Bare With Me

Hello, blog friends!

I am not sure what has happened to all of my photos on my blog. Sorry about that. Although, I may choose to take this as some type of sign!

As you have noticed, I have not been keeping up with blogging for a while. So, even though I have had this blog for some time now, I am still new to blogging. But lately I have been considering taking my blog in a different direction. I still want to share my crafts and "stuff." But I think I may need to re-direct or re-focus my blog to keep it interesting and appealing. Plus, I want people to be able to relate to my blog the way I can relate to some of the blogs I follow. Also, my mind has been going in a gazillion different directions lately. And I feel like I may want to share some of that. I feel like I am learning and growing in many ways that people might be able to relate to as well.

Soooo, the whole pictures being gone thing may be a sign that I should switch things up a little! That is what I plan to do. But I need to get my thoughts together on where I want to take this blog first. So please bare with me while I figure it out! Any comments or suggestions would be welcomed too!

Incorporating Fitness

Hello, Everyone!

Happy first day of Spring! Being in Florida, I get to be blessed with much better weather than most of the states this year. But I am sure many of you are excitedly welcoming Spring! I Hope the weather improves for all of you that are sick of Winter!

With the approaching nice (or better) weather (and some very motivating words from a personal trainer I follow on Instagram), I was kind of once again motivated to try incorporating exercise into my routine again. I usually do the work out thing for about two or three weeks. And then I either get bored, lazy, or both and stop. Or I don't see results as fast as I want and end up getting discouraged. But this time, I want to make it more about fitness instead of just about losing weight. I want to make some healthier lifestyle choices and I really want to keep it going this time.

The first thing I have to do is change my eating habits. I am a junk food junkie! I love all the cakes, cookies, brownies, carbs, and sugars sooo much! But I noticed that I am starting to really make my body feel blah. There is no better way to describe it other than to say blah! So my plan is to cut down drastically on that stuff. I have decided to limit my carbs for the day to only having them sparingly at dinner time (not any easy thing for a Puerto Rican chick!). I also want to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my eating habits. This is hard for me because I am so incredibly picky. I do not like most fruits or veggies. It is mostly a texture thing. I hate the way these things feel in my mouth. Solution: make healthy smoothies/slushies. It is really amazing how throwing all the "good stuff" in a blender can make it taste so much better! (by the way, I welcome any healthy smoothie recipes you may stumble upon! (;). And then, of course, I am allowing myself one cheat day a week. For me, it will be Sunday. This is my plan for changing my eating habits.

So far, the eating thing is going very well. I have been doing this for a little over a week now. For most people, that may not seem like any time at all. But I gotta start somewhere! Plus, I usually don't make a whole week when it comes to changing eating habits. So far, I am proud of myself! I am not craving the sweets as much as I usually do. If I do start carving sweets, I eat a spoon of peanut butter. It helps. Plus, I keep reminding myself that I can have it on Sunday. And I eat more often. I munch on different meats and stuff throughout the day. I think these habits might take some getting used to. But since I don't really feel deprived or hungry, I think this is a change that I might be able to keep. At least I hop I can!

I also needed to work out. I actually like the way I feel when I work out. But as I said, I get lazy, bored, and/or discouraged. This time, I am approaching the work outs differently too. Even though I need to lose weight, me working out is not going to be focused on losing weight. It will be focused on establishing healthy habits and doing something good for me. To combat boredom, I follow a few different personal trainers on Instagram that have so many varied exercises to do, most of which I can do at home. So I try not to do the same work outs two days in a row. There are so many work outs available for free all over the internet/facebook/instagram/pinterest/etc.... that I don't think boredom should be a problem this time. And, of course, I give myself one day of rest (also Sunday). So far, I am doing well with this too! One of the things that really helps is when my two-year-old daughter tries to exercise with me.This makes me feel like I am setting a good example for her, which is also one of my goals.

It has been a little over a week since making these changes. And though I haven't really seen much weight loss yet, I feel so much better. And that is more important! I will continue to try to make healthier choices and live healthier. I hope that I can make these changes a regular part of my lifestyle so that I can be healthier and set a good example to my kids.

Thanks for reading my post today! Sorry it was so long. What are some ways that you try to live healthier?

Pinata Day

Today, I got to spend some time with one of my good friends. We were expecting it to rain,so we didn't feel like going anywhere. (Since that would mean dragging our young children in and out of the rain!) So we decided to hang out and make it a craft day. I soooo love craft days!

My friend is incredibly talented at making pinatas. She was kind enough to share her techniques with me. Yay! We decided that since it was my first pinata, we would start small. But I still wanted to do something cute. Since I love Betty Boop (she is the epitome of both cute and sexy!), I had to make a Betty Boop pinata. I could have tried something a little more easier. But where is the fun in that!!

This is what I ended up with! Not bad for my first one, right? Of course, now I want to try a much bigger one and try to make an even better Betty Boop! But this was so much fun to do! Thank you, Maria! (Oh, and thank to our kids, who played well enough to entertain each other and then took nice naps when you were done! This allowed us to finish our pinatas!)

Caylin's Hair Accessory Holder

Hi, All!

Last week, I showed you some of the projects I had been working on. One of those projects was a bow holder for a customer's cheer leading bows. Inspired by that project, I wanted to make one for my daughter, Caylin. But she doesn't really have any cheer leading bows. She does, however, have a bunch of other hair accessories. So I wanted to create a holder for all of them, and maybe even some of my hair accessories too!

Any girl with this much beautiful hair has to have the accessories to go with it!

This is what I created! The buttons allow us to hang things on them, but they also create a space for us to slide accessories (such as headbands) into if needed. We can still clip things to the ribbons. And the pockets at the bottom are great for rubber band and elastics!

This is what it looks like with our stuff on it! It's pretty big. But it is functional and cute! So I like it! What do you think?

I'm Ba-ack!

O-Kay! Technical difficulties resolved! I am so glad to be able to blog again without interruption! I may not have always kept up with blogging as much as I prefer, but I have missed sharing with all of you. I have been very busy during this time (yay! Busy is good!). There have been so many projects and things going on that I would have loved to share with everyone. If I tried to go over it all, this would be an extremely long post! But I do not want to take too much of your time today. So I will share some of my most recent projects with you!

Bow holders are pretty popular right now. So when I was asked to create one that held a lot of cheerleading bows, I was excited to make one. Of course, I had to add my own touch to it. So it is pretty big and it isn't quite the same shape as many of the other ones I have seen. I am pretty pleased with how this one came out. It was fun to make too! I will probably be making more to add to my shop at some point in the near future.

 I was asked to create something pink with One Direction on it for a very special teenager I know! So, I came up with a fun mobile to hang in her room! Each piece has a photo of one of the members of One Direction on them. The longest and biggest piece in the middle has a picture of all of them. She loved it!

 This set is for a little boy who like Mickey and Pluto.

















                Some toilet paper roll covers

Carnival inspired face                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Carnival inspired mask

Some more wall hangings for my good friend and best customer!

                                                        A little hat for a newborn baby girl!








Thank you all so much for checking me out today! Don't forget to check out my Etsy shop Betty's Block for some of my new items. And check out my Mary Kay website for quality skin care and make up products!

I Have Missed You!

hello, everyone. it has been a while since i have posted, due to some techinical difficulties. those difficulties have not been resolved just yet. but i wanted to make sure and make a post so no one thinks i have desserted my blog.

a lot has been happening since my last post. i have created a few new items. unfortunately, i am not able to share pictures of them at the moment. i participated in a small craft fair. the craft fair did not so do weel, but at least i got to meet some wonderful people. and, in addition to my etsy shops, i have become an independent mary kay consultant. between the etsy shops, mary kay, some other special orders, babysitting from time to time, and being a full time mommy, i have been quite busy lately. but i am so happy about all of the opportunities i have been blessed with. i will keep you posted. and, thanks for hanging in there with me, lovely followers and readers.

disclosure... sorry for the poor punctuation and grammar. i am posting from my phone, which only allows me to do minimal functions. i am a bit of a stickler for that, so this is kind of getting to me to write this way..this is where i would put in a smiley or winky face... but that is also why i can not share some pictures and links with you. however, feel free to check my fb page, i believe i have a link off to the side of this page. there, you will be able to see more of what i have been up to.

More Baby Shower Fun!

Wow! I can't believe it's been so long since I have updated this blog! I guess I have been pretty busy though! I have been making and adding many new items to my new shop, PoPExpressions  ( http://www.etsy.com/shop/PoPExpressions?ref=si_shop ). Please check it out when you have a moment! So I haven't really added anything new to my first Etsy shop in a while either. I'm not sure how people keep up with more than one Etsy shop! But I will figure it out! I have also been trying to keep up with social media more. So I am tweeting and instagramming. Find me @bettysblock for both of them. At some point, I will figure out how to manage all this stuff smoothly. In the meantime, bare with me!

Another project that has kept me a little busy is helping my friend (the one from the photos in my previous post), Maria, with her baby shower. I just love baby shower stuff! It's so much fun! I figured today would be a good chance to update my blog and share some pictures of a few of the things I helped my friend with!

The bay-to-be will be named Kaleb

My friend definitely wanted a picture board thing (not sure what they are actually called) for her party. We thought it would be cute to have a giant baby! This was a blast to make and I think it came out so cute! It was a hit at the baby shower! 

My son trying it out

Some photo props to go take fun pics with. The one in the middle is for those people who don't like to show up in pictures. I figured this would be a fun/funny way to include them in pictures anyway!

The cake! Maria wanted a sports themed baby shower. I thought that was a pretty original idea for a baby shower theme! It was a fun theme to work with and it gave me a chance to try something different with the cake.

She had her diaper cake next to a framed picture of her. All of her guests signed the matted part of the frame. That is a great souvenir for her to cherish from her baby shower!

The diaper cake - because no baby shower is complete without one! I took pictures of it from all the different sides.

(sorry this one is a bit blurry)

I put the letters of the bay's name on diapers and hung them up on the clothes line!

I took a whole lot more photos. But I took them on her camera - go figure! But at least the baby shower was a success! Everyone had fun and loved the decorations!