Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Smashin the New Year

Hello again, blog-readers! Just have a quick post for today, to show off my first Smash book page of the year. I just recently joined a Smashing and scrapbooking group over at the CMC classroom, and there are monthly challenges to get us inspired. This month's challenge was "new beginnings!" And of course that includes New Year's resolutions, or goals for the new year. Yesterday I posted my goals as part of a 10 Things on the 10th post, and that really helped me get all my ideas down so that this page came together in a snap! There were only minor changes on the page. I also did a page about what I did on the 1st, because I wanted to save my ticket stub from the movie I saw and also remember what a nice relaxing day it was. =) So here are the photos:





Just some simple pages with lots of journaling. The number stickers are Basic Grey Out of Print collection.

That's it for today, told you it would be quick! Time to go feed the cat now (or so he is telling me with his death stare.... =P )

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

10 Things

Hello Bloglandians! Every time the 10th of the month rolls around, I will be reading my blogs and up will pop Shimelle's 10 Things on the Tenth post. I've always wanted to participate in this but I always forget beforehand and then when the day comes I run out of time and before you know it the 11th has arrived (like it tends to do) and it's too late. So here I am - FINALLY - taking a stab at participating in 10 Things. After some deliberation, I've decided to make a list of my goals for the new year. I know this is sort of an obvious, easy topic for this month but it is on my mind right now and I was thinking about making a layout with my goals anyway and this will help me get some ideas down. So here we go, in the order that I remember them:

1) Get into dancing shape by June: Specifically, tap dancing. My community theatre group (Twelfth Night Productions) is doing a production of Anything Goes this summer and I really want to be involved in the show. Mostly I want to be sure that I can do any dancing that may be asked of me, and do it well. This is also kind of a cheat because it's just a disguised version of the "lose weight" resolution, because I do need to lose about 20 pounds. But mostly I just want to get strong. I'm tired of not being able to pick up, say, a box of kitty litter, without getting injured. I'm too young for that. =P

2) Learn to cook: This is kind of tied in with number one, because if I could learn to cook some fresh food for myself, it would help me get in better shape.

3) Scrapbook more: During 2011 I was really able to start focusing on my crafting again. I hadn't really done that since I started college more than 10 years ago. I discovered blogging and the miracle that is the Google Reader. =) I've really learned a lot online from other crafters and had a lot of fun last year. And while I made more layouts last year than in the entire decade prior, I was really distracted from scrapbooking by all the other awesome paper crafting I was seeing and doing (card making, altered art, etc.) That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that I now have such a large collection of scrapbooking supplies that my office is running out of space. I need to use this stuff up! So my goal for the new year is to try to focus more specifically on scrapping, and try not to be entirely distracted by other fun things.

4) Try to get on a design team: This goal was originally "Apply to be on a design team", because as much as I wanted to try last year I couldn't even get past the application process. I had a couple of opportunities but I never even applied because I was held up by fear. And oddly enough, not fear of rejection, more fear that I would actually get on the team and then not be able to deliver. Ah, self-doubt, you are a terrible thing. But I'm feeling better because already in the first week of the year I overcame the first hurdle and actually put my name in for the design team on one of the challenge blogs I follow. At this point I honestly don't care if I make it on the team, I'm just enjoying the victory of overcoming that fear of applying! =)  And now this goal has been updated to actually getting on a team.

5) Blog more: I am a very, very, neglectful blog owner. In fact, this is the first my blog has seen of me since December 2nd. Over a month of neglect! And since this blog is my crafting blog, if I'm neglecting the blog it means I am most likely neglecting my crafting as well. Neither of these things make me happy. This all comes down to time management and I'm really going to have to think about how I'm going to improve here. Sub-goal: make blog look more awesomer. Sub-sub-goal: work on grammar.... =P

6) Learn to sew: Kind of random, and possibly I shouldn't put anything else on my plate (or in my craft room!), but I've wanted to do this for a while and I'm going to try and make some progress on this.

7) Learn to drive: Okay, it's confession-in-a-public-forum time: Hello, my name is Mary, and I am a 31 year old woman who never learned to drive. Phew! Okay, that's over. Actually, as weird as it may seem, I know several people around my age who either still don't know how to drive or just learned. So I'm not THAT weird. =P But all the reasons why I SHOULD learn to drive have finally stacked up so high that I think it's time to finally do it. We'll see what happens....

8) Cultivate patience: I'll admit, I don't have ANY patience. I'm all go, go, go all the time. If I was going to do a One Little Word for the year, I guess this would be it. I need to work on patience, with myself, with others, my family, my cat.... and did I mention myself? =)

9) Save my sanity: In a nutshell, this has to do with work. I stress too much at and about work. And since I don't want to bore anyone with a long tangent, I'll just say that I need to work on this, because something's gotta give, and I don't want it to be my sanity! =P

10) Sit down and think about how I'm going to manage my time to work on all these things over the 356 days I've got left! Hey, we all want extra time, and this year we got an extra 24 hours! So there's no reason I can't manage this, right? =)


Here's to a happy and productive 2012!

*~M~*

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