Spreading My Wings...

Welcome to my first post of 2013 and a very happy new year to you all. I hope you had a great holiday season and aren't struggling too much to get back into the routine of normal life. I for one woke up this morning with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation because this year I have lots of ideas for things I want to do. I had ideas last year too but approached them with something of a 'let's see what happens' attitude. In hindsight that seems to have been no bad thing because generally speaking those ideas came to fruition and that, combined with some unexpected events is what has inspired me to spread my wings even further this year.

One of the things I want to do is expand the range in my components shop THEA too and I will be getting stuck into some new bronze clay designs tomorrow when I've cleared all the little tasks that have accumulated over the holiday. But I also want to work on different techniques so that I can some other mediums to the shop like enameled pieces...

Maybe a few stamped items....

And possibly some etched pieces...

 

I'm not sure when I'll get these underway and that's part of the reason for the excitement since I know I have to sit down and develop some proper plans and realistic timescales. In early April I will be vending at 'The Big Bead Show' with two of my Brit Pack Beader colleagues - I'm sure you can guess who from the picture below... So on top of developing the shop I also have to decide on and make all the stock to take to that which is extremely daunting considering that a year ago I wasn't even making components (other than for myself) let alone considering selling them at a national show!

Something I put off time and time again in 2012 was submitting designs for magazine publication and this is another thing I'd like to address. I have a profile piece going in a UK beading magazine in a few weeks so that's a good start but part of my planning process will focus on scheduling some time to design specifically for magazines. I'm also looking forward to finding some interesting topics to write about for AJE (Art Jewellery Elements) - joining the talented and supportive team there was definitely one of the highlights of last year. There are lots of other ideas bubbling away to but for the time being  I'm trying to keep a leash on those to stop myself going completely barmy.

Are you one of those people who chooses a word or two to focus on each year...? I've never done it before but while I was reflecting on the past year I decided now might be a good time to give it a try and the word I chose was balance. I had so many things going on throughout 2012 it seemed that I was always focusing all my efforts on one particular aspect at any given time while the others went neglected. Then when one task was completed that got ignored in favour of another until it became urgent again. Ultimately there was always something out of kilter.

So this year my aim is to get myself more organised so that I can multi-task more effectively and get a better work life balance. We're only two days in so I can't tell if it's going to work yet and it does go against all my natural inclinations to live life on a knife edge, but needs must as they say.

What have you got up your sleeve for 2013? - I'd love to hear about your plans and what you need to  to do reach your goals.

Lesley