Homemade Kindness: August 2020

Photo Printer

6:44 PM

Baby Sprinkle/ Baby Shower Party Favor

6:23 PM

Back in the day when we could hold baby showers I did this! My bestie was having her second baby. The first was a boy and this second was a girl. I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to get ladies together and celebrate the new baby so we had a baby sprinkle instead of a shower. MAN! I miss parties and gatherings. I made lots of yummy food and we opened presents (I’m lame and don’t love baby shower games). I made these adorable chocolate sea salt popcorn bags for all the guests to take as they were leaving! The tag said " ready to POP" a play on words for the mama now being "ready to pop". I love how the party favors turned out and of course they were yum.

But hey! These are also fun to bring to an expecting mommy in her last weeks! I’d give her a BIGGER bag of popcorn and just drop it by telling her I’m thinking about her and rooting for her!

I printed the free printable( linked below) on pink paper. It could also be printed on baby blue/ yellow paper. Cut it out with a circle punch and stapled ther circle on along with a cute patterned paper strip cut in a pendant. I think ribbon and tulle would look cute too!

FREE PRINTABLE HERE READY TO POP

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18u7OZmUWPChfCSNiyjHtYLW42OhmmozI

Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Popcorn

Ingredients

Plain popped Corn (we use an air popper)
1/2 cup dark chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips melted (see notes)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt or more to taste

Instructions

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Carefully pour the popcorn onto the prepared baking sheet. Be sure that no unpopped kernels make their way onto the baking sheet. Drizzle the popcorn with melted chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt. Toss the popcorn to distribute the chocolate. Taste it and add additional salt, if desired. Allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes for the chocolate to firm up (you can also quickly pop it in the fridge to speed this along).

Notes

Chocolate chips can be melted in a double boiler or in the microwave. If microwaving, heat in 15- 20 second intervals, stirring between, until melted and smooth. I added a little bit of coconut oil to help the melting.

Cognitive Distortions: My Mental Health Journey

9:27 AM

In every new journal, I take time to write down COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS. It's a good reminder and prepares me to identify them in my own thinking. Here they are! Read on and I explain how I was introduced to these in my anxiety and depression journey!

All or nothing: look at things in absolute
Overgeneralization: negative event as never ending pattern of defeat
Mental filter: dwell on negatives, ignore positives
Discounting positives: insist that your accomplishments or positives don’t count
Mind reading: assume people are reacting negatively with no evidence
Fortune telling: predict things will turn out bad
Magnification/minimalzation: blow things out/ shrink importance of proportion
Emotional reasoning: saying “ I feel like an idiot” I must be one. "I don’t feel good about myself" so I’m not good.
Should statements: you criticize yourself with other people using “should”s “shouldn’t”s “must”s or “ought"s
Labeling: identify with short comings instead of saying “ I made a mistake” you tell yourself “I’m a jerk or a fool”
Personalization/blame: blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for or Blame others without seeing your own part.

When I first noticed my struggle with depression in 2011, I went to a psychiatrist. She tactfully explained that when others grow up they learn to go through each of the tires in an obstacle course/race... I on the other hand missed a couple of tires and I need to go back and learn them. Then she lead me to the book... The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns. She also guided me to a therapist to help me in my learning.

The idea of the book is that our brains distort reality and can cause anxiety and depression. Addressing the distortion greatly improves our mental health. I've had this book by my side for years now. As you can tell the cover is very aged compared to the most recent edition. That beautiful 90s sweater says it all!

It has blessed me and grounded me when my mind escalates a situation. I am VERY VERY guilty of MIND READING and PERSONALIZATION. I can use this chart to identify this thought process and then turn to the book to learn more!

PS I think all of us skip tires. 😉 Our upbringing taught us how to get through the obstacle course. We take shortcuts for survival and the way our guardians learned how to do the tires carries on to us. We can rewire and redo those tires over and over and get better results by learning healthy thought processes! EVERYONE can do and be better at the “tires”!

LEARN MORE HERE

https://theremoteyogi.blog/2020/05/01/thinking-habits-that-are-anxiety/

https://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/

Back to School Night

2:08 PM

free printables

Free Fall Printables

1:39 PM

Organization

9 Memory/Bullet Journaling Must-haves

7:07 AM

1. JOURNAL

So I’ve used lots of different journals and here's the one I like most. Here’s why!

1. I love the thickness of the papers so it has less bleed through.
2. I love that the papers are numbered which allows me to easily use the preformated Table of Contents.
3. The dotted paper to make designing easier.
4. Less than $10 price tag
5. Back pocket
6. Two ribbons to use as bookmarks. I usually keep one on my weekly and one on my monthly
7. Easy to order on Amazon. Linked here. I’m sure I could come up with more reasons I love this one but I’ll stop there!

2. MARKERS / Colored pencils

You can use anything fine tipped that you have! I recently started using these markers from Tombow. I love that it has dual tip for differentiation.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EqzgtBnLL3E3eCTWv9lTnplP0dA3oEID

3. STICKER BOOK

Okay these are what got me hooked on the memory journals. It made it fun and easy! These sticker books are at Tuesday Morning and sold by American Crafts. Worth every penny even if you do have to pay full price. It just makes the process correlate and it’s so nice to have the days of the week stickers and coordinating themes. Link here to sticker book on Amazon.

4. WASHI TAPE

I find great coordinating sets from Tuesday Morning. Heidi Swapp also has great coordinating sets. Here's a cute one on amazon.

5. STAMPS

Whatever you have in your collection that correlates!
6. DIE CUTS

I usually find mine in the clearance section at Tuesday Morning. They can be found at any craft store. I also stash away any unused extra stamps if i do not use them.

7. SCRAPS

Even the tiniest scraps can be used to make your layout pretty and add dimension. I don't throw any papers unless they are teeny tiny.

8. STAPLER

I love this mini one so it doesn’t take up too much space on the layout. I love this this one because it is precise. I was bummed that it was a smaller staple than other mini staples. I bought staple refills from the Heidi Swapp collection and it didn’t match. Just be aware of that.

9. PHOTO PRINTER

I use the Canon Selphy. It was a gift in 2015 and I use it all the time. Just recently, I’ve created a 6 photo collage for the week and print on a 4x6 photo on the printer. I have the older version of the printers but the newer version is linked here .