neonfoxtongue

Creative Goals Monday: When to Diversify, When to Focus

Hello! It's another beautiful day in Toronto and I'm feeling really good about my weekend - I did a decent amount of crafting and I went sailing for the first time!  My father-in-law's retirement activity of choice is a 32ft sailboat, which we took onto Lake Ontario yesterday.  Despite some initial nervousness about getting seasick and/or falling into the water, I really enjoyed it!  I'm not ready to sail around the world as per The Leopard's suggestion, but I'll definitely go again.  It was great to be out on the water, enjoying the sunshine.

Last week's creative goals were similar to most of my CG Monday weekly goals in that they are pretty diverse.  I try to set goals for a mix of creative mediums because it keeps me interested and gives me a choice when I sit down to do 'something crafty'.  And I've been finding that I'm generally pretty successful with this method.  For instance, last week I worked on three knitting projects (including the lacy scarf I had been avoiding). I organized all my craft supplies so that things are much neater and easier to find. I also made a card, which while it isn't the ATC I had planned, it is in the realm of paper crafts so I figure it still counts.  And outside of my weekly goals, I did a couple of hours of cross stitching.  Not too shabby.

What I didn't do however is work on my blog banner, which should have been a priority because I really do want my blog design to reflect me and my style.  I will admit to being a bit nervous about making the banner myself so that's probably why I'm avoiding working on it.  So I think for this week, it's time to focus a bit more.  This coming week will be all about designing my blog.  That means that this week I will:

• Design, draw and decorate my blog banner and capture it digitally
• Create an avatar based on my banner design
• Change or improve my feature banners
• Play around with Typepad so that I can incorporate the design I want

Of course, if I really feel like knitting or work on another craft, I'm definitely going to do it.  But my main focus will be creating a blog design I love.  Fingers crossed that it will work out!

To close off this post, here's a project that I recently completed and gifted - a baby card with matching mix CD!

 

As I mentioned last week, I spent time with a really good friend who was visiting from Vancouver, as well as meet her new son.  So I decided to make a CD of fun music for baby Leo (and Mommy and Daddy too).  It's an eclectic mix that starts off happy and up-beat with R.E.M.'s Stand and gradually slows down to end with Seu Jorge's chill Rebel Rebel (perfect for nap time).  And of course, with a name like Leo, I had to go with a lion theme!  I'm pretty pleased with how they both turned out.

Creative Goals Monday: Knitting Unblocked!

Welcome to Knit Town, population: me!  Well, actually population: millions, but that also includes me!  I'm happy to report that I'm excited about knitting again.  One of my creative goals last week was to get over my knit block, which was caused by my trouble with the lacy scarf pattern I've been trying to make.  To get over my block, I decided to completely ignore the scarf and to just knit. I made a small swatch of multi-coloured yarn and practiced some stitches.  I also started on new cuff, using the 3.25mm needles that arrived from London in our shipped boxes, suitcases and music equipment.  (Aside: So happy to have my crafty supplies back!) I'm keeping the stitches simple enough for me to knit while watching movies or TV, so it's a lot easier for me to just pick up the work and go for it. 

I did really well on my other goals too.  I made not one, but two birthday cards, one Artist Trading Card, and I reconciled all my project ideas into my large sketch book.  Even better, I didn't do all of these things in one day, meaning that I had several creative days during the week, which is also a goal of mine.  So I'm pretty proud of my creative accomplishments this past week.  **pats self on back**

For this coming week, my creative goals are:

• Work on the lacy scarf
• Work on other easier knitting projects
• Re-organize my craft supplies so I can find things easily.
• Make another ATC
• Work on my blog banner (I have the tool I need now!)

I've decided that my reward for finishing the lacy scarf will be to buy myself this book.  Hopefully, that will help keep me on track!

Here's some visual stimulus for this post - the graduation card I made for my cousin.  She graduated from college in Washington DC on Friday.  I can remember holding her when she was just a few months old and now she's a college grad - crazy!

The photo (mine) is of the city walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia. It's a beautiful city and was one of the highlights of our travels in March.

Wishing you a creative week!

("Creative Goals" font is Monbijoux by Billy Argel)

Creative Goals Monday: Card Success, Knit Fail

I must have knitters block.  I just can't seem to make the time to knit, because let's face it, I'm unemployed so I have the time.  I'm avoiding it. I'm just not into figuring out the lacy scarf pattern.  So I have to unblock myself somehow.  Perhaps I need to just play with some stitches and swatches again.  Anyone have any other ideas?

So yeah, as you can probably guess, I didn't meet my knitting goal from last week.  But I met my other three goals so I'm happy about that.  I'm really pleased with how my Mother's Day cards and the graduation card turned out.  And I sketched out how I want my blog banner to look.  I'll need to work on it some more, as well as wait for a key tool that I want to use, which is currently waiting in storage for a certain government agency to decide if our shipment from London can be released to us.  But I'm liking how it's looking so far.

Last week was pretty great for project ideas too.  I came up with a few on my own, and I also got to brainstorm with another friend on a great project she wants to execute.  I realised that I have a whole lot of ideas, doodles and sketches in various notebooks, sketch pads and scraps of paper, so one my new creative goals is to consolidate them in one place as much as possible.  But before we get into this week's goals, here are the Mother's Day cards:



Here's the one for my Mother-in-Law.  It's a combination of papers from various sources, including The Paper Place and a freebie print-out from Martha (I think).

 
Here's the one I made for my Mom, using papers from an Autumn Leaves set that my aunt had bought on special and let me have a few sheets.  Both my Mom and I love poppies so it was a no brainer to use them for her card.

I only have to make one card this week, so it gives me a chance to have more diverse goals for the week:

• one birthday card
• make a couple of ATCs
• reconcile all my creative ideas and sketches into one place
• get over my knitting block...somehow!
• continue working on my blog design

Hopefully next week I'll be able to update that I'm back to knitting.  I don't want to push myself too much because I always want to enjoy knitting (or any crafty endeavour for that matter), but I think I do need to push myself a bit in this case to get over the block.  Wish me luck!

Hope you have a creative week!

Creative Goals Monday: lists, lists, lists

Last week was all about list making.  I hadn't been making many lists lately, but in an effort to get more accomplished during my unstructured days while unemployed, I returned to my tried and true organisation tool.  I made daily lists (job search, job applications, blog, create), shopping lists (soap, shampoo), and theme-specific lists (computer-related things I need to do).  It was a list extravaganza!  And it worked fairly well - I got a lot of things done.  There's room for improvement though - I'm still getting distracted easily and procrastinating on the not-so-fun stuff (e.g. writting yet *another* cover letter), but I'm doing alright.  I did pretty well with last week's creative goals too: I made three cards, I knit almost every day and finished the knitting for the pouch, and I have come up with a general design for my blog, which admittedly  is still mostly in my head, but it's a start.

I'd say it's keeping up with knitting that I'm finding the toughest.  I think I need to actually schedule it into my day somehow.  Hopefully I'll do better with it this week.  Speaking of which, my creative goals for the week are:

• Make two Mother's Day cards
• Make a graduation card
• Knit at least 8 rows of my lacy scarf
• Sketch out the blog banner that I've dreamt up

And in non-creative goals, I'm going to keep up with my list making and schedule planning, because it's definitely helping me be more productive.

As for the visiual component for today's post, here is the retirement card I made for my father-in-law.

The inside of the card reads "...everything!"  The photo is one I took of the port in Hvar Town on Hvar Island in Croatia. Thanks to The Leopard for the photo of the card itself.

And with that, I can now cross Monday blog off my list! :)

Creative Goals Monday: yarn, paper and design

It's funny, I usually start writing my Creative Goals Monday posts feeling a bit disappointed with my crafty efforts of the past week, but when I review the goals I made the week previous, I'm surprised to find that I've pretty much met them.  Does this mean that my weekly goals are too eady, or that I tend to forget how much craftiness I got up to?  Maybe it's a little of both, but I do think it might be time to be make my weekly goals just a bit more challenging.

This past week, I planned out a few cards but didn't do much in the way of putting them together.  I also worked on my two knitting projects, the lacy scarf and the pouch for The Leopard's digital recorder.  I ran into some trouble with the lacy scarf and unfortunately had to pull out two rows of knitting.  I need to do a bit of research on one of the stitches (yarn over); I thought I was doing it properly, but it just isn't working out.  But I still think I can figure it out.

The pouch is coming along though.  When I last posted a pic of it, it looked like this.  Now it looks like this:
I've made a few mistakes, including a huge slipped stitch (or something) which resulted in a pretty big hole.  Thankfully, the yarn hides most of the issues.  I figure I only need a few more rows and then I'm going add some on purpose holes for a drawstring. 

So for this week's (more challenging) goals, I'm going to:

• Knit every day: finish the knitting part of the pouch and figure out the pattern for the scar
• Make three cards: two birthday, one retirement
• Work on a new design for my blog, including a banner for my Friday I'm in Love posts

The Leopard and I are working on being better with our time management and daily schedule these days, so I'm hoping that setting more challenging creative goals will help me in this respect. In fact, I've met my non-crafty goals for today, so I'm going to leave the 'puter now and go and enjoy the sunshine with my knitting needles!

Have you set any creative goals this week? 

Creative Goals Monday: First knitting project completed!

I`m a bit late with this Creative Goals Monday post - I don`t usually blog this late in the day.  But I got caught up with other things today, including applying for jobs, which as much as I hate to admit, is slightly more important than my blogging.  In fact, I was so wrapped up in other stuff, I forgot to take photos of the two items I finished this week, including my first knitting project.  So I`ll have to take pics and post them tomorrow.  My knitted cuff turned out okay - it`s definitely the work of a beginner, but I`m still pretty proud of myself.  And I`m also feeling good enough to start on another project, but more on that later.

I was pretty successful meeting last week`s creative goals.  I made one of the two cards I wanted to make and planned most of the other one (I have couple more days before I have to mail it).  I finished the cuff and I sketched and doodled for just over a half hour, focusing mostly on a design for a blog banner.  In addition, I knitted more of the pouch I`m making for The Leopard`s digital recorder.  So all in all, it was a pretty crafty week!

For this week`s goals, I want to:

• finish the card I`ve planned
• start two more birthday cards
• knit more of the pouch
• work on my new knitting project: a lacy scarf!

I got the pattern and yarn for the lacy scarf at The Knit Café on Sunday.  When I looked at the pattern, I was thrilled to see that I actually understood every part of it!  I felt it was a sign that I should give it a try.  So far, I`ve cast on the stitches (58! - the most I`ve done yet) and knit one row.  I want to try and work on it almost every day if I can to see how long it will take me.

So I`m determined to have another crafty week, along with a bunch of job hunting and applying.  And because I don`t want to make this post completely photo free, below is a pic of the patterned (more patterns!) roof of a church in Budapest, Hungary.

 

Those would make lovely cross stitch designs, wouldn`t they? :)

Creative Goals Monday: back to card making

Hi there!  I can't believe it's Monday already and time for another CG Monday update.  I had a really nice weekend at my parents' house, catching up with family and doing some crafting.  I did fairly well with my weekly creative goals and got back on track with card making - I made three cards over the weekend.  I didn't finish my knitting project, but I did find some instructions on making button holes so I'll be able to finish it this week.

I made two birthday cards and the following thank you card:

It's for a friend/former colleague who did me a really nice favour last week.  I used some card stock and thread I had at my parents'.  It was great to play with supplies I hadn't seen in a while!

I'll post pics of the birthday cards later this week.  As for this week's creative goals, they are:

• finish knitted cuff (possibly at The Workroom's Stitch 'n Bitch tomorrow night)
• baby card
• birthday card
• half an hour of sketching/doodling

I think that should keep me busy for the week.  Do you have any creative goals for the week?  If so, please share them in the comments!

Creative Goals Monday: Returning to regularly scheduled programming

And we're back!  And I mean that in more ways than one - back to blogging regularly and back in my homeland, Canada.  Yep, the London adventure has come to an end and The Leopard and I are now embarking on our Toronto adventure!  The Leopard is from the Tdot and I did my BA here, but neither of us has lived here in several years (nine for me, 12 for him) so we're looking forward this new start.  Today, we took a looooong walk (great for licking jetlag) in a part of the city we're considering to make our new neighbourhood and judging by the cool shops, bars and restaurants we saw, we're sure we made the right choice.  Now we just have to find jobs and an apartment.  Piece of cake!  ;)

Although I have some pretty important (and pressing) life goals to accomplish in the short-term, I still want to stay on track with my creative goals.  Yesterday, I reviewed my 29 Creative Goals for 2009 in order to jog my memory, help me plan my next steps and generally get excited about creating after a month of living out of a MEC backpack. Unfortunately, until we find a place to live and I can get the bulk of my supplies back from shipping and storage, I won't be able to embark on any big projects.  But I still plan on working on smaller things and I'm definitely going to get back on track with this blog. 

I did a little bit of knitting during our trip and I plan to continue that - I have two projects on the go at the moment.  And there are always birthday cards to make, so they will help me stay crafty in between sending out resumes and looking for a place to live.

My creative goals for the coming week:

• Two birthday cards
• Finish the knitted cuff and figure out how to make a button hole

Just two goals because I'll be heading to my parents' home on Thursday and probably won't be able to get much done over the Easter holiday while catching up with family.  But I happen to have a stash of craft supplies at my parents' as well so I might find some inspiration going through it.  :)

It feels good to be blogging again!

Creative Goals Monday: 50%

Hello!  Well, this week's Creative Goals update is on time, but it's going to have to be a quick one.  The Leopard and I are still very busy moving out of our flat and packing for our trip.  We fly to Bucharest, Romania bright and early tomorrow morning!  So. Excited!  But also a bit stressed because there's still lots to do!

So how did I do with the two goals I set myself last Tuesday?  I managed one out two.  Not great, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  I just wasn't able to make the card for my former manager.  Instead, I thanked her in person and said the nice things I wanted to put in the card.  I think she appreciated it and I know she wouldn't have expected a card anyway.

I did manage to do a few rows of knitting on Sunday morning though.  I needed to focus on something that didn't involve organising or packing for a bit.  The pouch I started a few weeks ago is finally coming along!

 
I made a bunch of mistakes, but luckily the yarn hides them reasonably well.  I figure I need a another five or so rows and I'm going to add little holes for a drawstring.  Unfortunately, this project has now been packed away and I won't be able to work on it until I get back to Canada in early April.  But I promise an update on it then.

As for future short-term goals, I've decided to set a few for the trip.  We'll be gone for four weeks and I know we'll be seeing all sorts of beautiful and inspiring things, so I'm going to do my best to record them in two ways - with my sketch book and with my journal.  Hopefully by doing this, I'll be able to capture ideas for new creative projects, as well as a good memory of our trip.

I'm also bringing some yarn and needles and will try to knit myself I cuff bracelet because I've always wanted one.  We'll see how that goes!

As I'm sure you can guess, blogging won't be my first priority while I'm on vacation.  I've decided to suspend the Friday I'm in Love feature for March, but I will try to write a couple of nft project posts in advance before we leave and post them throughout the month so that you don't forget about me completely. :)  And if I am able to write little posts about what we're seeing and doing on our trip, I certainly will - especially if there are any craft related items!

Alright - must get going.  Hope you have a great month!  

-nft

CG Monday: bullet point update

 

As I'm really pressed for time today, this Creative Goals Monday update will be in bullet points.

The creative stuff I did last week:

• Met one and half of my three goals from last week - I knitted a bit (and made a few mistakes) and I planned out how I want to adorn my travel journal
• Made two birthday cards
• Was inspired by a visit to the V & A
• Began culling my craft supply stash in preparing for our move - this is actually quite inspiring and a great way to review what I have and how I can use it.

My goals for the coming week are:

• More knitting
• Execute travel journal design
• Continue the craft stash cull

For this update's visual, here is a photo of the little Valentine's Day surprise I made for The Leopard:

This is what he found when he opened the box of Twinnings Earl Grey on Saturday morning.  I used a pretty (and free!) printable teabag wrapper from Creature Comforts and then added a heart-shaped paperclip I made by following How About Orange's awesome and easy tutorial.  I already had the paperclip and my Oma (that's German for Grandma) had given me the silver thread ages ago. Proof that love doesn't cost a thing!

So that's this week's update done and dusted.  I'm going to try to post more this week - I've got a bunch of birthday cards to show you!