afternoon craft...macrame plant hanger

I love that my dad used to make these when he was in college. Inspired, dear father.

2014 Goals

The new year is upon us. It's amazing how it sneaks up on us this time every year, huh? I really enjoy the beginning of the year, though. Even though it's sad the holidays are over, it's nice to think about a fresh start, invigorating to think about things we can improve upon, and exciting to think about trying new things, finishing old things, and setting doable goals. Now is the time! It's hard to feel so renewed and ready to do these things come August, right?

Setting goals is a great thing to do, but it is hard to follow through on lofty, over-arching goals. This year I'm trying to set reasonable, project-oriented goals that I can actually achieve and that I look forward to accomplishing. Being a creative person, someone who literally feels better when I'm making things, I've learned that my resolutions must include creative and crafty projects. Of course, there are many other parts to life - cleaning, organizing, teaching your children, cooking, staying healthy- but I know when I set goals that are creative and exciting, the rest of these parts of life seem to fall in place.

So, here are some goals I've set for myself for 2014:

1. Finish Sienna's Christmas album, make a 2014 family album and a Pinky and Laura relationship album. I started a First Christmas album for Sienna in December. Now is the time to print all the photos and finish the album for her. This inspired me to continue to do photo albums for our family and have some hands-on memories to look at, rather than having them all stored digitally. I'm so excited about this goal and will continue to share my progress.

2. Finish my hand-lettering I class and complete the hand-lettering II class. I've shared part of my project progress from the class, The First Steps of Hand Lettering. I want to finish up my project for this class and then dive into the second class where you get tips on adding color and digitizing your piece. While I know, mostly, how to do this through my design skills it will be great to have some tips on how to get hand-drawn items to look better on the computer. I'm excited to finish these classes and have a final product to hang in our home. I hope I will continue to create hand-lettered pieces in the future.

3. Downsize! Everything. Ok, that's a big goal. But, I think if I continually think about getting rid of things, I'll be reminded more often, to, get rid of things. Genius! Ha. Specifically, I wrote down "clothes, shoes, & decor." Craft supplies should also go into that list. OH MY, the craft supplies. I want to go room by room in January and do a cleaning out. We are fairly good at giving things to Goodwill and I did have a great yarn sale in November that made me a little $ and got rid of some of the yarn stash, but I want to make this a continual focus in our house. We might be moving to a new house later this year and babies. take. a lot. of stuff. They just do. So, I can downsize a lot of our things to make life simpler. And moving simpler, for real. Any tips are highly appreciated and welcomed. I've been perusing the lifehacker tips and Pinterest lately for good organizing tips.

I'm slightly obsessed with pinning closet office space nooks. They are so cozy and fun. And genius. 

photo courtesy of: thehouseofsmiths.com

4. Speaking of organizing, that's another goal. Make a place for everything. Then, it's easier for things to stay picked up and organized. I live my life in stacks of things. Oh my. They are everywhere. I'm not super messy or a packrat, but I stack things up and leave things out so I'll remember to do them. I want to make a place for things to be put away and then make lists of what I want to do, rather than just leaving everything out in the open for me to see and possibly, someday, work on. This is a HUGE one for me that is gonna take lots of effort. Wish me luck!

Photo from: realsimple.com

5. Learn baby sign language to teach Sienna. This is a goal that needs to happen soon. She's over 7 months old and I really think at the point where she can start communicating soon through other means than crying. Ha. Yeah. It's worth a try! Plus, how cute is it to see kids who sign!? Super cute. And then she can tell me when she's hungry or not and develop that little brain :) (Hey, here's a free downloadable/printable chart!)

Those are where we start. First, I gotta get this little girl feeling better :( But, at least I can be in the planning stages while we're still on the mend here. It feels good to really think about these goals, get them written down, and start moving forward with them. Good luck with your own goals! I would love to hear about them. Happy 2014!!

gender reveal party for baby bird :)

Last night we had a party for my family to reveal the gender of our baby. Here is the fun table I set up with the voting board, reveal cake and banners...

Pinky wore a shirt given to him by a friend a few months back. :)

And...here is the cake! It's a girl!!!!!!

We couldn't be more excited. All of her cousins closest to her age are girls, so that will be so so fun. My family drove me nuts over the past few days between the ultrasound and the reveal party. We had to wait for Pinky to get to town Sunday night before we could share the big news though. What's exciting is that I had a dream very early on that I met myself as a little girl and it's fun to know my hunch was correct :) I guess having grown up with 2 brothers, I always saw myself having boys, and I would've been super excited about a little boy...but I must admit decorating for, knitting for, and dressing up a little lady will be SO much fun. It couldn't have been a more exciting time of year to share this news. I love Christmas time!! And now, the shopping for cuteness begins...

preparing an embroidery hoop for hanging.

This is a gem of a thing to know...Thanks Wild Olive!!