If the Shoe Fits...

Happy Friday, friends!!  Monique here.  I hope you've all had a wonderful week and are looking forward to your weekend.

Ok, we all know that shoe-themed cards are very popular (who doesn't love a cute pair of shoes, right?), but instead of the usual high-heeled shoe design, I went with a running shoe on this card.  My very good friend Stephanie had a birthday on Monday, and I'd been wanting to make her this card because she was really hoping to get $ toward a new pair of running shoes for her birthday.

The running shoe was cut at 3" from the Pink Journey cartridge.  However, the cut on the cartridge has no layers or shadow or anything.  So I first cut it out in hot pink, trimmed off the shoelace part of the image, and then attached the shoe to solid white cardstock.  I then hand-trimmed the white cardstock, essentially creating a 1/8" shadow around the shoe.  Then I cut the shoe again, but this time in black.  Using scissors, I trimmed away the sole of the shoe, and attached it to the pink shoe.  I also saved the little "hole" pieces that you'd normally throw away, and I just glued them inside the spaces in the pink shoe.  The cool skull image was cut from Indie art at 1".  Had to go with skulls for Steph!  Finally, I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch holes in the shoe, and then threaded white ribbon through the holes and tied a bow.  The sentiment was just hand-written with a silver Signo pen.

Stephanie and I and our friend Erin are doing triathlon training with a group, including coaches.  We meet 3 times per week for killer workouts all around town, plus do workouts on our own an additional 3 days/week.  We've been working on swimming, biking, and running, and are planning to compete in the Golden State Triathlon in Sacramento on October 9th.  It'll be a 1/2 mile swim (harder than it sounds!), 15 mile bike ride, and 3 mile run.  This is quite a stretch for me as I only started exercising about 3 months ago after almost a year of cancer treatments, and even before that I wasn't doing anything physical, so I was in BAD shape!!!  But I have come really far with training.  I can now swim more than the needed 1/2 mile in a super cold lake (though slowly), I'm decent at biking, and had 1 stretch of 23 miles, and I'm even getting better at running.  I think I might be able to run my first continuous mile very soon - I'm getting close, and have NEVER done that in my whole life.  It's amazing what you can accomplish with hard work, isn't it?  So that's a big reason that I've fallen a bit behind with blog posting and whatnot.  I've really been focusing on my health.  Oh, and I've also dropped about 30 pounds in the past 9-12 months - woohoo!  All of my clothes are getting too big!  It's an empowering feeling to be somewhat back in charge of my own body, and to know that I'm not too old to get in shape and accomplish something as crazy as a triathlon.  And that goes for the rest of you too.  It's never too late to get off that couch!

Don't forget to leave a comment on today's post for a chance to win this week's blog candy - the Echo Park "Country Drive" paper pack.  See ya again soon!