Maya Road and Me

In the air card creating

So I was on a plane trip last week over to Asia. I was very lucky that on the way to Asia, the plane was only 50% full. What that meant was that I could create my cards why spread out on my tray and the tray next to me. I had packed up my Creative Destinations Card Kit which was perfect for the occasion. 

Here is a shot of what my work space looked like:

 

Besides some adhesives, ink pads, scissors, I was able to bring this kit:

all tucked into a ziplock bag. And I began to work. I created this card first:

And then this card:

Followed by this one:

All in all over a period of 2.5 hours I created all these cards.

I love this kit that we are releasing this month as it is so easy to use for all occasions! You can purchase this kit today here.

 I hope you enjoy the kit too!

A new adventure

So I wanted to share with you some news of something we have been working on the last 9 months or so.

Welcome to Bethany Lane. Bethany Lane is named after my niece, Bethany, and much like the philosophy of Maya Road, we believe in offering great prices on things for everyone. Like this wee we have some awesome hairbows on sale for an amazing price. These are ones that my daughter uses almost every day - where else will you be able to get 8 - 5" hairbows for $11.99?

There are things we are offering I have already snagged for myself and we have many more amazing deals to come. Something new and something we are super excited about!

Eating Healthy

So for many many years, I have been a health nut. There was a point in my life where that sorta went over the edge and I would just count every calorie that came into my mouth. I limited myself to 1200 calories a day and 15 grams of fat. And at that point in my life, and what was important to me then was being thinner and thinner. It was my first year of college and as some form of control I got myself down to 108 lbs. Considering I am above average for women's height in the US, that was way too low. 

I am happy to say I have put on about 30 lbs from that point (I often joke it is all sheer muscle) - ha but I am healthy and can do things like this:

This was a half marathon I ran last Fall. And the thought of numbers on a scale don't reall matter anymore.

But healthy eating is something I hope to pass along to my kids. Healthy - not obsessive. So after visiting a friend who offered a DIY salad bar at her house last month, we started the same once a week in ours:

 

A DIY salad bar. I found that when salad is now the base option for dinner, the kids will pretty much take some of everything and put it in their plates. Noah now loves cukes and sweet bell peppers and Olivia cannot get enough shaved parm cheese flakes and avocado. At times it has taken us years to get them to actually like something they try but this DIY salad seems like an amazing way to introduce them to new things.  Noah even ventured out to try some poppy seed dressing and decided it wasn't so bad. The kids also help me get dinner ready - Olivia takes all the veggies I chop and puts them in bowls and sets them on the table. Noah will set the table and make sure we have our drinks ready and spices too. It's a win-win-win situation for all of us. I don't have to spend a lot of time prepping. The kids are learning to try different foods and we all end up with full healthy bellies.

It took me a number of years to find balance in my life. To accept that my body was for racing and for carrying two kids. And when I finally accepted that, it really didn't matter anymore what the scale told me but more what my body did and what fuel it needed to do what it could do and live up to its potential.

 

A new project

I finally am sitting down today after a month of not being home part or all of my weekends.

It will be a couple of weeks before my mad traveling schedule starts up again. So with that, I have taken the time to work on a couple of things, including this new Collecting Memories Mini Album Kit release we are announcing this week.

 

With this awesome kit, I have created this album:

Lots of fun things are included in this special album. These are what I consider "my colors" - colors that show up in my closet and colors I am drawn to. I had already created last year a 2014 calendar with this fun Fancy Pants line but I loved it so much, here I am creating with it again!

I even put together a step by step - how to using this kit. You can see all the photos in my gallery.

 

What Can You Learn In An Hour? I Found Out

So Ithis past week I was off to GLMM (great lakes mega meet) show and also to teach a class on how to make these lovely cards you see above.

The name of my class was Card Making Boot Camp With Maya Road. What that means is that I want to make sure all 30 of the students in each of the classes left with as much done as possible. Now, it is only a 1 hour class so here were the ones we tackled and most people finished in an hour:

 

 

I tried to break things down in a easy fashion so that it is easy to assemble everything in small steps. There are easy ways to make things interesting. Most everyone was able to complete all 4 cards in an hour.

I anxiously awaited the feedback from the students on how the class was an was extremely happy to hear how much each person loved the class. Almost everyone gave the class a 5 out of 5 which is amazing. And I love working with Fancy Pants - both as a beautiful set of papers and lovely people in a lovely company. I will share more on GLMM soon!