Goal Update

We're 2/3 of the way through 2012.  Can you believe it?  I know I can't quite fathom the idea of going back to school later this month.  I have to go to training today, in fact, so I guess that will kickstart the BTS season for me.

I thought it was an appropriate time to review my cardmaking goals for 2012 and check my progress.  Copied below in italics are my goals that I blogged about in January.  

My sample for Sketch #104

1. I want to do every OWH sketch this year. Past and upcoming sketches together, that will be just over 150 sketches. 

I'm totally on track with goal #1.  I've finished all of the numbered sketches that have been published thus far and I've done most or all of the bonus sketches.  I just need to go back through the bonus sketch document that has them numbered and check them off.  As a sidenote to this goal, I was honored to make the sample cards for two of the sketches earlier this year, #104 and #120!   
 

Some of my best coloring at this point

2. I want to color at least 20% of my cards because I need to develop this skill. This will be hard to track, but can be a guiding percentage as I craft.
20% might have been an unrealistic goal for me in January but I think I might get there by December.  I still don't enjoy coloring, so it's not something I do that often.  It's also really easy to do multiples with pre-colored digis and sometimes I do like to take the easy way out!  (I definitely made about 40 cards with pre-colored digis this week.) Two things that have helped somewhat in this goal are my growing collection of marker colors and having the correct ink, Memento Tuxedo Black.  My images come out without smearing and match my papers better now that I have a few more markers.  The box that's currently filling up has 155 cards of which 20 have coloring.  That's about 13%.  I still have some work to do if I want to make it to 20%. 
 

Fun AnyHero cards using mazes I bought at the Dollar Tree.

3. I want to include at least 1 AnyHero card for every 50 cards I make. I'm often so into the crafting that I neglect to write special messages for our heroes. 
Yes and no on this one.  As you can see in my signature below, I've sent in 215 AnyHero cards this year.  Of those, about 200 were written by my students at school.  If I count only the cards I've personally written, I'm a handful behind.  Good thing that's this week's Midweek Throwdown! 

 

Just one way I am trying to stay organized- this bin holds scraps and a second one like it holds 8.5 x 11" cardstock.

4. Purge then organize my craft room. I saw my aunt's space over the holidays and was enamored with her very organized space. 
Yes, or very nearly so.  I spent a good deal of time on this task in the past two weeks.  I took a carload of items to Goodwill from all over the house including the craft room, purchased new-to-me furniture to provide additional craft storage and workspace, and now have a much more useful craft room. I moved into this house in 2008 and there were some boxes in my craft room that hadn't been used much or at all in that time.  I also had a much, much, much smaller collection of stuff when I moved here.  I think I had two paper punches, a corner rounder and a fleur de lis.  Now I have well over 100.  Previously, I crafted in my craft room and also in the dining room just to have extra space to spread out and use my Cuttlebug.  Now, my Cuttlebug has its own dedicated space so my craft room is much more functional.  The part that remains to be seen is if I can keep the space neat!  It's not a pretty space (my furniture doesn't match, the walls are boring white, etc) but I intend to post pictures soon in case they inspire anyone else on a small budget to overhaul their space. 
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Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 928 blank and 215 AnyHero (as of 6/26)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.