The lovely Mars over at Curling Stones for Lego People posted her 2014 bead resolution list and it made me think that perhaps I should have my own. After all, if you don’t set goals, how can you expect to meet them? And if you don’t tell at least one person what your goals are, it’s much harder to hold yourself accountable to them (and since I can be rather persuasive in getting myself to do/buy things I probably shouldn’t do/buy, I’m hoping that this will help keep me on the right path ;)).
In a bit of a nod to my previous life with Agile software development (and because my first resolution is quite resolute!), I decided to go with the iterative approach and do resolutions for the first six months of 2014*, at which point I will review and reevaluate:
1. No buying ANY beads until I get a Viking Knot!
Truthfully, I had this as a resolution before I even set about to have a list of resolutions, but it’s a bit of a doozy.
I came to the realization over the holidays that I really need to be super strict with myself if I ever want to get a Viking Knot. Every time I’ve almost had the money for one, I find another bead that I like and convince myself that I can borrow just a bit of my saved money, and then since this puts me further away from my goal again I figure I don’t need to be as strict and I buy another bead … and then I’m even farther from my goal … and you can see how this ends, I’m sure. So I’m hoping that this resolution will really push me to save up the money and finally cross this bead off of my list!
2. Experiment with clay and metal clay
As much as I love Mars’ goal of continuing her foray into lampworking, and although I’ve thought many times about giving it a try myself, I didn’t feel that was a reasonable goal for me (this year, at least). My kids are still young and right now I’m more likely to find the time to do and enjoy my pastimes if they are things that can be completed during nap-time or after the kids go to bed. Plus, flames and small children wouldn’t really mix well. Even more, flames and our curious cats may be disastrous!
While I’m not planning on getting into glass bead making, I did briefly look into metal bead making last year and I’d love to try my hand this year at making a bead using metal clay. But I do feel that I first need to practice a bit on regular clay to come up with an idea that’s good enough to shell out the money for the metal clay ;)
3. Organize my bead box(es)
This is a bit of a simple one, but one I’ve meant to do for months. Shortly after I began collecting, I entered and won a raffle for a beautiful Pandora-branded wooden bead box with a glass top. When it arrived, I was so excited to put my meagre collection in and to start to fill it up. But as my collection grew, I found that it didn’t really work for how I ultimately needed to organize my beads. Although it had two stacked trays, I never used the bottom tray since it wasn’t really convenient to take out the top tray. And while each tray had two larger spots for bracelets, all the other spots were small and held only one or two charms on little pillows which required them to be on ribbons. Most of my Pandora beads were on bracelets and once I started collecting Trollbeads I wanted to be able to store those by colour. I tried taking out the pillows and putting small wooden sticks in to hold my beads, but it still only allowed for at most four to six beads and the little wooden sticks didn’t hold the beads well. I spent a year trying to make it work (since the box really was gorgeous!) but then sent the box off to a home that appreciated it more.
I eventually fashioned an organization system for beads using foam and large binder rings, but that really was meant to only be a stepping stone to a better system that I never got around to. I like the basis of it, but it can definitely be improved. And my bracelets, particularly my leathers, are still just thrown into a jewellery box in a haphazard manner. So, my resolution is to finally find a system that allows my bracelets to be organized properly and my beads to be safely stored while still be easily viewed. And preferably, all this will occur in one box so I don’t have to do a juggling act every time I carry my beads and bracelets downstairs for bead play.
There we go. Three resolutions for six months. I considered trying to encourage myself to finish one of the bracelet designs that I already have on the go, but quickly ruled that out. Since I try to only buy what I love, I have no idea whether I would find enough beads that I loved to complete the bracelet (and I’m not sure any of my full bracelets are really complete anyway since if I did find a bead that I loved that fit on one, I may rearrange the bracelet).
*For anyone who is familiar with Agile development, I know that sprints are usually measured in weeks, not months, so consider this a bit of a deviation. I considered doing it for only the first quarter of 2014, but I wasn’t sure I could hit my first “milestone” by the end of that, which would make for some boring resolutions :D