. There’s a beauty in our thinking and unique choices… so let’s create!
Check out Ali’s original video explaining the whole concept of the challenge here. You can also subscribe to my youtube channel here.
It’s amazing the print quality you can achieve from your home printer these days. Technology has really progressed and although there is no replacement for professional, bulk printers out there (love you guys) – it’s extremely convenient to be able to print from home, whenever you need it – instant gratification!
I love designing and using printables (no surprise) but I understand that most complaints center around the usage of ink. Printers might be affordable these days, but their ink cartridges seem to be the most expensive things in the world! I get it and feel your pain. You can imagine that I go through a lot of ink every year. But whatever solution you have at home, I know that it makes sense to make the most out of our ink cartridges and use it to the max.
So here are a few tips about printing from home and using up those ink cartridges to the max.
Take your time – if you don’t want to waste or misprint, make sure you slow down, take your time and check all the settings and preview. It’s easy to just get trigger happy and press print a zillion times… then you realize the paper setting was wrong or quality was set low – whatever – and you’ve got a huge stack of misprints! It totally pays to double-check before hitting print.
Test print and click cancel – if you are just starting out and not sure on the best papers and settings for your purposes, it’s okay to test a swatch! You can cancel a job and it’ll stop the printing and you save ink! There’s no need to let the whole thing print when you notice something is wrong or if you just wanted a partial print to see the quality!
Greyscale and Fast quality – I find that it saves color ink to print b/w work with greyscale selected… instead of using colors to mix and create black, it uses the straight black cartridge. I also find that it helps to print some items as Fast quality – especially black and white items that you really don’t need that true black. It really does save ink!
Batch printing lower quality prints – My biggest tip is to save things you want to print in a folder, so you can batch print at a later time… namely, when your printer is nearly out of ink. This is for stuff that you maybe don’t need at full quality or wouldn’t mind if it was a bit streaked or light from lack of ink. You know that dreaded warning of low ink and to change the cartridge? Ugh!
The issue is that it’s not totally empty yet and it might only be some colors and not others. So when I get that message, I rock out my “to print” folder and print them all out until there really is no ink left. I printed everything you see in the photo above when my ink was “low.” You can see the last couple prints were streaked and missing some spots of ink, so I knew that I was truly at the end at that point.
However, sometimes it’s only certain colors, so you can still get some other types of printables out before tossing the ink cartridge for good. See above how vintage prints seemed to still work! I think especially if you like shabby chic, vintage looking printables, it’s actually pretty cool to get the ink variations at this point of the ink cartridge life. If you are using your printables for art journaling, all the better as you might not want perfect prints anyway.
So those are my tips for home printing. You can save a lot of ink and money with just these few tips, making your ink stretch to many many printables. I hope you found these tips useful!
Looking for some free printable vintage papers and cards? Check out this freebie design for your cardmaking and papercrafting projects.
I’m all for color and cute designs, but there’s definitely a special place in my heart for shabby papers, aged ephemera and the oh-so-warm earthy colors of anything vintage.
I think it’s pretty amazing that we can scan real-world items into the computer, so that we can manipulate them, remix and ultimately create lots of neo-vintage inspired designs. Yeah, I think I just made up that term neo-vintage.
I realize these new designs do not hold the true stories of real-life ephemera, but I still enjoy the design process of mixing and matching and being able to share the end result with you.
I created these set of 10 vintage journal cards and wanted to share with a little bit of the old world. You can download the files below and print them out for your own paper collaging and decor. They are designed to be 4×6″ cards, but you can easily print at a smaller percentage for your traveler’s notebooks and art journals.
I really love including little hints of the vintage look in my art journals and sketchbooks. I feel that the earthy paper tone somehow grounds everything onto the page. Don’t you love it? I hope you enjoy these printables and feel free to tell all your vintage paper loving friends.
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Check out these free printable primavera papers, a bright and happy color palette for all your springtime paper projects!
Happy International Women’s Day! Looking for some pretty free printable primavera papers?
March 8th is a pseudo-holiday here in Italy. Even though you technically don’t get the day off work, it is an occasion that people definitely observe and everyone will wish you happy women’s day as you go about your day-to-day routine. It’s quite nice! There’s also the mimosa yellow flowers that often get gift to ladies at cafe bars, supermarkets, etc… Nice, huh?
This year there are many who are taking the holiday and celebrating A Day Without A Woman:
On International Women’s Day, March 8th, women and our allies will act together for equity, justice and the human rights of women and all gender-oppressed people, through a one-day demonstration of economic solidarity.
The idea is to support each other and bring more awareness to women and equality issues. I know that a contribution I can make is to offer a fun, free printable, so that you can get a bit crafty today. I know that’s what I would enjoy doing, hah! 🙂 Sometimes, it’s not always easy to figure out what we can personally do for various causes in life. But I know that it’s okay to do what I know best… so I know design and I love printables, so that’s what I’ve decided to celebrate with!
I hope you enjoy my primavera paper designs in fresh and happy, springy colors. I sort of thought the blue is the sky, the green the grass and pink for women – not to mention just because I’m partial to pink anyway!
You can make some nice pocket letters, happy mail and envelopes to send out. Or perhaps a minibook or notebook inserts? What about just papercrafting and art journaling away?
Either way, I do hope you have fun with the free printables paper set, if even I’ve given you a dose of colorful cheer – then I’ve done my job!
After posting my rainbow paper free printable last week, I had to dive right in and make myself some journaling inserts. I’ve been seeing many artists using a very small sized journal for quick ideas and notes. Since I’m always running short on time, I figured a smaller notebook would be more approachable for my time constraints. The idea is that I would still get creative time in, just in small spurts.
So first thing I did was print out the rainbow paper to create a cute little passport sized notebook. I basically took the measurements of the official midori traveler’s notebook passport size. It’s pretty simple to fold papers in half and create your own journaling inserts and notebooks – easy peasy. I stapled my book together, but you can also pamphlet stitch by hand or run it through your sewing machine.
Once I got into making inserts and decorating the cover as well… I made a couple more with some cute papers I already had on hand, they are old Prima Marketing notepad papers. Once I had the inserts in hand, I realized that I needed a traveler’s notebook cover for them – duh!
I decided to use a luscious dark brown scrap piece of leather and make my own midori traveler’s notebook. I lined the inside with decorative paper to give it a bit more weight and structure. Then I punched holes, set eyelets to reinforce and strung through some pink elastic I had on hand. I realize the elastic is way too thick, but it’s the only kind that I have in my stash already. One day I’ll have to change them out!
I’ve posted before my DIY adventures with traveler’s notebook if you are interested in more of the DIY details: midori – fauxdori DIY – fauxdori to journal.
I’m happy with how it all turned out and started my first spread with just a little collaging of bits and pieces. Nothing too intensive and I’m realizing how nice it is to have a small sized journal to work in. It’s easier to get a page done and sometimes, that’s all I have time to do, a tiny little creative break!
Consider using a smaller journal if you are looking for some creative fun, despite lack of time! If you enjoy printables, sign up for my weekly newsletter for new designs, links to freebies and the latest news. Enjoy!
BTW, if you like the “love is out there” piece in my spread, it’s actually a free wallpaper printable I posted here.
Download this set of Rosie the Riveter printable stationery for your correspondence letterwiting this month and beyond!
InCoWriMo is shorthand for International Correspondence Writing Month and it happens February of each year. The point is to write a letter, card or note to someone every single day of the month. April is also letterwriting month for those participating in that challenge – although I suppose we should simple note that it is ALWAYS a good time to send someone a handwritten letter or card!
I have participated on and off with various snail mailing and correspondence challenges over the years and although I always find it challenging to keep up, I know from experience that participating means that I will write and send more mail than if I just passed.
I don’t know if multiple people are claiming the name but I found multiple references to this letter writing challenge and multiple websites! There is InCoWriMo.org and incowrimo-2017.org – is it two groups promoting the same thing? And of course there is also the LetterMo challenge – same exact idea really. I don’t know who started first or if they just have different names for different groups who like to participate together, but I can understand that February is a popular month for challenges given that it has the least number of days in the year. Trying to help everyone succeed, right?
Regardless, you can definitely participate with whatever challenge or group you choose. They all provide some resources to help you prepare and get started. Namely, it would help to write a list of who you want to write to, get mailing addresses ready, prep stationery/cards/postcards and mailing stamps at hand!
Personally, I don’t think I will make it to the post office or post box every day, so will probably do every couple of days or weekly drops. As with all challenges, you can follow the rules strictly, or just make up your own. Because the point is to doing something enjoyable and not beat yourself up!
I noticed that Boho Berry blogged about InCoWriMo with a giveaway and so did Goulet Pens. I also noticed that quite a few folks in the letter writing community blogged about the upcoming event, so there are groups popping up if you want to join a smaller group who will write to each other. It’s just another way to do some pen pal writing for this month of intense letter writing!
For my own contribution, I would love to share a printable stationery set, so you can prepare for your month of letter writing. I took my Rosie the Riveter drawing and colored her up to design a set of printable stationery for you. There are lined and blank pages as well as the matching envelope. You can easily print out the stationery in advance!
Here’s a free love wallpaper design that is motivational, inspirational and super pro-love, because love is out there, always.
After watching the Google year in search video, it brought tears to my eyes. I really think they did a good job in summarizing the general feeling that many of us may have these days. Lots of turmoil and uncertainty in general… but I love that they started to move towards showing all the good things and ended on a positive note. Love is out there. The song Light the Sky by Grace VanderWaal is beautiful as well.
I decided to create a simple and direct “love is out there” design in response to the whole presentation and my feelings at the comment. This design makes a wonderful wallpaper for your computer, laptop and devices. Just click on the image below and downlaod the full size 1920×1080 version. I hope my design will help to inspires you and remind you that love is out there. Keep hope and love in your heart, always.
I love being able to share my design and I think it’s important for all of us to have reminders of love, goodness and hope – all around us. Enjoy and please share with anyone who need a little pick me up. Love to you all.
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