September Blue

Move More Mondays | January 21: Cravings + Project & Freebie

Salty or sweet, creamy or crunchy, chips & dip. We all have that one food we crave while on the road to a healthy lifestyle. Although I love sweets just as much as the next person, I'm happy to say sweets are one of those things that I don't crave. Chips and salsa, however, is another story. Sure there are more unhealthy things that I can indulge in if I had to, but my problem is not knowing when to stop! Five or six chips may not be that bad, but eating a half a bag in one sitting is!

So what are your cravings? How do you handle them? Do you give in or do you have a strong will-power to let the craving pass? This is something we talked about extensively in our Group Lifestyle Weight Management meeting when I first started working out with my trainer Lisa. Lisa Biffin is a qualified personal trainer and lifestyle weight management coach certified through the American Council on Exercise (she is also a yoga instructor!). She is truly passionate about what she does, is extremely knowledgeable and well-educated in her field. I take her words and advice to heart. I asked her if it would be okay to share the anti-craving strategies that she taught us a while back and she gave me her blessing. So her are some of her strategies (and at the end, there is a little project for you to do!):

Lisa's Anti-Craving Mindset Techniques

1. Label it. Tell yourself, "This feeling is just a craving...it is uncomforable and intense, but (like hunger) it is not an emergency."
   
   
2. Stand Firm. Tell yourself that you're absolutely not going to eat the food that you're craving. Remind yourself that you truly don't want to strengthen your giving-in muscle and weaken your resistance muscle. Ask yourself whether giving in to this craving will be worth the momentary pleasure you'll get from eating. Think about how giving in can undermine your confidence.
   
   
3. Don't give yourself a choice. The emotionally painful part about a craving is the struggle you feel. Once you can tell yourself with total convicition, "NO CHOICE," and do something else, the craving will diminish. It won't go away, though, if you waver or say to yourself, "This is so intense, I don't know if I can stand it." Of course you can stand it. It may be uncomfortable, but nothing bad will happen if you withstand it. In fact, in a few moments you're going to be proud of yourself!
   
   
4. Imagine the aftermath of giving in. Go ahead and think about eating the food you are craving. Imagine it in your mouth. How many seconds does it take to eat it? How many seconds do you feel pleasure? Now visualize the rest of the picture...the part of the experience you usually don't think about until it's too late. See yourself feeling upset, giving up, continuing to ear more and more, feeling worse and worse. Do you start to feel heavier in your body or more heavy-hearted? As you become upset in the image, remind yourself you wouldn't do it again, and how hopeless you felt. Now that you've seen the entire picture, which seems better: giving in or not giving into your craving? 
   
   
5. Remind yourself why you want to learn to withstand cravings. Read your Advantages/Response cards (more on those later in the post-it's a project for you!). You won't be able to attain the wonderful benefits of lost weight unless you tolerate your cravings. If you continue to give in to them, you'll always be at risk for gaining weight.

Lisa says that if you're still tempted ot eat something you shouldn't after you've done all of the five mindset techniques above, you can try some of the following behavioral techniques below:

Lisa's Anti-Craving Behavioral Techniques

1. Distance yourself from the food you crave. When you experience a craving because you see or smell food, you might be able to move that food to an inconvenient place (out of sight out of mind) or to get rid of it (give it away, throw it away). If you are unable to move the food then try removing yourself from the situation.
   
   
2. Drink a no calorie or low calorie beverage. Thirst can mask as hunger and trigger you to eat. Consider drinking club soda, water with lemon, herbal tea, etc.
   
   
3. Relax. You can teach your body how to relax in a variety of ways. Meditation can help refocus your thoughts and it only takes a few minutes.
   
   
4. Distract yourself. Do you remember a time when a natural distraction interrupted your craving and you later were glad you hadn't given in? Maybe a friend called, the dog need to go for a walk, your boss came into your office? By the time you finished what you had to do, your craving had weakened or passed. You focused on something else.

It's been a while since I've pulled out all of these anti-craving techniques. They make so much sense and they are doable. Don't you agree?

Mind Over Matter Project

So in point #5 of the Mindset Technique, Lisa mentions "Advantage and Response Cards." This was a homework assignment from Lisa and I find them extremely helpful. She originally had us make them on index cards. Being a crafty kind of girl, I got a little more creative and printed/mounted them on cardstock and held them together with a keyring. But since then, I've remade mine so they fit nicely in my MMEW album. The 8.5x11 page protector you see in the photo above are by We R Memory Keepers. I cut two 4x12 pieces of Bazzill Cardstock (apricot) folded them in half and placed them in the pockets. Using an EK Success 1.75" circle punch I punched half circles in the the two vertical pockets like this:

Be warned that the punch may not give you a clean cut (see photo below), but it is easy to trim with a pair of scissors.

The reason why I cut the notch is to allow easy access to your cards when you need to refer to them.

Pretty cool, huh? I love it.

On to the cards. Here's what you do:

1. Create an Advantage Card(s) that lists all the reasons why you want to lose weight and keep the weight off. Categorize them by importance (i.e. very important, important, not so important). Ask yourself, "Why do I REALLY want to lose weight?" i.e.: (you can see some of my Advantage Cards in the photo below)

          How will weight loss impact my love life, friendships, family, career, social life.
          How will weight loss impact my energy level, participation in hobbies, sports, etc.
          How will weight loss impact my body, health and my mental outlook.

      2. Create Response Cards that counter negative thought or situations that you will encounter,
          i.e.: 

          "Remember the bread/beer will be tempting, but I can resist it. It's more important to
           me to lose weight. If I eat bread/drink beer, I'll get a momentary pleasure but
           afterwards I'll feel worse."

Above are some of my Response Cards.

The point of these cards are to remind you of why you are doing what you're doing & what you can do to support yourself during challenging/tempting situations. 

And guess what? I am providing you with templates to download so you can make your own! There is even one for the vertical title pocket I made for the page as well! Whoop, whoop!!! 

Now the templates are psd files. For the "Mind/Matter template the text has been rasterized and you can use a color overlay to change it to the color of your choice. You can also choose your own patterned paper to insert as well. Download the template by clicking on the link below:

Download SeptBlue_mindovermatter.psd

The text on the Advantage and Response Card titles has been rasterized as well. Again you can use a color overlay to change the color. They are 4x6 cards. When you print them out, trim them down to measure 3.5x5.5. Then mount the title cards to the top of your cardstock. Download the templates by clicking on the link below:

Download SeptBlue_AdvRespCardTitles

The text on the Advantage and Response Cards themselves has NOT been rasterised (it is the same file for both cards). The bold font you see in orange is Helvetica Neue LT 97 Black Condensed Oblique, set at 24pt and 21pt leading. The smaller font in gray is Helvetica Neue LT 57 Condensed Oblique, set at 10pt and Auto leading. If you do not have this font on your computer, your program will replace it with something else upon opening. They are 4x6 cards. When you print them out, trim them down to measure 3.75x5.75. This size allows the cards to be slipped into the pockets easily. Download the template by clicking on the link below: 

Download SeptBlue_MMEW_AdvRespCards.psd

I placed this page on the right side of my album. I needed something for the facing page and wanted it to be motivational. So I altered one of the templates that Cathy Zielske provided in her class and did this:

The text came from an ad for Athleta clothing I saw in Real Simple Magazine. I find it empowering. It's the perfect compliment to the "Mind Over Matter" page. I cannot provide you with this particular template, as it was part of the class that I paid for. But for those of you who are participating in MMEW, you should be able to alter yours and feel free to copy what I did. 

I hope you found this post inspiring and will put these techniques to work for you! A big shout out to Lisa for allowing me to share her tips and techniques with you! 

Have a healthy week!

 

 

Related articles

Project | Move More Eat Well 2.0 (with Cathy Zielske)

Move More Mondays | January 7th

Tutorial: Altering Project Life Clementine & Cobalt Word Art Circles

Over the past few days I've had several readers ask if I was going to release the Word Art Circles that I did in 2012 for the Clementine and Cobalt Core Collections without the dates on them. I have no plans to do so, BUT I have put a tutorial together explaining how you can change the png's in Photoshop! Let's begin:

Open one of the files that you downloaded last year. I am working on Week 3:

Create a new layer. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, make a selection around the date like this:

Make sure you have white selected as the foreground color. Using the Paint Bucket Tool, fill your selection with white. Then deselect to get rid of the "marching ants." Merge the two layers together. Your circle should now look like this:

Make a text box. The font I used is Century Gothic and is set at 6pt. The color is #868384. Type in your dates and you're done!

I hope this was helpful to those who wish to use these weekly titles for their 2013 Project Life albums!

 

 

 

Love Is In The Air + A Valentine Freebie Revisted

I am feeling so much better this week! My Week 6 for Project Life is going great! I can't wait to share my layout with you on Monday! Not only has Project Life been keeping me busy during my free time, Valentine's Day has been keeping me on my toes as well! I made the most awesome-fantastic-super-fabulous gift for Chris. I wish I could post it now, but with my blog posts linked to my Facebook account, I can't risk him finding out what it is! So I will post it on Tuesday! Don't you just love the feeling of excitement when you have found (or created) the perfect gift for someone and you can't wait to give it to them?

I do, however, have a few Valentine-y things that I can share with you! The first is my Valentine tree (seen below). I made the decorations for this tree a few years ago and I could swear that I shared photos of it on my blog before, but I couldn't find it anywhere. So I am sharing (or re-sharing) now! The white miniature tree is from Doodlebug Designs. The base of the tree is a solid, white cube. I made a "sleeve" for the base out of foam core that it slides into. That way the base of the tree can be decorated to match the theme of the tree. I just love this little tree! You can use it for so many occasions-birthdays, 4th of July, Baby Showers. You name it, you can make decorations for it! 

I used the "Lovestruck" paper line from Making Memories that was available a few years back. I covered pieces of chipboard with cardstock on one side and patterned paper on the other and added various greetings that were on the different papers from the line. I then punched holes in the ornaments with my Crop-A-Dile and used ribbon from American Crafts to tie them to the tree. Very sweet!

So after I set up my tree, I got to thinking how much I love Making Memories products, especially some of their older lines. "Animal Crackers," "Noel," and "Toil & Trouble" are some of my favorite lines ever. But sadly you really can't find them anywhere. Wouldn't it be great if they offered a digital version???? I did write them and unfortunately they didn't have plans to release digital versions. Bummer. I'm thinking if there was a demand, maybe they would. If any of you are on board with me, write them and see if they would reconsider! :)

Below are a few close up pictures of some of the ornaments.

Ever hear of Pinterest? I'm sure you have! I spend a lot of time on that site! I found this piece of subway art (see below) there. I printed it, mounted it to a piece of cardstock and placed it in a black frame. The seasonal subway art printables you can find on Pinterest are GREAT! Keep a frame near your entryway that is just for subway art! It is an easy piece of decor to change to reflect the season, holiday or special celebration!

The black and white photo next to the subway art is probably one of my most favorite pictures of us. It was taken back in 1999 (I think) on the day when Chris was coming home from his 6-month deployment. I asked my neighbor, Stacy, to come to the base with is for their arrival. I wanted her to take candid shots of me and the boys when Chris returned. She snapped this one and I think it is perfect. Even the angle of the Peanuts balloon was great-the text reads "I love you" and is fitting as I was giving Chris a kiss on the cheek!

Handmade cards. For the second week in a row, I found myself making a card. Last week it was for my friend Anna (it was her birthday) and this week it was a Valentine card. I bought the digital version of Echo Park's "Yours Truly" line and used the paper and elements from the collection to create this fun card! I think it's great that EP releases both a traditional and digital version of their products. I wish more companies would do that!

I have one more Valentine idea to share with you. It is a little revisit from a post had on my previous blog (Don't Blink) two or three years ago. Actually I shared the idea here on September Blue last fall for Halloween. Here is the original version:

I wish I could take credit for the idea behind this little project, but I can't. Barb Carrico-a fabulous consultant for Close To My Heart, came up with this idea for a make & take at a crop I attended. I made a bunch of them for some of my co-workers when I worked at Wegmans. It is a great little project to use up some of your scraps you may have laying around. These little treats are perfect to make with kids for their Valentine Parties at school! Enjoy!

Instructions:

Cut a strip of cardstock that measures 6" x 1.75"

Score at 2.5" from each end. Fold along score lines.

Cut two rectangles from patterned paper that measure 2.25" x 1.75". Mount on either side of the scored lines.

Using a 1.5" circle punch, punch out one of the tags from the file you can download from this post and attach it to one side of the patterned papers with a pop dot.

Using your favorite adhesive, attach a Hershey Nugget or Kiss in the area between the score lines.

Fold ends up at score lines, punch two holes near the top edges. 

Tie a piece of ribbon through the holes.

The cardstock I used for my treats is from Bazzill Basics and the patterned paper is from the Making Memories line "Lovestruck". The tags are my own design.

Download ValentineTreatTags.jpg

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of those holidays where I get love to get crafty. Although my boys are grown up, I still decorate the house, make treats for family & friends and enjoy having trick-or-treaters come to the house. But this year it is a little different. We are overseas and "Halloween" is something that Latvians are not yet familiar with. I have heard that it is slowly starting to become a holiday here, but I only saw one store in town with Halloween decorations. It will take a long time for Halloween to become as popular here in Latvia as it is in the States, but that wasn't going to stop me from spreading that Halloween spirit around the embassy today.

You may have seen these before if you followed my blog "Don't Blink." I made them for the people I worked with when I was employed at Wegmans one Valentine's Day. It is the perfect project that can be altered to whatever occasion you want to make them for. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but "Close To My Heart" Consultant, Barb Carrico came up with this one for a make and take during a Fresh Crops scrapbook weekend. It's a great way to use up any scraps of scrapbooking paper you may have around! This year I made them for the employees at the embassy. I set them up in the cafeteria for people to take after lunch. You'll find the directions on how to make them for your family and friends below.

Instructions:

Cut a strip of cardstock that measures 6" x 1.75"

Score at 2.5" from each end. Fold along score lines.

Cut a rectangle from patterned paper that measure 2.25" x 1.75". Mount on one side of the scored lines.

Attach a 1.5" circle sticker or tag to the front (the spider tag is my own design I created in Photoshop and printed at home)

Using your favorite adhesive, attach a Hershey Nugget or Kiss in the area between the score lines.

Fold ends up at score lines, and staple. You can also punch two holes near the top edgesand tie a piece of ribbon through the holes.

The cardstock I used for these treats is from Bazzil Basics and the Patterned paper is from Deena Rutter's "Blackbird" line from My Mind's Eye (2010).

I did make a few different treat bags for people in my husband's office, the Marine Guards and the girls I work out with. I purchased paper sandwich bags (they don't do Ziplocs here), put mixed nuts and a few pieces of snack size candies inside, wrapped a 1.5" x 12" strip of paper around the bag and secured it with the tag you see below. 

The tag is actually from Echo Park's Apothecary Digital Kit (2010) and was heavily altered to fit my needs! The bat on the tag is a stamp from Carina Gardner's "Haunted" Digital Kit. 

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

 

The Drawing Board-Creating Multiple iPhoto Libraries

I have been a Mac user for over 6 years. I love everything about Apple computers, especially iPhoto. My pictures have been stored in this application for years and when I started to dabble in digital, I started putting all of my digital supplies in iPhoto as well. 
Soon my collection of photos and digital supplies have grown to over 20,000 items in iPhoto (yes, there are 5 zero’s after the 2). Needless to say, I noticed a bit of a slowdown when opening iPhoto and it was time to do something about it.

I will admit that I have been a little jealous of those who use ACDSee to organize their digital supplies. ACDSee does make a professional version for a Mac, but it is pretty pricey for what I needed it for. I knew there there just had to be a way to separate my photos from my supplies in iPhoto. So when I upgraded to iPhoto ’11, I made the commitment to myself to also purchase David Pogue & Lesa Snider’s “iPhoto ‘11: The Missing Manual.” If anyone could explain the ins and outs of setting up multiple libraries in iPhoto they could. This is what I learned:

There are three things you should know before diving into the following tutorial:

1. I do not consider myself an expert in iPhoto at all. I am just excited to share with you some tips and tricks I learned that are working for me.
2. I am using iPhoto ’11 in the tutorial.
3. In the book, the authors highly recommend downloading a free software application called iPhoto Library Manager (IPLM) from fatcatsoftware.com. BUT, if you want to unlock advanced features of the program you will have to pay a $20 registration fee. The free version is just fine for ease of opening up your different libraries. However, because I wanted to just drag and drop my digital scrapbook supplies from my current library to the new one, the drag and drop feature was one of those advanced features. Believe me, the 20 bucks was sooooo worth it! This software is not required to create and use multiple libraries in iPhoto, but it sure makes things a lot easier! Please read through the entire tutorial first before deciding whether or not you want to download or purchase the registration for IPLM.

So before you begin, make sure you have an external hard drive, the iPhoto Library Manager (IPLM) from Fat Cat installed on your computer (optional), and iPhoto is closed.

Step One:
Plug your external hard drive into your computer. While holding down the "option" key open iPhoto on your computer. You have to keep the option key pressed while the program is opening and this window opens:

 

Step Two:
Click “create new”. A drop down window will appear (photo below). Give your new library a name and save it to your external hard drive. You need to make sure you click on your external hard drive icon that is located in the left-hand side of the drop down window (please note that the library you see in the photo below is the library that is already located on my EHD. I am making a new one for the purposes of this tutorial.)

It will take a few moments, but a new iPhoto library window will open as you see below.

Step Three (version 1):
It is nice and empty, just waiting for you to fill it up with digital goodies! Now remember, the purpose of me creating two libraries was to remove all of my digital supplies from my main library, where I keep all of my photos, to one all its own. You would think it would be as easy as closing my new library down, opening up my main library and just dragging and dropping the various “events” of supplies into the new library on my EHD. But it is not. Believe me, I tried dragging and dropping one of my events from my main library to the new one on the EHD and all it did was copy the items from the event to the EHD itself. The library icon in the EHD window isn’t like a folder or an application icon you can just drag something on top of it and it would automatically open. So how does one go about transferring digital supplies from one library to another?

If you opted not to download the software from Fat Cat you can do this (which is basically what I was describing above):

1. Close the new iPhoto Library you just created on your EHD (do not eject your EHD), but keep your EHD window open.
2. Reopen iPhoto keeping the “option” key pressed.
3. Choose the library where your digital supplies are currently located. Wait for it to open.
4. Make sure your “Events” icons are showing in your iPhoto window. Click on an event with digital supplies (or several if you want) and drag it to your EHD window. Note: the items from the event may be stacked on top of each other
5. Close iPhoto. Reopen iPhoto with the “option” key pressed. Choose your digital supply library on your EHD
6. Once iPhoto is open, go back to your EHD window and select all of digital supplies and drag them over to your iPhoto library to import.This way is fine and dandy but there is a HUGE drawback to it. Say the event that you  dragged from your main library to your EHD was called “September Blue-Turn the Tassel.” All of the items from that event show up individually on the EHD, right? Right. Now when you imported them into your new library they do show up as one event, but you will have to go back and rename the event. By default, a date will show up under the event. This wouldn’t be a problem if you were importing only one event at a time. Just change the name of the event to the title of your choice. But what if you wanted to get things done a little more quickly and drag a bunch of events from your current library to your EHD and then import them into your new library? All of those supplies are going to show up as one event in your new library. Depending on how you organize your supplies, you will have to go back a separate that one event into several (that is a whole other tutorial topic).

Step Three (version 2):
Version 1 is fine and dandy but there is a HUGE drawback to it. Say the event that you  dragged from your main library to your EHD was called “September Blue-Turn the Tassel.” All of the items from that event show up individually on the EHD, right? Right. Now when you imported them into your new library they do show up as one event, but you will have to go back and rename the event. By default, a date will show up under the event. This wouldn’t be a problem if you were importing only one event at a time. Just change the name of the event to the title of your choice. But what if you wanted to get things done a little more quickly and drag a bunch of events from your current library to your EHD and then import them into your new library? All of those supplies are going to show up as one event in your new library. Depending on how you organize your supplies, you will have to go back a separate that one event into several (that is a whole other tutorial topic).

Enter Fat Cat’s iPhoto Library Manager (with the $20 registration fee) I have to be honest and say I have only had this software application on my computer for 3 days and I don’t know all of the in’s and out’s, but I am thrilled at how quickly I was able to transfer my digital supplies to a new library.

If you downloaded and installed the software, set up a new iPhoto Library as explained in Steps One and Two. Then do the following:

1. Close the new iPhoto Library you just created on your EHD (do not eject your EHD).
2. Locate the IPLM program on your computer and open it. You should see a window like the one below. Notice the box on the left of the window shows all of your iPhoto libraries. A bit about the IPLM window. You can double click on any of your libraries and open them from here. The program will close the current library you are in and open a new one. You can also create new libraries from here or add other libraries you may have on your Mac as well!
   
   
   
   
3. Double click the library that currently contains all of your digital supplies. It may take a few moments for the library to open. Just be patient. It will open.
4. Once opened, click on all of the events in your library that contain your digital supplies. Drag and drop them over to the library in the left hand column of the IPLM window. OR you can also locate the events within the IPLM window. Just select “events” from the small drop down menu located above the middle column. Click the events you want in your new library and drag them over to it!
5. Now, once you drop them into your digital supply library, there will be a lot of bells and whistles going on. Don’t be alarmed! It is doing what it is supposed to do. Depending on how many things your are transferring, it may take a while. The program will eventually close your current library and then open the library you transferred your files to!
6. Voila! All of your events transferred, with their original titles!

No matter if you transfer via Version 1 or Version 2, there is one more step to do!

Open up your library that you transferred files from. Notice your digital supplies are still there. You will have to move them to the trash manually as the transfer of files is only copying them from to the new library and not deleting them. And then make sure you empty your iPhoto trash!

And there you have it. I know this was long! Thanks for hanging in there with me! Again, I am not an expert in iPhoto or with IPLM. I just wanted to share my excitement of some new-found techie stuff with you!