Memories, Dreams, and Reflections 2012

This was such a blast last year that I decided to participate again. Enjoy!

1) Me

I took this picture in early September at the Kenosha lakefront.

2) I Love You

This is from our recent trip to San Antonio.

3)  Still Laughing

Why get up when you've figured out a way to do two awesome things at once?

4) Winter Wonderland

We had about the perfect first snow this year. It lasted long enough to be pretty and was light enough not to cause too much chaos.

5) Birthday

I am not a huge fan of cake (more specifically, frosting) so I usually opt for another dessert for my birthday.

6) Friends

We are blessed to have a lot of good friends in Milwaukee.

7) I Was Inspired...

I am continually inspired by some of my favorite places in Milwaukee.

8) Spring Fever

This is another one of my favorite places in Milwaukee.

9) Travel or Vacation

Jake and I got to take a couple vacations this year. We went to the Wisconsin Dells for a long weekend in August and we went to San Antonio (and Austin) this past month.

10) Summer Days

I love summer so much.

11) A Day in My Life

Do I need to say anything about this one?

12) All Smiles

My cousin is blessed to have two little kids. This is her daughter Charlotte.

13) Autumn Harvest

One of my last fall photo shoots before the weather turned cold.

14) Family or Home

 You've seen about ten variations of this picture this year.

15) Celebrate!

I'm pretty proud of everything that I put together for the parties that we hosted this year.

16) Let's do it again...

I had no idea that the annual RSA softball tournament would be so much fun. We're looking forward to the 2013 tournament.

17) I Miss You

I can't believe that my brother and his girlfriend's visit to Milwaukee this summer was already nearly six months ago.

18) Beautiful

I can't explain exactly why this picture makes me so happy.

19) Dress Up

I dressed up as the Morton Salt Girl for Halloween this year.

20) Macro

This photo shoot completely changed what I thought that you could do with macro with a point and shoot.

21) Holidays

This is another point and shoot photo that completely blew my mind.

22) My Favorite

I have so many favorite photos from this year, but this is one of my most recent favorites.

23) Don't Ever Change

I'm not one of those people who laments kids growing up quickly, but it's still amazing how fast it happens.

24) Just Because...So There

I used a duck picture for this prompt last year. As I took a ridiculous plethora of duck pictures in San Antonio last month, I figured that it was only appropriate to use it again.

25) Hopes and Dreams

I have a lot of hopes and dreams as well as, you know, tangible goals, about my writing for 2013.

I hope that you enjoyed this!  Stop by Ashley's blog to check out the other submissions for Memories, Dreams, and Reflections 2012.

2012 Goal Wrap Up

Happy New Year!

I hope that 2013 is getting off to a great for everyone.

2012 is the first year that I ever set long term goals for myself. There are a number of reasons why it seemed like a good time in my life to take on the challenge, and it went well. I'm wrapping up my 2012 goals today and will roll out my 2013 goals later this week.

1.  Have 140 sales on Etsy in my randomcreative shop.
I set this goal with the expectation that having 100 sales for the year would still be considered a success, as I was striving to have 2+ sales per week. As of December 30, I had 94 sales for the year, which works out to approximately 1.8 sales per week. This is a significant increase from 2011. Also, I had quite a few more sales during the latter half of the year, which is exciting.

2. Introduce and continue to develop my new herringbone line and its charm/pendant components.
I did successfully introduce and continue to develop my herringbone designs and charm/pendant components. I have sold a handful of charms and pendants this year. I did sell one herringbone piece at one of my fall craft shows. This is the third year that I've introduced a brand new line for my shop that included a lot of build up and promo, and it's the third year that it's gone nowhere. As I'll discuss more later this week, I'm going to put more of a focus on expanding my existing successful lines. Of course I will not stop experimenting with new ideas, but I'm not going to another big build up for a new line like I have the past few years.

3.  Double my current long term earnings on HubPages.
I reached this goal very early on in 2012, which was really amazing. I did not hit it every month this year, but I reached it for the majority of the months this year. Back in January, I said that ideally I'd like to triple my earnings by the end of the year. Amazingly enough, I did this in both November and  December.

4.  Make at least one new greeting card design per week.
I'm pretty positive that I didn't make one new design per week, but this is largely because my music note design did well at shows during the fall. I put most of my focus the final few months of the year on keeping this design stocked. I still explored a lot of new paper techniques this year, which was fun and a good way to mix up my creative routine, and am glad that I hit on a winner that fits so well with my shop.

5.  Expand my craft show lines.
I'm still kind of in shock how much I was able to expand my craft show lines this year. For my 2011 fall shows, my only new item was button tacks. While some of my lines have been more successful than others, I have a lot of great success to build on in this area for 2013.

6.  Complete a minimum of 6 EBW challenges and 6 BBA challenges.
I met this goal before my October goal check in and backed off for the final few months of the year, largely due to my focus on client writing, the HubPages AP program, and craft shows. As many of you already know, I was also completely through with the EBW team well before October and quit in early December. I'm looking forward to participating in the BBA challenges again in 2013.

7.  Participate in 4-6 craft shows.
During 2012, I participated in two open houses and seven craft fairs. Some shows were much better than others, but overall, I consider it to be a successful year for shows and am looking forward to upping this goal for 2013.

8.  Starting making this blog more profitable.
I'm going to reiterate my comments about this goal from my last check in: I commented during summer check in that I'm making regular earnings from my blog ads and by regular earnings, I mean consistent, not large, amounts of money. Some people thought that this was snarky. Believe me, there are so many snarky things that I could say about this topic that I did not say. That wasn't my intent. I simply don't want a lot of comments asking me how to get rich with this type of blog because I'm not. I put a lot of time into my blog and am happy that it does pay off financially just a little bit.

9.  Better list making organization.
My goal probably should have been to not only better organize my lists but also put them digital form. The truth is that I find writing by hand very satisfying and am not planning to give it up in this aspect of my life any time soon. Regardless, I still did an excellent job organizing my list and keeping up with the new system all year. I even made adaptations to the system as needed.

Thanks for all of the support and encouragement with all of my endeavors during 2012! I look forward to sharing my 2013 goals in a couple days. 

How did your 2012 goals go?

New article:
Spring Photo Ideas
Stamping on Fabric Craft Project Ideas 

2012 Third Quarter Goal Check In

I completely forgot about my quarterly goal check in until pretty late last month. So this is a little late for the third quarter, but better late than never, right? I don't know how many of you remember this, but I set goals for 2012 back in January and have been doing my best to check in with them on a regular basis. You can go back and visit my First Quarter and Second Quarter check ins. Here's how things have been going the past few months.

1.  Have 140 sales on Etsy in my randomcreative shop.
To date, I've had 58 sales in my Etsy shop for 2012. I have still increased my sales frequency slightly since my last check in and am averaging 1.6 sales per week. With the holiday season still ahead, I'm hopeful that I'll hit 100 sales for the year.

2. Introduce and continue to develop my new herringbone line and its charm/pendant components.
I did successfully introduce and continue to develop my herringbone designs and charm/pendant components. I have sold a handful of charms and pendants this year. To date, I have sold zero wrap herringbone pieces, which includes show sales. This is the third year that I've introduced a brand new line for my shop that included a lot of build up and promo, and it's the third year that it's gone nowhere. I will continue to introduce new products in 2013, but I will not do another build up like this. It simply has not paid off for me.

3.  Double my current long term earnings on HubPages.
I did double my earnings in both February and March. Then my earnings and views dropped off after Easter, and it took me a few months to build them back up again. The past couple months I have reached this goal again. Back in January, I said that ideally I'd like to triple my earnings by the end of the year. Now that I have doubled again and am going into the holiday season with seasonal articles already taking off, I'm still hoping that this may happen.

4.  Make at least one new greeting card design per week.
I slowed down with my greeting card production over the summer, but now that I have shows coming up again, this is back in full force. I will meet this goal this year.

5.  Expand my craft show lines.
I have done so much with my new craft show lines this year that it's hard to believe that my only non-jewelry items during my 2011 holiday shows were button magnets and tacks. I have added glass magnets, glass and metal charms, button hair pins, and greeting cards. I love getting to break up my jewelry making routine with other craft projects, which makes it easy to keep these in production as needed throughout the year.

6.  Complete a minimum of 6 EBW challenges and 6 BBA challenges.
I have met this goal for both teams already. I went kind of crazy with the EBW challenges in 2011, which was amazing, but I'm glad that I was able to diversify a little more in 2012. I think that 6 goals for each team was perfect this year. I will most likely complete at least one more challenge for each time before the end of the year, but if it doesn't happen, that's okay, too.

7.  Participate in 4-6 craft shows.
I've already participated in one craft show and two open houses in 2012. I have six craft shows scheduled for the holiday season, so I'm on track to exceed this goal.

8.  Starting making this blog more profitable.
I commented during my last goal check in that I'm making regular earnings from my blog ads and by regular earnings, I mean consistent, not large, amounts of money. Some people thought that this was snarky. Believe me, there are so many snarky things that I could say about this topic that I did not say. That wasn't my intent. I simply don't want a lot of comments asking me how to get rich with this type of blog because I'm not. I put a lot of time into my blog and am happy that it does pay off financially just a little bit.

9.  Better list making organization.
I am so happy about how well my list organization has gone this year. I have separate notebooks for "to do" lists, Etsy listings, and HubPages brainstorming and keyword research as well as a less frequently used notebook for non-jewelry Etsy listings. I have kept up with all of them all year. I have also reworked my "to do" format list a couple times as Jake's schedule has changed and as my freelance writing load has changed. It is so easy to keep doing what you always do because that's what you do and not change what doesn't work anymore. These changes have been for the best, and I'll continue to make revisions as needed in the future.

We're into the final stretch! I'll write a wrap up of my 2012 goals at the end of the year.

How are your 2012 goals going?