Taheerah Atchia

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I hope you had some fun and safe celebrations last night!

I’ll be back with a card later today, but for now I wanted to type up a quick post dedicated to something else.

People tend to use this time of the year to set some resolutions for the coming 12 months. I personally don’t like the idea of ‘resolutions‘ – they seem to imply some kind of bad behaviour which needs correcting, and I’d rather think of something that’s more on the positive side! So, as 2012 was coming to an end, I decided to set myself some ‘Goals‘ rather than ‘Resolutions’ and give myself a few to work towards for 2013.

I have a few personal goals that I won’t share here – this blog is for crafting! So, without further ado, I present to you my Crafting Goals for 2013:

1. MAKE AND POST A CARD EVERY DAY


Now, I didn’t say that my goals were going to be easy, lol! I really enjoyed the creative pressure of my 25 Days of Christmas Cards series, and having to post something new every day really pushed me to be more active, proactive and creative. It really left me feeling good, being able to achieve that, and you may have noticed that since my series ended I have continued to post a project every day, even if they have been some older projects I had in the bank ready to use if I hadn’t had a chance to create something new.

This will be a tough goal to keep, but with all of you providing encouragement I will strive and do my very best to uphold it!

2. SUBMIT TO MORE CHALLENGES


I don’t tend to submit to challenges all that often. I’ll be the first to admit that this is a self-esteem thing. I am ambitious and competitive and I like to win. When I don’t win a challenge I get rather despondent and feel pretty down about my cards – why weren’t they good enough? etc. But in focusing on the negative aspects like this I have been missing the whole point of challenges – they are there to challenge. To help you get out of your comfort zone, be creative and put your work out there. I might not win any of the challenges I submit to over the coming year, and I will not submit to every challenge out there – but I do intend to pick the challenges that speak to me (even if they are out of my comfort zone, no, actually – especially if they are out of my comfort zone) and create for them. Who knows – I might get spotted and actually win!

Which brings me nicely onto…

3. PUT MYSELF OUT THERE MORE

I *really* want to get onto more Design Teams, get published more, get ‘spotted’ more, get more blog visitors and comments… but how will I ever do this if I don’t keep trying? So, in the same vein as #2 above, I am going to try, try, try… and keep trying. I had a lot of success last year and I want to do even bigger and better things this coming year – so I have to keep trying!

4. BE A BETTER CRAFTING COMMUNITY MEMBER


What do I mean by this? Well. I follow quite a few blogs in Google Reader. This plus schedule plus laziness plus blah blah blah… mean I have become a poor commenter. A poor follower. A poor supporter. And generally also less of an explorer – I’ve stuck to the blogs I know, commented on few… and therefore missed out on a whole community of talented individuals. The couple of posts I’ve seen from some bloggers where they’ve highlighted their favourite projects of 2012 created by other individuals really opened my eyes to what I’ve been missing. So in 2013 I will aim to comment more, to support more and to explore more. There’s a whole load of talent and inspiration out there and I don’t want to keep missing it!

And finally…

5. HAVE FUN WITH IT


Stop taking it all so seriously. This is a hobby and it brings me great, great joy. It has introduced me to a bunch of friends, fellow artists, amazing talent, products, companies, opportunities… but it is not life or death. If I don’t win or don’t get picked up for publication or don’t get noticed or don’t get on more Design Teams – that is not failure. That is life. And if I put (unhealthy) pressure on myself and get downbeat about not being as good as suchandsuch out there then that will take some of the love and joy out of the creativity that I enjoy so much. Yes, I will still be competitive. Yes I will still be ambitious. Yes I will still want to keep bettering and bettering myself, and then better myself some more. But I will do it all whilst having fun.

And there you have it – my Crafting Goals for 2013! There are some things that I’m sure are missing from this list (hoard less, use more etc) but if I set too may goals I might set myself up for a fall. Besides, those others can all fall into the 5 goals above, no? So, I do hope you’ll keep joining me throughout 2013 to provide support and encouragement as I keep working towards these goals. 2012 was a great year for crafting for me: Gallery Idol, publications, my first Design Team…

But you know what?

2013 is going to be even better.