nyxchyld

So I did it! I got up and went to the gym before work. Things didn't go exactly as planned, but all in all I think I did ok and am pleased. I did end up snoozing until 7:20 so I didn't actually leave the house until 7:45 making it to the gym by 8:00. I did the elliptical for 30 minutes then stretched and showered. Keith said they had towels there, and they do, but they are midget sized. Bigger than a hand towel but smaller than a bath towel. Also after I got out of the shower I realized I forgot a hairbrush, so just did a quick blow-dry, and purchased a brush along with my breakfast drinks and cream for coffee on my morning safeway run. Got to work at 9:30. Traffic was pretty crappy as it always is at that 9-9:30 time block, so I'm hoping that if I can get to the gym earlier I can make it to work by 9am most days.

All in all I'm calling Day 1 a success. I felt more awake coming into work which I'm hoping will help with productivity and clear thinking. Also hoping not to have my usual mid afternoon crash. Its too early to tell yet, but maybe getting the blood pumping early in the morning will stave off any crashes until I'm already home.

*twirls*

I'm taking a moment before I start my busy day to reflect on a few things.

Holiday Crafting
Whoa boy. Did I ever over commit myself. I was hoping to be a lot more relaxed in crafting my friends and family gifts and to be finished and happily wrapping things by now. That didn't happen. I lot of the Crafts For Profit (CFP) I could have completed earlier, and been fine on, I just didn't manage my time well. There were also a couple that came in last minute that I probably should have turned down, or told that I could do them, just not in time for Xmas.

I'm looking on the positive side and trying to learn from this year. I think next year I'll make a FIRM stop date of December 1 for all CFP. That means no other CFP will be constructed after December 1. I will have some already finished items in the Etsy shop, and hopefully have a very well stocked shop, but no new crafting CFP after 12/1. This way I can focus my time after that date on leisurely making things for my friends and family, and not feeling so pressured and rush. I like the holidays to be relaxed and fun, not OMG ALL THE THINGS!!! As things are now, several of the gifts I had planned will be made and given AFTER the official Xmas holiday.

Personal Fitness
I need to make this a priority once the holidays are wrapped up. While I've lost 14 lbs since May, I'm still not totally happy with my appearance. I'd like to make it to the gym at least 1 day a week, and do other activity at least 2 days a week.  And I'm dead serious about doing 5 cartwheels a day, everyday.  In fact I think I'll start that today on my way to the car to do some last minute shopping.

Wedding
After my birthday I'll be a lot more focused on wedding things. Its only about 3 months away. Yikes! And there is a lot to do, and knowing me and my poor time management skills... yeah, I better get started. Luckily I'm not too super serious about any of the things left. I have my photographer I wanted and the place I wanted and my dress. I'll work on some decorating items, my jewelry, and bouquet.

Work and Professional Enrichment
There are a lot of things I want to get into and learn to develop my skills in certain areas. Mainly web, and multimedia things (animation, video, etc). As I will be taking a break after the holidays from crafting other than for the wedding, I'm going to focus a good part of my spare time to teaching myself a lot of new skills. I plan to sign up for Lynda.com, as well as find other good tutorials online.  I'll also be cleaning up and revamping my craft room to become a craftarffice (craft/art/office). A nice clean organized space for working and learning.  Ahhhh!


That's enough reflecting for now. I have more things to think about, but it will have to be for another day. Time to get these kittehs off my lap and get my day started!

I did not finish all the things. SADFACE! I was trying to get to all the requests for sharktoplushies in time for the holidays, but I did not. I have a couple of things I'm wrapping up tonight that people have paid for, but for the ones I was attempting to finish before listing, they just will have to wait. The things I'm shipping out tomorrow morning will arrive in time for the holidays (priority shipping in the US) but anything after tomorrow is unlikely. There are just 2 I didn't get to, and only 1 of which was hoping to get it in time for Xmas. I'll make her a coupon code to use for a discount on a sharktoplush after the holidays.

So now that the items for sale are completed (or the ones I was able to complete I mean) I need to turn toward my Xmas present crafts. I'm getting a little better each year with my crafty planning/completing projects, but I'm still far off from being stress free and managing to get everything finished.

Plus I want to actually take some time and just relax on my vacation. I'm off as of yesterday night through Wednesday, Jan 4. The time from when I get back from Xmas at my parents and until I go back to work shall be spent in PJs, playing video games. And perhaps some social times and cleaning up my craft room too. :D

Okies, time to wrap up a few things and get to finishing up my Mama's crochet afghan for her present. :D

Xmas time is approaching! I always loved Xmas because it was the time of year that it snowed, and there were all kinds of things to bake and craft. This week I'm wrapping up all the requested orders I've taken in over the past couple of weeks. I have 12 sharktoplushies all cut out and waiting to be sewn. Actually its 11 now. I finished the one, and he's on his way to Canada tomorrow. While it took a long time to do (longer than I expected), I must say my revised pattern is very nice and speeds things up. I had a basic pattern made of the "sew lines", but I'd just loosely cut things out, so lining things up would be a pain. So I revised the pattern to include the seam allowance and sew lines, as well as placement marks for things, like the teeth and fins. Also, now all the pieces have been created to fit perfectly to make the sewing and where to put things much easier. I must say, things went a lot smoother because of it. And now when I havent' sewn one in a while, I'll be able to pick it up and knock it out a lot easier than I have in the past. All of this is leading up to perhaps making the pattern available for sell, especially since I'll be busy for the first few months of 2012. I have a few more things to smooth out, as well as writing up the instructions and taking pictures. I'll be seeing about getting a couple of friends with sewing machines who might want to be "testers" and test out the pattern to make sure its clear for those who haven't ever made one before. (Hint, let me know if you might be interested in being a tester.)

I want to get all of holiday orders for customers completed by this weekend. That gives plenty of time for the things to arrive at their destination for Xmas. It also gives me that whole following week to work on my own Xmas gifts! Its so hard to try and not DO ALL THE THINGS! Even last night I was watching some jewelry tutorials online, and had pull myself away and go to sleep.

*whispers to self* all...the...things....

I was visiting one of my friend's this weekend when I noticed that I really liked how nice and neat their "office" room was. I want my craft room to be like that. I really do. I even tested out their desk to see if it would be suitable for what I'd do, and it is. So I think my craft room will be getting a very major revamping over the next several months.

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There is a lot swirling around both in my brain, and as external projects all vying for my attention. I'm still trying to get better at time management and learn my limit, and to sadly say no sometimes. I've had to withdraw myself from both the Art Carnage shows I had planned on being in. I just didn't have the time to get enough things ready for me to justify a table. I'd feel kinda silly sitting there with only a few items.

I have 3 custom projects I'm in various stages of completing, and the Stubby Dog items to wrap up. After that I want to get some ornaments made so I can submit them to DesignSponge on Nov 1. Well I'm trying to decide on that anyway. I originally was going to focus my craftiness elsewhere beginning in January, however I think I may need to cut off any "sales type" projects by the end of this month. I've got holiday stuff coming up and that whole wedding thing too. I need to get my save the dates made and sent out by the end of this month. And my interests are kinda swinging away from crafts, and more into web design/wordpress at the moment. I hate that you do this to me, Mr. Brain! You are so flighty and hop from one interest to another! Not that I'm giving up crafts completely. I'm just kind of feeling a bit burned out. I have other things I want to try.

Plus I haven't seen much of my friends in forever. It would be nice to be a bit more social as my favorite seasons are finally rolling in. And I have several goals I'd like to see come to fruition.

I'll make a "Goals for the upcoming year" post later.

So I'll finally be wrapping up my Stubby Dog projects this weekend. Now I'm trying to decide what to do with my pit bull ornament pattern. I really like the idea of Stubby Dog's mission, which is to change people's perception of pit bulls. And I think a cute ornament is a great way to show people the cuter side of pit bulls. I'm trying to figure out what would be the best way to use this ornament towards those goals.

1) Do I offer the pattern for free, so people will see a cute pattern for a pit bull ornament, download it and make it. Thus increasing the popularity of the breed as a "cute" thing?
2) Do I sell the pattern, with 50% of the proceeds going towards Stubby Dog or other Pit Bull orgnaizations.
3) Do I write up a tutorial/offer the pattern for free to submit to CRAFT which gets much higher traffic than any of my sites. Basically the same thing as #1 but hopefully to a much wider audience.

I'm leaning towards #3. I just hope I can make a good enough write-up for it, and that they decided to publish it. I believe the auction is on Nov 1 so I wouldn't be publishing it until after that, but I think I'll start taking photos of the process this weekend, and working on the write-up. I'll ask the communications person at Stubby Dog about it too, because I'd like to link back to them throughout the write-up. Or I wonder if submitting it to the site before the auction would draw more of an audience to the auction too? Hmmm... I'll ask the L, the comm' person when I email her photos this weekend.

Crafting and Good Animals Causes = WINS!

OMG, I want a week staycation so badly. I just feel so burned out and overwhelmed. If I didn't have a wedding coming up, and other responsibilities I'd totally pack up and go stay with my Mama for a month or two.

Ugh!

So after my post about having no desire to do things, I decided to knuckle down and make some lists. I've got a list of projects to get completed this month at work on my dry erase board behind my desk at work. The other day I made a weekly list of tasks that I need to complete in order to move those projects from the "To Do" to the "Completed" side of the board. I then emailed it to everyone to let them know what I'd be working on this week. I did this in part to hold me accountable for tasks, and also in part to let people know what I'm working on, so I stopped being hounded about this or that, since they can see where it falls on the list.
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So I already was making a list for my goals and some basic to do's through the end of the year. Some were bigger things with no set timeline "install shelves in laundry area" and some have actual deadlines, like "prepare items for Sept 24 Art Carnage"

I'm involved in some craft swaps (if you don't know what that is, you sign up and get partnered with someone and you each make items based on the swap theme and send them to each other), I volunteered to donate some items to the Stubby Dog Project for a fundraising art auction, and I've got 2 Art Carnage Craft Fairs to prepare for among other things. Then just an hour or so ago I got an email telling me someone has ordered and paid for a Small Sharktopus - made to order, because I've already sold the 2 "ready-made" ones I had in stock. Then less than an hour later, I find out that there is going to be an Artomatic this year, but in Frederick. I guess the main Artomatic site didn't announce it or anything, because I didn't receive any emails.

I WANT TO MAKE ALL THE THINGS!

Tonight I've got to seriously plan out my time to see if I can sign up for Artomatic. I have a lot going on, but there is definitely a lot of traffic that will be going through there during the 5 week period, and if I ever want to get semi-professional in the art and craft worlds I need to get my name out there.

OMG, SO MUCH TO DO!

Oh, and that whole wedding thing! YIKES!



*runs around flailing*