Earlier this month, I set out to accomplish a few small goals this year. If you didn’t read my 2010 resolutions post, you can read it here. So here’s an update as of today, January 24, 2010.

#1 I will make at least 3 cards per month using scraps, tools, and/or supplies I’ve had in my stash for a while.

January Update: I’ve made 10 cards using existing supplies. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I figured out a trick though: stick to most commonly-used themes such as: happy birthday, thank you, hello, with sympathy, congrats, and get well soon. Once I figured out the right combination I created 10 cards using these themes, knowing that these would most likely be used over the next couple months.

#2 I will mail a card to a friend at least once a month.

January Update: I’ve mailed 2 cards to friends this month! One to my friend Lauren who celebrated a birthday last week, and another to my new friends Gabby and her husband Brian. They invited us over for a lovely dinner and a game of Ninja Burger (which, if you’re familiar with Steve Jackson games, is a lot of fun). So I wanted to thank them for their hospitality with a card. To accomplish this task, it helped to know in advance who’d be celebrating birthdays this month. Facebook is a huge help since it often notifies me the week of if anyone on my friends list is celebrating a birthday. I have started to make it a habit to also add birthdays and anniversaries to iCal on my Mac.

#3 I will evaluate my crafting stash at least once a quarter and give away or sell items I haven’t used, won’t use, or don’t like.

January Update: Well since this is a quarterly event, the only headway I’ve made on this one is scheduling a time at the end of February to begin evaluating my stash and making a pile of stuff I don’t want or need anymore

I’m pretty proud of myself for having such a great start this month. Let’s hope I can keep this up in February! I’ll also update my progress then as well

Ok, last year I made a resolution be more goal-oriented. Did I meet it? I’m not sure really. The momentum I had in the beginning waned halfway through the year, however, I did have little spurts of momentum after that. And in fact, I worked on staying motivated and organized throughout the year even up until now so I guess that counts for something right?

Well, I think getting organized and being more goal-oriented last year has helped me think of things I want to work on this year. And now that I know what a smart goal is, this year I’ve come up with goal statements that are, as smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

So here’s the first one:

#1: I will make at least 3 cards per month using scraps, tools, and/or supplies I’ve had in my stash for a while.

This is a no brainer! Use what I have and buy only what I need. If anything, now’s the time to be frugal (at least in my case) and since there’s probably no chance I’ll give up my hobby all together, I’m going to have to manage my stash better.

#2: I will mail a card to a friend at least once a month.

This one kinda ties into my “use what I have” resolution. There’s no use in buying all of this stuff if none of it ever gets used for it’s intended purpose. And when I say intended purpose, I don’t just mean the creation part, I mean the giving part as well. We make handmade things like cards and scrapbook pages because we want others to enjoy them so why not do our best to follow through with that? It only makes sense. There’s no use in buying the stuff, making the card, blogging about it, and then letting the card sit in a shoe box and collect dust!

#3: I will evaluate my crafting stash at least once a quarter and give away or sell items I haven’t used, won’t use, or don’t like.

Over the past couple years I’ve purchased a lot of stuff (obviously) and I’m discovering that I do need to size down especially since my craft space is literally taking over my bedroom. So I decided I would try to take regular inventory of my stash and quarterly just seemed more appropriate (monthly would have just been overkill).

Ok, so when I hit the publish button, that means I’m accepting responsibility for them from this day on! Do you have any resolutions this year? Post a blog response or a comment below!