A quick PAD for today

I'm going to keep todays post short since I've spent most of my day actually doing my PAD.

It comes from this PIN on my Drawplus board (it's Tootsie and Buddy's board but they let me post stuff on it, I'll create my own when I get around to it ;) )

I got a late Christmas present which arrived today - A graphics tablet....

I'm not going to include details about what it make/model it is because I don't have affiliate's and as a new blogger, I'd rather folk didn't think I do. I might in the future (for the sake of keeping it real) but it's not something I'm ready for. If you are interested in what it is you can leave a comment for me. But I love it already and I only have the basics of.

Obviously I wanted to play straight away and the first thing that came to mind was a teddy, so I found a silhouette and started outlining. I couldn't get the sleek lines  I was after but I kept reminding myself that I've never done this before and tried my best to be patient with myself.

Then I discovered brushes...yes, even that is new to me. So far my digiscrap experience has been limited to using elements I've collected from other designers, but I want to grow. The "Teddy filler" brush in my package was perfect but I struggled with the thread colours changing because of the thread texture (does that make sense to you?)  which is why the colours look a bit wiggy.

I'm really useless with the colour sliders so I like to use different sources to make use of my colour picker-so I went to my Pinterest page for inspiration (As one does, right?) and there it was.

Would you believe that I used this pallet for the threads? 

So there you go:) My PAD for today and my first ever digital drawing.

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend.

Duck tape makes everything pretty.

Today's PAD was inspired by THIS PIN on my decorating board. I had never heard of "decorative duct tape" before this one. My sister in law was visiting from South Africa for a few months and I was looking for ways to help her make her room look more like her. We had installed basic Ikea furniture and so her clothes were to be stored in those see through plastic drawers.

I now have a set of them in my kitchen, where I store my bathroom stuff (It's a long story, maybe one day when I'm big I'll take you on a tour?) We covered them in some pretty Parisian themed tape.

And now I love Duck tape. When I first went looking for it, I found some at Asda and I was so excited. But once I had finished the stash I bought (No, a crafter NEVER buys *just* one) they had sold out with no plans to restock! I was gutted. I shelved my plans for some more drawers and maybe some office bits, based on the fact that what I could get online from within the UK was rather bland and I didn't want to pay postage from across the pond.

Then just before Christmas, I discovered a Hobbycraft really close by and when I popped in-they had Duck tape. So I bought some, with a specific project in mind....

This is what the inside of my "Index Card Box" looks like right now.

If you're familiar with Flylady, then you've heard of a control journal. Now Marla devised her system based on The Index Card System devised by Pam Young and her sister, Peggy Jones. They call themselves "SHE's (Sidetracked Home Executives) and they wrote their book of the same title in 1977.

I had read so much about them on the Flylady website that I wanted to know more so I bought their book. I loved the sound of the Index card box-I am a bit precious and the thought of trying to add stuff to books and binders without it becoming messy made me nervous.

So I rushed out and bought my box and a pack of index cards, but then the "make pretty" kicked in and it grew a bit more than I expected it to. I might show it to you in sections in a series later as I work on it, but for now the crux is it contains all the things you'd find in a control journal-routines, contacts, cleaning plans, that kind of thing.

Ive been using it for  few months now and originally it was a plain black box, like below....

Now it's not:) Please forgive the glare. I am working on my photography skills.

Once I finished the index card box I got to thinking of how my phones always sit on it and then need moving when I want some information from inside. I remembered a box that I had got with some tension rods in it and hunted it out. It was just the right size for the two phones and some basic stationary, and so my matching organiser was born.

I have a lot of plans for this year, plans to be better at a lot of things, so I think of this as my "clean kitchen sink". The place from where the other things will grow. I'm starting to get a better sense of the direction in which I want to go-so I hope you'll pop back in to read about how I'm progressing?

A Pin A Day-365

A bit of an answer to this post. Remember, the one where I spoke about my lack of direction?
My friend Amy messaged me a few weeks ago and asked if I had heard about the 365 challenge and did I want to join her in completing it. It's a call to action if you will, you know how we all sit around whiling away the hours on Pinterest? I've done a lot of things that have blossomed from ideas on Pinterest, sometimes I've had in mind to do something, researched how on the internet, pinned the most relevant post somewhere on a board for future reference and gone away and done it.

I just checked, I have 129 boards on Pinterest and 2478 pins! I dont know how many I've actually incorporated in my life, but I'm going to try to record 365 of them. Amy started on the 1st of January, I started with an excuse (Of course I did!).

This blog post is to record my second PAD. Of course I've created a board on Pinterest too-you can follow it here, and catch up on my first.

This PAD is yesterdays. Our new year started of really busy as we still had elves visiting, I had an MRI that required two days of sedatives and we had The Princess' third birthday. Then the day after her birthday (the day before yesterday) I lost my footing and slipped a ligament on my left hip. In short-I got stuck, literally. The kids think its hilarious and normally we can all sort it out together but we couldnt this time. I called an ambulance and spent the day in A&E.

It was interesting, I have never seen pictures of my hip joint. Not only were x-rays requested for the fist time since I moved to the UK, but the radiographer brought his tablet over to me to have a look. The socket has this pretty feathering around the bottom. I know, it is a problem-but it LOOKS pretty. Everyone at the hospital was lovely for a change, but I am still so very sore.

"How does this relate to your PAD then?" you ask? Well, I couldn't sleep. I've never been a good sleeper. It's mostly getting to sleep that's problematic. I have loads of theory's about why but that's a whole new post. The night I got home from hospital I had no trouble, I was dosed up on morphine and codien and diazapam, and who would struggle with that?

Last night I really struggled, but I knew I would have to get up this morning as Lordbob would have to go back to work today. A few days ago, a friend of mine posted this link on Facebook.It's about a breathing technique simply called 4-7-8. "In print", it made sense to me and reminded me of how you are taught to take Entenox. That's "laughing gas" to some, it's usually what I'm given en route to hospital and whilst waiting for triage. For it to be effective, you are told to inhale it through your mouth slowly and as deep as you can, hold it for a few seconds and exhale through your nose. This is how the author of the blog post explains this breathing technique that should help you get to sleep-except just the other way around which is fair enough.

I did a quick google and found some videos about it recorded by Dr Andrew Weil. I don't know yet if he is responsible for the technique or simply teaches it, but I really liked his manner-so here is his video.

Keeping it real:This is no longer my 

bedroom. I wish it was, I hated it then

but it was heaven compared to my current

bedroom;)

I tried it before bed last night and fell asleep without my sleepmask or ear plugs and Lordbob beside me...he snores so loud that I can be watching telly downstairs after he's gone to bed and he might as well be lying on the sofa beside me! I was also on my back (the position I was in when I started counting) when I woke up at about 3am this morning...in a lot of pain. So I did it again, and the next I knew I was still on my back and Lordbob was kissing me on the forehead saying it was 7am!

So it does work, and I'm claiming it as yesterdays PAD. Give it a go, really...it's a minute and you are so relaxed after that it really does wind you down. Im going to be following Dr Weil's advice and I'm going to do it morning and evening going forward.