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.

Project Life: Goals for 2015

I know that every single blogger out there who shares their Project Life spreads does a post like this near the end of the year, I figured I might as well jump on that bandwagon too. I've been browsing a few blogs to see their plans, and I've picked up a few ideas that I'd like to use next year. One of my fave creative people shared her goals recently, and inspired me to share some of my own! Kellie over at Give a Girl a Blog makes some amazing layouts, and stamps. She's such an inspiration, and I'm so excited to receive some of her stamps soon!

1. Stay in one 12x12 album (if possible). Our lives aren't "exciting" and I don't want to add in all the fluff that we had this year. I also want to try and keep the amount of albums I'll need to store in the future, as small as possible, but I'm in love with mini albums, so that might be a little tough.

2. Use my stash more. I have way more core kits than I'll ever use in this lifetime, and I'm considering separating out 1/3 of each of them to sell/share with family & friends who want to start Project Life, without getting overwhelmed by a whole kit. That being said, even after I separate out 1/3 of what I can, I'll still have so many cards leftover to get me through more than a year.

3. Jon's perspective. I want to include more of his memories, feelings, photos, etc. no matter how bad I may look in some of them. He hardly ever takes pictures of things, but I want him to start because this is OUR life, and I want more of him to be included in it. If he says no, I'll respect that, but I'd like him to say yes.

4. Selective photos. I want to be more selective when choosing photos to include. This year I included basically all the photos I took, which led to us having 2 albums for the year. If a particular spread is only one page long, and another is several pages long, I want to be okay with that. This is our life and some things will have a ton of photos, while other things may not have a ton of photos.

5. Design A pages. I want to continue to use Design A pocket pages. I love the consistency in using the same style throughout, and adding in a few inserts here and there when needed, regardless of the style.

6. Stress less. This year I mostly kept up with my weekly spreads, however sometimes I fell behind, and because I generally tried to keep a few short notes about each day/week, I was able to quickly catch up. I used a set of planner pages from a site that exists no longer, but these ones from A Vegas Girl at Heart are perfect for any Project Lifer, regardless of the design you use. I love that at the bottom it has space for you to draw the design of your pages and plan where things will go.

7. Go with the flow. Previously, I would have stressed a bit if I didn't take a photo from a particular event, and I'd try and find one that someone else took and I could use. In 2015, I would rather just enjoy the moment, and journal about it later, than worry if I didn't get a photo from it.

8. Start & end date. This year I started on the 1st of January. Next year, my plan is to also start on the 1st of January. I know that this means I have a half week ending this year, and a half week starting next year, but it's important to me, to keep the month of December together, as well as the month of January. Though this might change when it reaches the end of the year.

9. Weeks. If I do next year on a weekly spread basis, like I did this year, I'm changing my weeks from Sunday-Saturday, to Monday-Sunday. There were a few times that we went somewhere for the weekend and the trip was split in two because of my week set up. I was fine with it, but I think I'll make the switch to Monday-Sunday for the ease of documenting it. It'll also make it easier to find calendar cards, and I can stop altering my planning pages.

10. Mini Albums. This year I did the 30 Days of Me album, I plan to do it next year as well, around the same time. I'm undecided on whether or not I want to do a separate December Daily album, however this year I'm doing some fancy December pages in my regular album, thanks to some inspiration from Andrea over at Retrohipmama.

I'm sure as I get closer to next year, I'll think of a few more things that I want to add to this list, or change on this list. But I figured that a short list of Project Life goals would help some of you with your spreads, and inspire some of you to consider things you do and don't like about your current way of documenting your memories.

Have a great day!!
-Alexandria