a year's worth of cards, and some other goals

Happy New Year!

It's been a while but I'm back in business, this year at a slower pace. No, not slow as in...not posting for 7 months, slow as in...posting once per week. That's my goal, let's see if it sticks.

One goal that did stick was making a year's worth of cards. I've been working on this project for a week now and I'm pretty much done. A major January purge/de-stash has ensued and sadly my Gocco and supplies have got to go. I wanted to make the most of the little beauty before I said goodbye so I printed up about 150 cards with the most important sentiments: happy birthday, thank you, congratulations, sympathy, etc etc. I left most of the cards empty with just the printed words but the birthday cards I actually finished up, addressed, stamped, enclosed and put in queue. I didn't actually write anything in them yet, I thought that would be a bit tacky, especially for the birthdays that are 11-12 months from now, but that part's easy. I'm usually late mailing birthday cards, if I get to it at all so I'm feeling great about being on top of it this year. I put together exactly 37 birthday cards for my closest friends and family, with a few leftovers for anyone I may have forgotten. Here's a little sampling:

It's hard for me to come up with designs that aren't too girly but I think I've got a few here. I still need to make one more round of cards before the Gocco goes bye-bye, but I'm happy to have gotten so much use out of it. I'm not going to list greeting cards to my Etsy store but if you're interested in any we can work it out another way.

Other intentions for the new year involve:

1) Organizing and de-cluttering (of course.)

2) Redoing my dining room--not a total redo, just painting the walls and reupholstering/refinishing the table and chairs set.

2) Panting all the trim in the house. It's time.

3) Improving photography. I think this one will forever be on the list.

4) Refinishing our deck. This might be one for the pro's, we'll see.

5) Continuing to improve with meal planning.

6) Devise and start to implement a new plan for Art Wall by the end of January.