Slimming world update #6

Hello hello hello,

I am so excited to tell you that when i weighed myself on monday just gone, i am now... 12 stone and 3 Ibs which means, i have only 1 pound to go and i will have lost a stone from my starting weight. I am made up, still have a way to go as i ideally need to be 11 stone but i was told i needed to be 70kg which is 11 stone 2 Ibs i think :).

I am really proud of myself.. she says whilst eating a double decker chocolate bar and nearly eating 150g of cheesy puffs -_- haha.
Told you i don't stick to it religiously.

I have found a new form of motivation.. The black board.

So what i do is write how many Ibs i have lost that week, how much i have to lose in Ibs till target and how much in Ibs i have lost so far, and for my own personal use i have written how many days left i have got until my appointment in which i have to lose the weight for :).

It is nice to look at because, although you know how much you have lost, it makes it more real to see the numbers in front of you and feels good to watch the numbers go down.

I have not had much of an appetite this week. I have not been that well. But Darren bought me a couple of the slimming world ready meals and i tried one on friday night and sadly to say i wasn't a fan at all.

I was gutted that i wasn't a fan, as i thought what a great idea for me when im stuck on time or ideas or going to someones house but no. Not for me.

It wasn't awful just for my tastes i wouldn't get it again.
if any of you have tried it and have liked it or like me not a fan please comment and let me know, it would be interesting. The meals are really good sizes too.

The other one i have in my freezer is pasta with salmon in it so i will include that review in next weeks weigh in update. Really hope i have lost weight, looking back i kind of regret that chocolate bar, damn you Darren haha. It was my fault with the cheesy puffs though, i just had a hankering and i am rubbish at saying no :(.


So thats all i have for you this week but i will be weighing myself either tomorrow or tues so i will update you all asap. 

Take care :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Super quick post to my readers

I am so excited to have just looked at my audience to see where in the world you are reading from.

You have all totally made my year, thank you all once again for taking the time to read what to me seems important or interesting. I would love to hear from some of you about what you do and how you found me so please please comment or email me :).
My audience so far..

United states

United kingdom

Ireland

Australia

France

Poland

Austria

Canada

Russia

I am gob smacked and almost lost for words, but seeing as this is a blog i kind of have to have something to say  :p

You are all part of my blogging journey and whether you mean to or not you are all supporting me just by taking the time to read what i have to say. Thank you all once again.

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My crafting adventures..

So i have pretty much been abandoning all my lovely followers :( im very sorry, I really truley love doing my blog and i still have so many views and i would be so upset to find my regulars have left me because i have not been updating you, so im sorry. But i am here to show and explain why i have not been updating so stay with me..

From the last post i was showing you what i have been up to lately with my craft addiction, i literally have a craft addiction, anything you can make and do i am pretty much researching and on ebay looking for a cheap way of starting out, apart from my soap craze i am now interested in making my own essential oils, I need to take a step back and tell myself to calm down haha. I just love to be creative, love love love it. So anyways..

I am really interested in starting a soap business, like seriously i think i would do so well and it's not often i am confident about myself in that way, or any way really. But i have put a lot of thought into it and all i am trying to focus on right now is finding the perfect recipe for me. My most recent soaps are..

 

Honey and oat soap. These are only very small soaps, typical hand soaps, so not big but small enough to use up in a few weeks and move on to something else :). This soap is completly natural, it has coconut milk and coconut oil as its main ingredients and inside the soap is ground oats for exfoliation and real honey inside which helps to moisterise your skin and draw moisture to your hands to prevent them drying out and then some oats on top for decoration. This soap doesn't have a smell as such apart from the natural soap and the slighest scent of the honey.

 

 

This one is lovely, this is my lavender and tea tree essential oil handsoap. What i found with the other soaps before these (and i have made lots), is that when i added the essential oil or fragrance, i was only using a small amount and when you first use it, it's great because it smells so strong but as it cures over the 4-6 weeks the smell evaporates and eventually you are left with nothing so i went back to the drawing board and did more research and finally found the information i needed and put the right amount in so i will see how it turns out in 4 weeks of curing. I coloured it with a really light green just so it looks pretty, this recipe is one of my favourites for how the soap feels so far :).

 

 

This soap i made last night and cut this morning. Its scented with English Rose fragrance oil and once again i used the correct amount according to a post i read so we shall see in four weeks time.

This recipe is different to the one above (lavender and tea trea), and it actually went wrong on me, it riced on me as i added my fragrance oil but i think it was because i added the coconut to trace. If you don't soap it won't make any sense to you but basically what happened is the soap seized, basically it set far too fast and i only had seconds to throw it into a mould before it was solid, i threw a bunch of dried rose petals on top for decoration. In the photo you can see there are two colours, pink and cream, the cream is the original colour of the soap before any colour is added and the pink is the colour i wanted it to be, due to the soap setting up fast i had to very quickly put the colour in and mix it super fast but it didn't all mix up but all in all i'm actually really happy with how they turned out and i think they look quite rustic. 

And then ofcourse i have been crocheting, Obviously :p. I have still yet to finish the girls blanket i showed you in my previous post but i decided to start on a boys one and i nearly had all the squares finished in one day.

You can't see it properly but that is actually a deep red but looks more pinky there. I'm going to use a lovely shade of blue to edge each square and do a border when its all been crocheted together. I am planning on selling my blankets on ebay, however each time i make one i kind of just want to keep it to myself haha. 

So yeah this is why i have been ignoring you all so i'm sorry once again. If any of you are crafters please comment and tell me what you do or email me and we can talk more personally.

I also wanted to say thank you to my newest visitors from around the world and i really do appreciate all the page views. If any of you who have visited me or who are reading this now have blogs please follow me on my blog by adding yours and i will look yours up to. I have a lovely lady who follows me and she has a lovely blog so please check hers out.

Thank you all for reading and i will show you the blanket when it's all done :) 

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Slimming world update #5

Hello everyone :) 

So it has been a while since i updated my weightloss but im back and i have a new weight to share with you.

Before i do i must be honest and say that i have not been sticking to it as much as i would have liked, when you constantly get told your fat or that you NEED to lose weight it really gets you down and that isn't the type of criticism that motivates me. So yeah i have not been good lately but i have still lost weight and although i say i have not been good, i am still making sensible choices when it comes to food but i am passing through my bad patch and with motivation from my family i am back on track as of today. 
 
I hope anyone that is doing slimming world and reading this stays to plan because if i had stuck to plan and behaved i would be another 3-4 Ibs away from target and i am now behind, so don't give up and please stick to it. Apart from my family motivating me, the other huge motivation has been before and after photos. I will include two here in this post today to show you. I don't feel like i have lost anything but i have and if it wasn't for photographic evidence and the scales i would refuse to believe it.

So here you go, the first picture is when i started and the second is a few weeks ago..

(**CRINGING SHOWING YOU THESE PHOTO'S BY THE WAY -_- **)

I was shocked to see the difference.

So anyways i now weigh 12 stone 5 Ibs and have lost a grand total of 11 Ibs. I am very pleased with this but i am now ready and back on track with my weight loss as i have 8 weeks left this tuesday coming until my appointment in which i have to lose the 2 stone. The lady said over two stone but we will see what happens. So now i need to get my bottom into gear and lose 1 stone and 3 Ibs. I am still seeing a health advisor at my doctors and it's ok, i know pretty much everything they say anyway but it's nice to have the moral support and a little nudge.

The other new thing i can add is i now have a gym membership. Through seeing my doctor they reffered me to the health advisor or assistant ( i can not remember what they are called) and through them i got a gym refferal. I get 24 sessions for 1 pound a go!! how good is that. You can only go at certain times but hey better than full price. So if you are over weight and would like some advice ask your doctor if you have a health advisor in your surgery and ask them for a refferal and ask about the gym pass. I used to cycle all the time but my bike broke and i did not have the money until now to fix it so i have booked that into the bike shop for the 15th july and im so excited to get it fixed and then i will be cycling everywhere as i used to. I can not wait.

So that's all i have for you for now, i will really try and do an update for next week as i am not working as much but i won't promise anything as i have been super busy crafting as usual :), read my next post to find out what i have been up to :)

Speak soon and keep up the good work! You are all amazing and remember we can do this! Dream bodies here we come.....



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Slimming world update #4

With working so much lately and crafting soap cupcakes my appetite has been all over the place and i have been naughty :( in my defence i am a woman and we NEED chocolate in our lives. Ladies do not let anyone else tell you any different as it's clearly A FACT :p

last time i weighed myself which was wednesday 10th june, i had maintained my weight and the week before that i did not weigh myself on purpose because of my bad eating even then. So i said to myself again i would give myself a couple of weeks before i weigh myself again so i can behave. 

Today i had an appointment with a health advisor he was not so much a dietician but that kind of thing. We had a chat and he has been able to give me 24 really cheap sessions at my local gym as i have to lose weight within a certain time frame and i did not recieve any help or advice from the hospital so yeah :) and he told me to quit the bad food :( booo.

He had to weigh me today for his records and i was 79 kg. Last time i weighed myself it said 80kg so if indeed his scales are right, i lost another kg but i will wait to weigh myself on the print out machine again. As you will always get a more accurate figure if using the same machine. So hopefully next time i will update you i will have signed up to or already at the gym. Wish me luck :).

If anyone else reading this is doing a weightloss journey, i hope you are well, losing weight and enjoying your journey. 

Take care xxxxxxxxxxxx

Current craft projects

Hello everyone and im sorry i have not been on here in a while. I have been working so many hours these past couple of weeks and honestly by the time i get home and do what i need to do im too tired to write a post or Darren is using the laptop, which is ok seeing as it is his (haha).  

So this post is to show you why i have not been on here and also to show you what i am currently making. Anyone that knows me well enough will know that I ADORE CRAFTS!!!
Like i could not imagine a world with no crafts at all. Urrrhhhh the thought alone!!

So ladies and gentlemen, let's get on with it;

So here we have some cupcake soap, This was my very first attempt and i can not tell you how made up i am with this. It's lavender soap and even better it looks like a cup cake. I love love love it and it smells so lovely.

The first picture is when i finished icing them and the second is when i unmoulded them and they dried 

How lovely are they? i'm so pleased i cant even begin to tell you. Beginners luck? i think so because look at my next batch;

So let me start with the colours. The icing was meant to be orange and red coral- but it's now pink and yellow and the base of the cupcake was meant to be light brown as i mixed white and brown together but instead i get ...

BLUE?! 

how is it blue from brown and white? Oh well it doesn't matter i suppose it's just the fragrance is sweet orange and i have a yellow, pink and blue cupcake soap haha. Just my luck.

so yeah my big dream is to own and run a craft company of some sort but i really am interested in making soap to sell by the end of this year. The hardest bit is knowing once you have made your soap, you have to let it cure for 4-6 weeks to ensure all the chemical has left the soap. So theoretically it takes 6 weeks to find out if your soap is any good, so it is not a fast way. This way is called cold process. There are 3 types. Cold process, hot process and melt and pour. I have so many recipes to try and experiment with. The icing on these sweet orange cupcakes are awful and i know why. The piping tips i use are only small so it takes forever to pipe it out and it seems to just flop and melt back into itself, Im telling you my first go was pure luck as the icing looks okay on the lavender ones. 

moving on....

my other main love is to crochet! ages ago i made this lovely baby granny square blanket 

I love it. So i was all inspired to make another after a conversation with my sister so i went out and bought more wool. 

Isn't it just lovely. SOOO girly. I have no idea why all my baby blankets seem to be girly, think it is just easier and girly colours are so eye catching! any who.. I decided to do a different granny square blanket, it doesn't have as many holes in it, but its still gorgeous,

Gives a lovely X patten through the little squares, Here also i have done two more rows in the contrasting colour, white. So once they are all joined they will look like the other blanket with a white border.
here is a photo to compare the two different types of granny squares.

cute or what!! Both very different. The first blanket is more pastel like colours and the current blanket is quite bright, eye catching colours. I won't be making this current blanket as big as the other one as it takes soooo long and clearly i have so many other craft projects to be getting on with.

I am already thinking of beeswax candles and bath bombs, if my soaps are ok and they are ok to sell to the public i will put them on my etsy shop but that's a while off yet.

Thank you for reading and i hope you are all ok. Sorry once again for not coming on here often but as you can see, i'm clearly on my way to making my first million ;) 

see you soooon! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 

Slimming world update #3

Oh i am loving doing slimming world! I have lost a total of 8 Ibs so far! 

I missed an update last week. Sorry. I started working didn't i and i have done so many hours last week. I did 7 days straight and my job is so energetic so i was too tired to do any posts. what i will do though is when i reach my target weight i will post a before and after photo (which i am dreading totally!). 

So i am still losing 2 Ibs a week which is great and im made up with that. More would be a bonus but i have heard the slower you lose it the longer it stays off for. 

I got the new slimming world July 2015 magazine the other day and there is loads of gorgeous recipes in there. Last week i must admit i did go well over my weekly syns by eating 2 bags of wispa bites, well more like 1 1/2 bags as darren helped eat around half a bag, they are bloody gorgeous and melt in your mouth and if like me you love chocolate but have tried to be good and deprived yourself a little you will understand how much i appreciated that chocolate haha.

I have said to myself that when i lose a stone i will treat myself to a dominos when it is on two for tuesdays, so we will get 2 medium and be greedy and have one each and watch a film. ( if i can afford it) but then straight back on plan the following day. To say well done and so i am not depriving myself. I have not had pizza since i started slimming world. It's too high in syns and i prefer to use those syns on something else so that is what i have planned as my 1 stone weight loss treat.

The other thing im really excited about is i have two pairs of jeans i bought a while ago now size 14 which didn't fit me, i am a size 14 in jeans but these particular jeans just obviously where a smaller size. well when i have lost my first stone i will try them on and see if they fit me yet. I am excited because it will feel so good to know they fit and i think thats when i will realise that i have indeed lost the weight. I sometimes feel i have but other days i wake up really bloated and im convinced i have put it all back on because of all the chocolate i have eaten but then i weigh myself and 2Ibs lighter each time. So i am very proud of myself and Darren is very proud also. It can be quite challenging when its just you following a food plan and you see someone else is having something you fancy but i am never really hungry and if i am i just eat. I have found that veg has become a little boring but with the help of july's magazine that should be of some help with fresh ideas. 

My exercise has been non existant due to my operation but i have a month left until i should be completley healed and me and my sister have said we will go cycling together. Currently at the moment she does not live too far so i just need to get my bike fixed and she has purchased herself a lovely new bike so we shall go off on bike rides together :) yay!! Cant wait!!

Thanks for reading and i will update you again next week :D love you all xxxxxxxxxxxx