A Collection A Day

I love collections and therefore, I’m in love with Lisa Congdon’s new blog A Collection A Day, 2010. Every day she posts a new collection…sea urchins, plastic animals, books, bingo cards, receipt books.
The best part? Since it lasts a year there will be 365 collections by the end.
A-mazing.

photo borrowed from A Collection A Day, 2010 by Lisa Congdon

2010. Time for the Best. Year. Ever.

It’s time!

Time for my annual moment of reflection as I look back at the previous year and look forward to the next twelve months. I don’t believe in resolutions, I mean who can keep up with that? I do believe in trying to improve ones life though and I’ve found the best way for me to keep on track with this is by keeping track. Every year I set goals for myself and I look back at the previous year and give myself a progress report. Sometimes a year isn’t enough time to reach a goal or to break a habit, but getting this down on paper (uh, er…”down on paper”) helps me see how far I’ve come or how much further I need to go.

I started this tradition in 2006 and if you’re curious you can read my annual reviews from the past four years here:
2006
2007
2008
2009

This was a big year and a lot happened so I thought I’d begin with a few highlights.
In February, I went to the New York premiere of Handmade Nation. The documentary is complete and quite awesome. And I made the cut! I’m in the documentary talking about how much I love the Renegade Craft Fair. Very appropriate because I do love Renegade!

Faythe, Christy, Deb at NYC Handmade Nation premiere.

There are two new babies in my life! Baby Katie-Mac, daughter of my close friends Margaret and Chris, and Baby Gregory, my new nephew and my sister and brother-in-law’s third child.

I celebrated 5 years at my job in April.

Also in April, I went to my 10 year college reunion. Hard to believe it’s been 10 years! I was elected class secretary. Why? They said because I update my Facebook status the most! I’ve enjoyed being secretary so far. I get nice emails from everyone each time I solicit the ladies for news and I have to say it’s a good thing I enjoy it because it is a five year commitment. Five years!

The other class officers and our beautiful campus.

I’m so excited and proud to say that we celebrated 7 years of marriage in 2009! Davis is the best.

Davis and Christy sittin’ in a tree….

I was published in Button It Up by Susan Beal, 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse by Garth Johnson, in ReadyMade magazine and on VenusZine.com

We started eating meat again….it had been 17 years for Davis and 7 for me. I still believe in a low meat diet for personal health and for the health of our planet and I think it is important to be aware of where meat comes from and how it has been processed, but honestly I’m really into the concept of fewer confines on my life right now. And it tastes good.

Bacon in a glass at Leon’s

We spent a long weekend on Cumberland Island and I actually went hiking. It was about 7 miles with 40-ish lbs on our backs. This was very out of character for me, but turned out to be tons of fun!

Etsy and Hello Craft wrote about me. Fun fact, I was the 21st person to join Etsy. At Hello Craft’s Summit of Awesome I was a speaker on a panel about how to organize a craft market and I also did a demonstration on how to screen print. It was a very exciting weekend!

We organized two more ICE events and Kraftwork every month of 2009.

In addition to these amazing events there were two very difficult occurrences this fall. In September, a tree fell on my mom’s house destroying so much of the structure that my family had to move out of the house while it was rebuilt. In December, my grandmother passed away. I will miss her so much. It has been good for me to make the above list of highlights because I think these two situations have made me think 2009 was a bad year, but I see in fact it was not! I’m so thankful that no one was hurt when the tree fell and that the house can be restored and that I had a lovely grandmother all the way into my 30s.

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So now let’s see how I did with 2009’s goals…
_ Loose Weight + Save Money = Go out to eat way less! - Overall, I did not go out to eat less, however there were periods of time when I was really good about not eating out and it was obvious how much more money was available as a consequence. I felt much more financially stable this year. I did not loose weight!
_ Debt – We continued to pay off a lot of debt and I’m currently one payment away from paying off yet another credit card. This feels so good! I highly recommend it!!!
- Bike & Walk – I did the usual amount of walking (which is quite a bit) but didn’t ever get my bike fixed so I failed on this one!
- Drink Water – I did pretty well here and there but wasn’t very consistent. I’ll keep up this new habit this year.
- Pack Lunches – I’d say the later part of the year I have 100% completely failed at this!!! I’ll try again.
- Be more organized – At first glance around my apartment I’d have to give this a resounding no, but I shouldn’t be so quick to declare my failure. I’ve actually adopted some new habits with online organization. I’ve started using the Gmail task list a lot and this has helped me tremendously when it comes to lists of things to do. In the past, I would have one million scraps of paper with lists, and they’d all get lost or end up at the bottom of my purse. With the task list I can keep track of what I need to get done, and I have multiple lists so that I can put items into different categories. I downloaded an app for my phone so I can keep up with my lists all the time. I’ve also started using Google Docs to keep track of my revenue and expenses for a bardis. This is helping me be much more organized.
- Write More - I have started writing my book! Whoohoo! I have my friend Hannah to thank for this. We started a writing group (we like to call it a group and then laugh because it is just the two of us!) and met many times this year to critique each other’s writing. In addition to working on this project I also wrote the above mentioned articles for ReadyMade magazine and VenusZine.com.
- Get professional photos taken of my earrings - My talented friend Meghan McNeer took amazing photos of our beautiful friends Ally, Amy and Leuwam modeling my creations. I love these photos so much!
- Add more stores to my list - I ended the year with my creations in seven shops. I’ve talked to a few more and will expand the list even more in 2010!
- Do three out of town shows - As always, I participated in Renegade Chicago and returned to Crafty Bastards in DC (which I missed so much last year!). I didn’t make it to the west coast and I didn’t participate in a third big out of town market, but I was a vendor at the Summit of Awesome party and did so well in just a couple of hours at this event that I’m going to count it!

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New Goals for 2010:
* Buy a House – We’ve been house hunting since June with many, many ups and downs, twists and turns. It’s been emotionally draining and I’ve felt like my life has been on hold because of it. So ready to be done with this goal!
* Debt – Again, we paid off a lot of debt this past year and I plan to keep on keepin’ on with this long term goal. With the exception of the above mentioned future mortgage, I think within the next few years we’ll be debt free…fingers crossed.
* Loose Weight – I really do want to eat more healthy, exercise and loose some weight. I failed at this last year. Let’s hope I can get on board this year. I’d like to do some biking (but I’ve GOT to get my bike fixed first!) and a lot of cooking at home (this will be fun!).
* A Better abardis.com – I like the blog I’ve created but I want to turn it into a much more spectacular website. I have pretty limited knowledge in this arena, but also enjoy experimenting and trial n’ error. With my limited knowledge, I think getting my blog hosted is the first step to making it better so on New Years Eve I paid for a year of hosting. I just don’t know what to do next! So I’ve got some research to do.
* New a bardis Designs – My head is swarming with new designs for earrings as well as a new eco-line made from the scraps left over from my regular earrings. Can’t wait for time to get this happening!
* a bardis – I’ve been working away at making my jewelry and accessory line something for some time, but I’ve never really had the freedom to devote as much time to it as I’d like to. I want to take it to the next level and really make it something this year.
* Write More – I’m excited to continue the progress I made in 2009. I hope to become even more structured and to finish some or at least one amazing project!
* An Orderly Home – I want to really get everything in excellent order and keep it that way!
* Freelance Public Relations – Pondering offering PR services for crafters and artists…maybe an a la carte set up of some sort.
* Make Me a Bigger Priority – I tend to bite off more than I can chew and I’m working on some major restructuring of my life so that I can make all of these other goals actually happen. I’m a little sad but also relieved to announce that the Indie Craft Experience is going to be a once-a-year event moving forward. We are no longer going to produce our summer show. This feels like a major, major decision. I hope it doesn’t have a negative effect on anyone or their business. I’m just tired after five years and ten shows. We’ve also decided to no longer produce Kraftwork at Young Blood Gallery. This monthly market just never took off like we’d hoped despite our best efforts. I’m clearing my plate for other ventures, but I am sorry if this is bad news for anyone.

I hope that 2010 really is the Best. Year. Ever. for you. Take some time to figure out what you want to accomplish this year and I wish you the very best of luck!
xoxo

ARCHIVE: a new year…2007

Originally published January 2007 on GetCrafty.com

It might be cliché but I simply cannot help but start the New Year with all sorts of reflection on last year and the year to come. Please bear with me as I review 2006 and gear up for 2007 from a very self-centered perspective. My hope is that it will inspire you to do the same. Life—or mine at least—is so fast paced that there is never time to pause and evaluate. Rereading my New Year’s column from last year is pretty amazing. I hadn’t read it since I wrote it and man, I’m actually really proud of myself and see that I’ve made major leaps in the right direction in 2006. If I can just keep it up, I’ll be wrapping up 2007 in really great shape.

I turn 30 this year, which is alarming and totally exciting all at the same time! An older friend once offered me some life changing words. She told me, people always say your 20s are the time of your life and it only goes down hill afterwards. She totally disagreed, however. Your 20s, she explained, are full of doubt, wandering, wasting time and not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. In your 30s you have focus, mission and purpose. I’d agree. I think I had a major existential crisis every 6 months between the time I graduated from college at 22 and the age of 27. I used to say, ‘If only I could figure out what I’m supposed to be doing then I know I could work really hard at it and do really well.’ Those were sage words. I have figured out what I’m supposed to be doing and now I feel like I have to make up for lost time and hustle even more than I would have if I’d figured it out when I was 22. Frustrated as I get with my 22 year-old self for not figuring it out sooner, I really can’t be too mad at her. After all, I hadn’t discovered Get Crafty yet!

So looking back over last year’s evaluation of 2005, I’ve done pretty well in 2006. I did not use a credit card a single time. My apartment was messy, but beautiful compared to 2005. I’m still too busy to pack a lunch some of the time but instead of eating expensive food from a restaurant, I eat at my employee cafeteria. It isn’t as healthy as packing a lunch and it isn’t as cheap either, but I can eat lunch for $2-3. We’ve done really well at going to the Farmers Market regularly, which makes eating at home so much easier.

I didn’t spend enough time with my family, but I did much better. I went to all of my brother’s home Lacrosse games. This was doubly good because it was supportive of my brother and gave my mom and I awhile to sit and talk while we watched the game. In 2006, I finally admitted, after all these years, that I love watching TV. There really isn’t any better way to spend time when exhausted. Much like 2005, I spent a lot of time exhausted in 2006. Unlike 2005, I also spent a lot of time preventing exhaustion. I paced myself better, took breaks when I needed them, didn’t bite off more than I could chew (as often!) and was way more organized! I had a lot more balance.

In 2006, I organized two Indie Craft Experience markets, continued to do well at my Public Relations day job, paid off my first credit card, participated in Renegade Chicago and Crafty Bastards in D.C., was filmed for That’s Clever (air date is Jan 22 on HGTV), started a new job as co-editor of Get Crafty and got more press than ever! The Indie Craft Experience was named Best Guerrilla Art by Atlanta’s Creative Loafing, was listed as a Top 10 Must-do Holiday Event by the same publication, was mentioned in the New York Times Magazine and was the first stop on the Indie Craft Documentary filming tour. Shannon and I created the Starlets of Craft calendar with Tweet Design. Three of my designs were chosen for the t-shirt show at MODA (Museum of Design Atlanta) called “To a T” and I participated in the Plush Show at Young Blood Gallery by creating a giant plush of the Atlanta skyline. Despite being busy with all of this, I learned to scale back and to only take on projects I was really interested in.


My goals for 2007 are a little more lighthearted and fun than they were for 2006. I have to continue on the right track from 2006 since I spent so much time training myself and learning new habits this past year. Cleaning more, eating well and paying down credit cards are still top priorities. 2007 is going to be full of more fun though! Here’s a quick list of goals for the new year:

_ See more movies.
_ Write more. In fact, I keep telling myself I’m going to write two books in 2007!
_ Make the Indie Craft Experience the best it has ever been—big ideas in the works here!
_ Exercise more.
_ Get more digital photos printed—photos are the best reminder of good times!
_ Totally redo my wardrobe. It’s gotten so blah and disappointing.
_ Meet more crafters from all over the country.

I encourage you to make a cup of tea, sit down and evaluate last year and make some goals for 2007. This is going to be the best year ever…Happy New Year!

ARCHIVE: get the new year started right 2006

originally published January 2006 on GetCrafty.com

New Year’s resolutions have never worked out well for me. I’ve tried for years. I’d make the requisite list and have the best of intentions, but just never really got around to making it happen. I think the resolutions seemed too much like rules and my heart just wasn’t ever in it.

This is not to say that I have no use for goals or improvement however. I can’t help but get excited about the New Year. Perhaps because Christmas is such a huge undertaking, January seems like this big blank slate. It’s not just a new page in my calendar…it is a new calendar all together. An opportunity to do things different as well as repeat what worked last year.

The new year is a golden opportunity to evaluate and redefine. An old coworker once told me that he uses his birthday as a time to review the previous year and
make changes if needed. This is some of the best advise anyone ever gave me. And why wait until your birthday when you can do it this week? I’m lucky because my birthday is in mid-March so if I get off track after my January evaluation two and a half months later I can start over when my birthday rolls around. I can even pretend like that whole January and February thing never even happened!

2005 was a great year for me. I got promoted at my day job, I was a bridesmaid in a close friend’s wedding, I finally got a computer and internet at home and craftily speaking…wow! I formed the I.C.E. Collective with two friends, we organized the Indie Craft Experience in the summer and during the holiday season, we joined the Beehive Co-op, we participated in many local shows as well as in Renegade Brooklyn and Chicago, we had a live interview on a local radio station and a huge write up in our local, alternative newspaper and I started writing this column.

There is always a flip side though! In 2005, I ran up a ton of credit card debt, my apartment was in varying stages of a-mess all year long, I ate a lot of expensive, unhealthy lunches because I was too busy to pack a lunch, I didn’t spend enough time with my family and too much of the time I spent with my husband was in front of the tv. In 2005, I spent a lot of time just plain exhausted.

Clearly, in 2006 I need balance. I want to keep my crafty momentum going but I have to prioritize and decide which things I did last year that were the most effective so that I can make time to see my family and friends and keep my apartment looking cute. I feel so much more relaxed when my apartment is clean and I am much more productive with my sewing.

I also need to keep my money in check. My biggest weakness is going out to eat and for drinks. In the past few months, I’ve already made major headway. I’ve entirely cut out going to the coffee shop unless it is to meet a friend, whereas I used to go every day for my morning coffee. The coffee in the break room at my office is far below my former-barista standards, but it is f-r-e-e. We eat at home a lot more and have beer in the fridge most of the time. And, I�ll admit it, if I�m ready for an evening of sewing and there’s no beer at home, I walk to the gas station a block from our apartment and I buy myself a 22 oz. Budweiser. It costs $1.75 and if I pour it in a fancy glass I am good to go! When I think back to my younger $6 gin-and-tonic days I cringe at how many times I pulled the credit card out to pay my bill which often crept over $20. Some might say my classiness has been depleted but I just keep telling myself that the debt isn’t worth it. And I’m going to get out from underneath debt, one 22 oz. at a time!

So I’ve come up with a few small practices I’m going to implement in 2006. I guess they are resolutions, but I’m not calling them that in hopes that I can
actually pull them off!

__Watch much less TV. It slows me down when I’m sewing, stifles creativity, takes up gobs of time and I’d rather read anyway.

__Don’t use my credit cards!!!! There are instances of true emergency, but NOTHING else is worth the weight of debt.

__A weekly check list of chores. I don’t know who hates cleaning more, me or my husband. A list will keep us in order. And instead of me having to remind him that it’s his turn to scrub the tub, I’ll let the list do that dirty work!

__I�m going to go out less so that means I have to have people over more. This is three-fold….it costs less, will make me keep the apartment looking cute and it is just plain fun!

__We are doing great at cooking dinner at home, but we need to do better at taking our lunch to work. If my husband can make a big pot of soup each week and I can make some big batches of different salads then packing lunches will be super easy. Plus, we have to go to the farmers market every week. They have the cheapest and freshest food in town.

I’m not sure how I’ll make it all happen this year, but I’m hopeful. As I write this there is a big pot of soup on the stove. I’m a big believer in getting started. Most of the time that’s half the battle. So let’s get 2006 started right!

What are you doing different this year?

Christy Petterson lives in Atlanta where she writes, sews, works in PR, organizes crafty events, roadies for her drummer-of-a-husband, eats the yummy food he cooks her, drinks coffee, goes for walks and spends time with her friends and family.

2010 best.year.ever. Postcards

I’m super excited about the New Year …that happens every year, but for some reason I’m super excited about 2010. Won’t you join me? I designed these postcards to get everyone on board with what I’m declaring to be the best. year. ever.

Hope you’ll use these postcards to inspire yourself and your peeps to go for it and to make it happen in 2010!
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