Announcing my 2018 resolutions and goals! I love the ‘fresh start’ feeling that the New Year provides – do you feel ready to take on 2018?
From cleaning my house (sorted through my clothing using Marie Kondo’s ‘does it spark joy’ criteria today), to taking time to be thoughtful about striving to be a better and more patient mom to my two kidlings – these first four days of 2018 have been a whirlwind.
Art Goals:
- Create and publish 2 books on Amazon Self Publishing: I’ve been compiling a list of book ideas for a while now, and the list is really long! Too many ideas, but nothing created yet. This is the perfect goal where devoting specific time will be needed, and staying on track and holding myself accountable will be so important. I’ve never published a book before, so the process itself related to file preparation, image preparation, proofing, and formatting is going to be a big learning curve. Luckily I’ve found some excellent library resources as well as signed up for Skillshare to take classes from creatives who are sharing their expertise. I’m ready!
- Create 24 new designs/patterns for publishing on Spoonflower and Society6: Over the last few months (since my littlest began preschool) I’ve been able to squeeze in a few more art hours each week. In that time I’ve felt great about producing several new designs. Even now I still have more in-process being finalized for upload. From that effort I’ve learned that it’s possible to keep myself going and I’m feeling great about my artist workflow. A new scanner and more experience using my new touch-pen process for perfecting the seams on my repeat patterns has boosted my confidence that I can make patterns turn out the way I envision them. Now that I’ve ironed out that process, the remaining step for 2018 is simply to keep going. Any fabric/pattern design themes that you want to see come to life? If so, let me know and I’ll add them to my list of possible design ideas!
Personal Resolutions:
- Plank exercise for 90 seconds every day! I have really bad knees from over a decade of tap, jazz, and modern dance, so I’m switching up my barre class routine to only once per month – to help stay toned and healthy I’m adding in a daily plank exercise, using the timer on my phone, which is really good for keeping my core strength up.
- Push-ups every day! I’m sort of a wimp. Yes, though after a year of weekly barre class in 2017 I went from being able to do zero push-ups to being able to do 5 great push-ups, my upper body is definitely not very strong. This goal is easy to do before or after my plank exercise, so this way I can sneak in some upper body strength into my day.
- Eat something fermented (yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, kombucha) every day. There are lots of health crazes going on around food choices, but one thing I feel pretty confident about is that probiotic-containing food is an important part of a balanced and healthy diet, so I’m making an effort to consciously include more fermented foods.
- Stretch for 1 to 10 minutes every day. I remember fondly when I was a dancer and was so much more comfortable in my own body – my plan here is to sneak in some stretching time each evening. Usually I watch at least one episode of an Anime (my favorites right now are The Ancient Magus’ Bride and also Recovery of an MMO Junkie) – perfect for me to sit on the floor and do some gentle stretches during the show. It’s January 4th today and even after 4 days I am already noticing that the daily stretching is making a BIG difference – it feels great!
Looking Back at 2017
One bright spot in 2017 was meeting my postcard goal to create 12 postcards (one per month) as part of a Patreon campaign. Wooo! It really helped to have the monthly obligation to create something new, and over the course of the year, here are the 12 designs I produced, plus two bonus designs I created last week because I was so thrilled to wrap up postcard production.
 January – Bright Year |
 February – Tu B’Shevat |
 March – Purim |
 April – Passover |
 May – Mother’s Day |
 June – Father’s Day |
 July – Memorial & Sympathy |
 August – Rosh Hashannah |
 September – Yom Kippur |
 October – Sukkot |
 November – Hanukkah |
 December – Wedding |
I sent the final postcard of the year to the printer a few days ago, so I expect to add it to my Etsy Shop by the end of January. 🙂 Wooo! I was so thrilled and excited to finish off my 12-card 2017 series that I painted two bonus designs, which are also being printed right now and will show up on Etsy soon. Check them out below:
 “Meowzel Tov” and “Bark Mitzvah” Cards! |
