recycled christmas

as of this past weekend, all the christmas decor has been put away. so sad to see it all go. our house has tripled in size and looks somewhat barren now. it's the motivation i needed to get things rolling on interior design once again. i started to slack a little at the end of the year there. but one of my pseudo resolutions is to get this house looking more like a home.

this year we received a mad amount of christmas cards. and instead of chucking all the beautiful cards in the trash/recycling, i decided to reuse them and make them into holiday ornaments for next christmas. i found this easy-to-follow tutorial and set out to punching and scoring. i made three and couldn't be happier with the results. here's another idea on what you can do with old cards. i'm sure if you search long enough, you'll find many more things to do with them. the crafting bug is back.

i've decided to post progression photos of my face. the first one was taken monday evening. i had the peel done on saturday. aaron wasn't comfortable doing an aggressive peel on his own. he's a little out of practice, which was quite evident when he asked me how long we left the solution on. i think next time i'll have jill do it for me. aaron's been doing nothing but cutting off cancers and is a little out-of-touch with cosmetic procedures.

the second one was taken last night. the skin was starting to pucker and actually became quite uncomfortable and itchy. after awhile the lotion you apply just sits on top of the skin. no longer able to be absorbed through the crust. i'm really not supposed to mess with the peeling skin but it's really hard not to. it's supposed to fall off on it's own, but i decided to help it along a bit. probably why i have acne scarring in the first place.


the third was taken this afternoon. new skin visible. no longer looking too much like a leper. the thing about peels. they are a great way of rejuvenating your skin. that is, if you can tolerate the pain. but if you're thinking it'll get rid of scarring instantly, you're wrong. i've had this procedure done at least four times and i really haven't noticed a significant difference. it may work once if you have mild scarring, but moderate to sever may take more than a few sessions.