2014 iNSD - Creative Team Blog Hop

It's International Scrapbook Day! I hope you are all taking advantage of the great sales and contests going on at Pixels and Company!!

• We’ve got a sitewide sale going on, and you can earn as much as 50% off!
• We’ll be refunding one random order daily with our Big Payoff contest!
• There is our popular Dream Cart contest going on.
• We have 2 Speed Scraps on Saturday: Noon MDT and 8 PM MDT, so everyone can have a chance to play along!
• We’ve got chats, games, and challenges going on all weekend long in our Digi Talk forum, with loads of prizes!
• And, of course, our amazing designers created  this fabulous mega collab to give to you:

P&Co. Designer Blog Hop: Bermuda Triangle

It’s yours FREE, and all you have to do is hop through the designers' blogs. You’ll be collecting a series of numbers and letters along the way, and when you get to the end, you’ll have a coupon code that will bring your price on this fantastic kit down to ZERO.  You can get started here.

P&Co. CT Bog Hop

Some of our Creative Team also wanted to get in on the fun, so we're having a hop as well!  Here are the places you'll want to stop by in order to get all of the free goodies that we've made!

P&Co Blog

Lynnette

Amy

Jenn

Linda

Laura

Barbara

Anna

Kelly

Mandi <----

Jen H

Erin

Jennifer E.

Carey

Kat

Rachel

Nettie

Becca

P&Co Forum

I created two journaling cards for you using Bermuda Triangle - here they are:

You can click on the image or here to download.

Fun and Games

I hope you'll join us in the forums this weekend. We have a lot of fun games and challenges going on with lots of prizes to be given away. Some of my favorites are "Lift the one above you" and "Challenge Me" (although I did get challenged to use 10 patterned papers on a layout, so maybe it's not my favorite :) )

Also this month I'm hosting the Journaling Challenge - here.

The challenge is to write a letter to either your future self OR to your past self.  This is my layout.

Next on the hop is Jen H. 

So, hopefully all of these great goodies and challenges will start those creative juices flowing and that we'll all be able to find time to create more!!  Have a great iNSD weekend!!

Doing it . . .

This is my most recent layout.  It wasn't hard to make, but it was hard to post.  So I decided that since I took that step, that I might as well share some of my story here on my blog.

[Made using Robyn Meierotto's $1 kit "Motivate" - get it here.]

June 2012 I hit rock bottom.  I was in constant pain, I couldn't take care of my family, or even myself.  I was only existing.  To say that I was depressed barely scratched the surface.  

Then my angels saved me:  My Mom and my dear husband.  

My Mom made it possible for me to search for the help I needed and finally found.  She encouraged me and made me feel hope again.  Ryan supported me wholeheartedly and made sacrifices as well to make sure I got the help I needed to start my journey.

I started seeing the weight come off and then I was encouraged to reduce my carb intake because I was now diabetic.  Knowing myself, I decided to stop eating sugar altogether and kick diabetes in the butt :)  and I did!!

I lost 100 lbs. before I'd even hit a year!!  The past six months I've been able to take off 25 more pounds.  Things have definitely slowed down, plateaus are a pain - but I'm up to the challenge.

I'm determined not to go back, and to continue my journey of health.  I'm not on a diet and I won't have an ending point.  My goal is simply to work and to live my life.  I got my life back and I'm finally able to do all those things that we take for granted each day.  

The past couple of weeks I've had the winter blahs and so I decided that I'm going to spend some time sharpening those things that have become second nature.  I want to set little goals and track what I'm doing so I can fix things and kick through these plateaus faster.  To help me I'm going to be using these Motivate printables that Robyn Meierotto created.

If you are interested, you can find them here.

The hardest lesson for me to learn has been to make myself more important to me.  That is hard.  But it's something that can't be left out of the equation.  I'm also trying to retrain that voice in my head that has nothing nice to say about me and my abilities.  (shhhhhh)

More than anything I'm thankful for the strength my Heavenly Father gives to me when I'm weak.  For the pain and burdens that my Savior willingly carries if I let him and for my angels.  They have always loved me - through all my very unlovable times.  I am very blessed.