I can hardly believe that we're in the last few days of 2011!
While most folks are making New Year's Resolutions to lose weight, quit smoking
or exercise more, I'm thinking about how I can cram more beading into the
coming year. I'll sit down with my sketchbooks and my journals and take a good
look at what I've accomplished in the last twelve months, and then I make a
plan for what I would like to do in the coming year.
So as I prepare for my January Earring-a-Day Challenge, I'm
also thinking about what else I want to accomplish with my beads this year:
1. Get back
into making large-scale beadwork. Back in 2003, I started doing large-scale
beadwork and intricate bead embroidered collars and cuffs. I chugged along with
those until I had my son in 2008, and then I took a little bit of a beading
break to focus on taking care of him. Now that he's in preschool and I'm back
to working full-time, I've decided that I am ready to start working on some
intricate, large-scale pieces of beadwork again. And good thing, too - my sketchbooks
are overflowing with ideas and designs!
2. Send out
those pesky teaching proposals. I've had more than a few bead shops
approach me about teaching my designs lately, and I've been putting off writing
up those class proposals. The nice thing about this task is that once I've done
it, I probably won't have to do it again for a very long time!
3.
Learn
kumihimo. When my good friend from Florida came and visited me back in
October, she brought with her dozens of kumihimo cords that she had been
working on, all embellished with sparkling crystal beads. I couldn't get over
how beautiful and supple they were, and I've decided that this is going to be
the year that I will learn kumihimo!
4. Enter at
least one beading competition. For years, I've been tossing around the idea
of entering some of my beadwork into a major beading competition. Well, enough
tossing. 2012 is going to be the year that I finish some new beading designs
and get them entered in a competition!
5. Get to
work on "the book". Something else that has been floating around in my head:
a few ideas for beading books. I've been doodling and sketching and beading up
little swatches and samples, and now I think I'm finally ready to sit down and
start knocking out these projects and putting them together. Stay tuned!
Do you make beading New Year's Resolutions? What are they?
How do you track your progress?
And don't forget - if you're interested in joining our
Earring-a-Day Challenge here on Beading Daily, head on over to the new Bead
Along page and get all the details! We're going to challenge ourselves to find
some time to bead every day, try some new techniques (soutache, anyone?) and
see if we can't whip up thirty-one brand new pairs of beaded earrings this
month!
Bead Happy and Happy New Year!
Jennifer