Month: April 2017

Summer Fun to Feed my Creativity

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

Summer-Baby-Girl

A few weeks ago (possible longer), I blogged about being in a creative funk and needing to find a new passion to create and indulge my love of art again. In the yarn world, the latest craze is over these yarn cakes which are multicolored yarns the create stripes as you knit or crochet. Me being me…. I pushed again indulging in this craze but I couldn’t resist any longer so I bought on Caron cake, then started buying Bernat Pop and long to buy the Lion Brand Mandala (out of stock until September and my Walmart will never receive them which is blog post for another day).

I started making the Mandala vests that went viral on Facebook (I have 2 stretching on hoops right now) which I liked but way to time consuming. My best friend Megan is pregnant with a baby girl so her pregnancy has inspired me to start a baby girl dress line. I started taking these cakes and creating baby girl dresses (see the picture above). The patterns whip up pretty quickly which I did amend the original patterns to fit more of what I was looking for in these dresses. I love the way the stripes laid out as I crocheted them. The left over yarn created a diaper cover (cute for pictures) and summer hats. I have some of the dresses in Kaella Boutique now and some that I need to finish the diaper covers and list them. The hats I will be listing as a separate item to purchase alone because they will match with any adorable summer outfit. This was the start of my Baby Girl Dress Adventure….

About a month ago (almost certain it might be 2 months ago), I was given huge black bags of fabric in brand new condition. Now if any of you are seamstresses or quilters, you know how expensive fabric is (on average $5-8 a yard but usually more!). Well once I sorted all of this yarn, I filled 2 extra large tote bins and 2 average size tote bins! This is 1000s of yards of fabric worth $1000s of dollars if sold in the store!!! This is the biggest blessing for a seamstress.

I finally sat down to sew after finding the perfect baby girl dress pattern. A pattern that was simple, easy and quick to sew up. Well my sewing machine was missing a crucial part that is needed to work. Found the part and then the motor went. Well to fix the machine would cost more then I could afford so I used my tips one day and bought a cheap sewing machine from Walmart so I could start indulging the fire that I started with finding this pattern.

Photo Apr 27, 8 59 07 AMHere is my first creation:
The dress is a 9-12 month dress with an elastic top and simple dress that reminds me of a pillow case dress.

When I finished the dress, I was so proud of myself that I couldn’t wait to make more. Last night, I spent the time to trace the smaller size patterns on tissue paper, ironed more fabric and cut out patterns for 3 more dresses to whip up tonight!

I can’t wait to keep on sewing these dresses plus I have a handbag and apron in the works now! Visit my shop Kaella Boutique to take a look at my other creations.

 

 

 

Say Nice Things to Yourself

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

Remember when your mother taught you “if you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say anything at all”? As an adult, I have realized that we say the meanest of things to ourselves. The person we should lova1c8455afb3d5542cff03d053c9e788ae the most in the world, we berate, ridicule, and mentally/verbally abuse the most… Ourselves!

I learned that I did this to myself about 9 years ago when I started reading Louise Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life” where she blatently tells her readers that they are abusing themselves with the things we say and think about ourselves. I truly had a hate/hate relationship with myself for most of my life and it was affecting what good and bad things happen in my life. If I couldn’t love myself and praise myself then how could someone else love me? How could the universe provide for me when I couldn’t provide one positive thought for myself? It didn’t and I was suffering more then I ever thought I would in my life.

How could I recover from the years of abuse that I gave myself? I started by reciting affirmations to myself. For those of you who do not know what affirmations are, they are encouraging words that you say to yours
elf over and over, everyday! I started off with “I am loving and loveable” and worked my life around things that I wanted to happen in my life. Over the years, things would happen and I would get away from my affirmations…. then something bad would happen and I would snap back into the reality of how powerful these affirmations are to my well being.

That has recently happened to me, life got ahead of me and I became laxed in my affirmations. As a result, my life became overwhelming, disoriented and began a downward spiral. I found myself yelling at myself for the lack of money coming in, being lazy, being fat and being ugly. That is not how I would let someone else treat me so why was I treating myself like this?

It is easy to fall back into bad habits but it is rewarding to push past those bad habits and start now traditions…. even if it means starting them over again! So the past week, I got a binder out of the school supply cabinet, filled it with lined paper and began writing out affirmations to help me out of my current financial crisis. Everyday, I write out an affirmation that positively affirms that money flows into my life to pay my bills and provide what my family needs. Mind you, affirmations coexist with hard work. The money, love etc that you seek will not just fall into your lap. You still need to map out a plan on how you can get to your goals.

As a server (waitress), my money is reliant on what tips that I make so those affirmations help to bring me higher tips to provide for my family. I saw this happen this past week where I was able to stay later then originally expected and make more money then I had for a goal for the day. If you believe then it will happen, just keep telling yourself those positive affirmations every single day and if you have a negative thought then follow it up with 10 positive thoughts!!

Here is my current list of financial affirmations that I am working with:

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Dry as the Sahara

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

Dry As the sahara

For 35, almost 36 years, I have HATED drinking water with a passion! There was just no taste to it, whereas juices, sodas, teas and coffee, all had a taste that I enjoyed. So lets just say, I have spent my entire life overindulging in sweet drinks to attempt to hydrate my body. What a mistake, that I am paying for now!

I have always had dry skin but I really thought it was just the type of skin I have and kept on ignoring my body’s request for pure water, not water mixed with something yummy. You have read about how I lack any energy to do much after I am done working and how I have no control over my increased appetite (especially for something sweet). I mean it just seemed easier to ignore all the signs that I was dehydrating my body and essentially killing it.

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Since challenging myself to get the body I desire, which doesn’t just mean losing the extra pounds I have gained but re-energizing my body and my mind, I have started to do research on what foods and drinks were best for me to partake in. Well the number one thing that was repeated over and over and over…. Drinking water can heal my symptoms!

Drinking water can help with my skin problems, fatigue and lack of energy, joint and muscle aches, IBS problems and so much more but I now have to undo the years of abuse I caused my body by dehydrating it for sooooo long. So I began to research how much water I should be drinking and found a great article that breaks down that each person is different according to weight and activity level. I found out for my 150 pound, low activity body that I need to drink 100 ounces of water everyday. That is alot…. hell I think I drink that much coffee in a day but how am I going to drink that much water??? (to check out the article and chart go to Slender Kitchen’s article!

As I was researching and realizing how much I need to drink these 100 ounces of water, I set out to make a plan. I downloaded WaterMinder on my Iphone so I can input how much water, juice, coffee etc and watch how much more I need to drink to hit my goal. The app will send me reminder notifications to drink water to stay hydrated which is a nice thing because working, running a business, taking care a child, boyfriend, puppy and a house tends to make me forget things easily!

Then I went to Walmart, bought a gallon of water, marked it “DO NOT DRINK” and set it in my fridge so that I can watch my progress of drinking that gallon of water everyday. So far I have averaged half of the gallon everyday so about 60 ounces of water. I won’t lie it has been a struggle to get it down but each day its been a little easier to drink a little more water and a little less sweet things.

I am going to feature a daily post on my Facebook business page with an update on my water intake for 30 days. I am going to record how I am feeling, when I miss my goal and how its been making my body go from the Sahara to an ocean of hydrating water! If you want to follow my journey on my Facebook page Click on Kaella Boutique

Here is a great poster with facts about how water and dehydration affects the body:

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Procastination At Its Finest

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

procastinationLet’s start the day off with a little laugh at my life as a procastinator because this cartoon is me to a T. I put off until I absolutely have to get something done which is a bad, bad way to live your life especially when you are attempting to change your life but nonetheless my old buddy procastination loves to make his way into my life, on a daily basis.

It has been weeks since I have blogged, not that I haven’t thought about blogging and what I want to blog about but because I kept saying later and then later turned into tomorrow and tomorrow turned into a bunch of tomorrows that turned into a couple of weeks worth of putting of blogging. Of course there was always an excuse for why I sat next to my laptop but didn’t open it just once to blog…. I have to get ready for work, I need work on this crochet project, I need to sleep, I need to eat first or I need coffee first (ok that is a must!). Now none of these is really a legit excuse as to why I couldn’t open the laptop that sits right next to my chair, take 15-20 minutes to type out a blog.

My mother always said “excuses are like assholes, everyone has one” so it is time I put the excuses away and start taking action. Do you see the billionaires in our society procastinating on ways to make themselves more money? Nope every year or every quarter they come up with a new, “It” product to sell us and we fall sucker to purchasing those products. Do you see the bill companies procastinating to send out bills or cut you off? Oh hell no! They have those bills out with deadlines and if WE procastinate then we are shut down or shut off.

So its time to take a tip from the people making the money in this world and stop procastinating and start doing. In the 15 minutes it has taken for me for to write this blog, I feel like I have accomplished more then in the 3 weeks that I procastinated blogging just to work, sleep, eat or create!

 

 

Healthy Mind Challenge

by kaella, posted in Uncategorized

I thought that the hardest part was getting myself to actually eat healthy but that is not true at all! The harde0e53047c767c12f4efdbbe47e27e052dst part has been to get my mind inline with my body and my desire for a healthy body. I am not going to lie… I fell off the healthy eating wagon more then once this past week.
After I took the last bite of a devil dog or ice cream or pasta, I felt the twinges of remorse and wanting to throw up for what I had just done.

I never really had decided to do a lifestyle change liks this before so mentally I was not prepared. Honestly, I thought I could wing it as I go…. WRONG!!! WRONG WRONG WRONG! You have to plan out your meals and set up a time everyday to exercise or you will fail miserably or at least in the beginning.

I learned after this first week that just winging it was not the right mindset at all because you need that structure to retrain your brain to live and breathe healthy in your life. After a set back, all you can do is pick yourself up,  try again and learn from your mistakes in the future. I definetely need to take the time to plan my meals and exercise for the week or I will fall into the same trap as I did this past week which is endulge the urge and regret it later. Nope lesson learned!