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15/12/2014

Creative & Personal Goals for 2015

I have a very strong dislike of  "resolutions". You know the ones that last for the first few days of the new year, at most a week or two, and then you're back to your old habits, and at the end of the year you make the same resolution again, and this happens year after year. This post, is not a resolution. It's just some goals I'd like to achieve, both personally, and creatively.

Throughout the second half of this year, I've been following Kellie over at Give a Girl a Blog, and seeing her monthly goals, inspired me to make a short list of things I want to achieve throughout next year. When I did my 30 Days of Me mini album (here) in September, at the end I included some goals, and I still have them, but a few I wanted to share here so I could be accountable for them.

Writing them down helps, so here goes:

Creative Goals:
  • Create more 
    • I want to branch out of just doing cards and Project Life and learn to crochet, do more traditional pages, make mini albums just because I have a bunch of photos I love.
  • Share my creations 
    • I share pretty well everything that I make on here, but I need to get better at posting them to my Facebook page, and other social media. On Instagram when I share little supply hauls, sneak peeks, or even finished projects, I use the the hashtag #operationcreatemore for the simple reason of keeping track of my projects, and my desire to create more things.
  • Open an Etsy shop 
    • Something I've wanted to do since I first began making cards, was to open an Etsy shop. I continuously debate it back and forth in my head, and I've finally decided that as long as I start small and don't stretch myself too thin, I think this is something I could do. I don't want to limit myself, but I also don't want to overwhelm myself and give up after a short time.
  • Step outside my comfort zone
    • Up until the beginning of this month, I'd never made invitations for anything. I'd been asked to make Wedding invites by a couple people waiting to get engaged, but other than that, I'd never made invitations. I don't know why, but it was something that scared me a little. I know how indecisive and picky people can be, and I didn't want to make something they hated and have to do it over and over again only to have them decide they didn't want it at all. Lucky for me, my first experience with invitations went extremely well. I made a sample and she loved it immediately
  • Learn something new
    • This is different than stepping outside my comfort zone. I want to learn to crochet. I bought this little Woodland crochet pattern book, and I want to learn to make all the little creatures inside of it. Crocheting isn't scary to me, it's just something that I didn't have an interest in because I know so many people that know how to crochet, so it seemed like something that would be a waste to learn. Being able to make these things myself and not have to pay someone to make them for me, makes a lot more sense to me. There are certain things I don't think I'll be making anytime soon (hats, scarves, blankets, etc.) because everyone I know that crochets can make them, but I'd like to learn to make a few other things for myself. 
  • Make more mini albums
    • I love mini albums. I love looking at mini albums. I've only made and completed on or two mini albums. I love the small size, and that you're only including a few photos from an event, or you're including all the photos from the event that didn't make it into your other album. I just have so much fun doing them, that I feel like I need to make more of them next year. Given that one of my Project Life Goals was to be more selective with my photos, more mini albums are a great idea.
  • Finish at least 1 unfinished project per month
    •  I have a closet full of projects I started, or supplies I bought with a project in mind that I just never finished. I have a canvas on the shelf in my closet, that I drew a picture on, but for the last year and a half, it's just sat there waiting for me to paint it. I have project life albums from 2011-2013 that I've been trying to get through. When I first started working on them, they went really quickly, but I'm down to the last few unfinished pages in each, and I keep getting stuck on them.
  • Create a more organized space and reduce the clutter
    • This year I took Marcy Penner's Workshop class from Studio Calico. I took it in an attempt to go through my STUFF and get myself more organized so I can be more productive. I constantly find myself with a desk overflowing with supplies, and given that its 8 feet long, having only 1 foot of work space is an issue I'd like to solve.
  • Stop hoarding
    • You know when you find something you really like, to the point where you don't want to use it because you just like it so much. Or you like it so much that you buy more than one of it, but you really only needed one. I do this all the time. In my head I'm going "but what if I want to use it more than once?" The truth is that if I buy one, I simply don't use it, so it just sits there collecting dust, but if I buy multiples, I use one and the rest sit there collecting dust. I'm so afraid of buying something, using it, and wanting to use it again later on, that I let it sit there until I either forget I have it, or something new makes me feel that way and I forget I ever felt that way about that particular product.
Personal Goals: 
  • Eat healthier and excercise
    • I know this sounds like one of those resolutions I hate so much. But this is something that I really do want. I want to meal plan, and make healthy dinners that I can freeze and take to work, or pull out and cook at home. When work was closed, we missed the food, and now I miss being in college and eating healthy. It's a little sad that while I was eating healthy food my mom usually bought me, all my college friends were eating frozen dinners their moms made them, or Kraft Dinner. 
  • Get my license
    • This is a big one for me. I've had my learner's since I was 14, and I had to renew it when I was in college. I really don't want to have to renew it again, but unless a miracle happens in the next two years, I'm probably going to have to. Driving is something that has always scared me a little bit. Every time I got behind the wheel (except once) was forced upon me against my will, and then I was criticized profusely for being terrible at it. Not exactly the kind of encouragement one needs when learning something they've never done, in a vehicle that could potentially kill them and everyone else in it. After that, I simply refused to drive. I opted for walking everywhere instead, and walked the 30 minutes to the college every day I lived in the city, bought groceries only when my mom came up, and either had her come up to get me when I was going home for the weekend, or caught a ride with a friend from my hometown who also lived in the city
  • Operation be happy
    • This year, on September 22/23 I started the 100 Happy Days project. Next year, my goal is to simply keep a list of things that make me happy. I want to keep it simple, and therefore it will probably just be a collection of scrap papers in a box in my closet, but lately I feel that I've been so busy focusing on the negative, that next year I want to focus on more positive things.

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