Happy New Year 2020!

New Year, New Goals 2020:

Remember all those artsy goals I had last year? Me either, so I looked them up:

1. Layouts (2/month or 24/year). (pretty sure this was a fail)

2. Christmas Tags (5/month or 60/year).  (Completed! I had more than enough for Christmas!)

3. Art Journal Pages (1/month or 12/year). (I'm going to call this completed. I finished a whole travel journal.)

4. Cards (5/month or 60/year). (I'm guessing this was completed too. I kept track of 22, and I know I did more for Christmas and miscellaneous occasions throughout the year.)

5. Etsy products (1/month or 12/year). (Partial Fail: I think I listed about 10.) 

6. Blogging (4/month or 36/year). (BIG FAIL. I counted 15 posts.)

I did have a great year! I made a lot of miscellaneous things. We went to New Orleans, beaches, Chicago, and Disney World. Travel plans for 2020 will probably be scaled way back. I gave up pop mostly, which for me is big. This is the year of saving and organizing (I hope). Not that I won't travel at all. I have a couple trips in mind.

So, this year's crafty goals:
1. Disney Layouts--Finish them. I'm not scrapbooking the whole trip, because I did a junk/travel journal of the trip, and it is done, so I'm just going to do 12x12 pages of my very favorite photos and/or memories.
2. Beach Layouts--I still have a lot to do from last year's (2018 I mean) trip. I want to do more of those.
3. Catch-Up Layouts--Lots and lots of possibilities here. I read once that you should never try to scrapbook everything chronologically because it's too overwhelming. Instead scrap what you feel like. This year (hopefully) I feel like doing some miscellaneous memory pages.
4. Cards. I want to do more from the supplies I have on hand, specifically my vintage photos, valentines, and postcards. These sell well, and they go together pretty quickly. I'm going to set my expectations low though. 40 cards.
5. Blogging. I made it into March last year. [eye roll] I've heard that many crafters are going back to blogging because of new YouTube restrictions. Maybe it'll come back into favor. Either way, I'm going to try to blog at least once per month.
6. Peace Pole. I've been wanting to make a garden peace pole forever, and I swear this is the year.

Tags and Etsy are both off the list. At this point, I have no strong feels about these. Wish me luck! And here's a cute picture of my family from Disney World, so this post isn't impossibly boring to everyone but me.

More Tags and 2019 Goal Update

So far, so good...

February wasn't quite as productive as January but hey, it's a shorter month, and the January motivation has passed. I still completed all my goals except for 1 card and 1 layout. Satisfactory, I think.

March is halfway gone, and I've completed several things. First, my monthly Christmas tags:

My goal is five, and I made six. I think it's probably easiest to make an even number, because you can make to of almost the same tag at once.

All of the stamps are from Simon Says Stamp's "Christmas Cheer" set. I used Dylusions paint pens and water color pencils for the coloring.

On the trees I used Nuvo drops for the center of the stars (I just moved it around with a pointed tool) and the garlands. I hand wrote the "to" and "from" on all the cards.

For the Santas, I used Nuvo drops for his mittens, and the trim of his hat.

It's hard to see in pictures, but the beards are covered in Sparkly Fluff by Our Craft Lounge. I don't know if this is even available anymore. I bought it several years ago. The color is "sugar," and it adds sparkle and a soft texture--kind of felt-like.

The North Pole signs have Nuvo drops on the top finial. I added Ranger's Glossy Accents on all the signs.

Look at all the tags I have done for Christmas next year, and it's only March 16!

Christmas Gift Tags

Progress on My 2019 Goals

One of my 2019 goals is to create at least 5 Christmas tags per month so I'll have a nice stash of them in December 2019 when I'm busy with other Christmas crafts and activities. I'm happy to say that in January and February I've already created more than 30 tags. I'm way ahead! Snow days have probably helped a lot. Here are the tags I made last weekend:

It's very easy to make a batch of similar tags. I cut all these from craft paper and a few white and cream cardstock pieces. I used four CTMH stamps, three punches, some twines, markers, Nuvo drops, and a few holiday brads.

Here are my favorites from each theme:

Not the fanciest, but I think this tag is my favorite.  I like its modern shape and colors.

This has a tag on a tag. The smaller tag is a punch. I colored the image with Copics and added white "snow" using white Nuvo drops.

I like both of these. The tag on the left is made from the negative space from punching out the tag on the right. The tree is a brad.

Not a great photo... I added white ink to a plain stamp, and it really made it pretty.

This is another set where I used the negative (on the right) from the snowflake I punched out for the tag on the left. The silver snowflake is a brad.

Thanks for looking at a Christmas project in February!