HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to 2012! Seems like only yesterday it was the beginning of 2011.

My sister and I were talking this weekend as we had Christmas together at her house. She and I always have good ideas of things to make everyone for Christmas, but never quite get everything finished. We are both notorius for giving slightly 'unfinished' gifts to our family, only to ask for the gifts back to finish!

My sister mentioned a blog she had seen where it was suggested to sew an hour a day, 12 days a month, for 12 months and see how much could be accomplished with that dedicated time. (See the Sew 12 button on my blog to link to the original post.) So this year, my sister, mom, and I agreed to challenge each other in the '12 step challenge'. So last night while the men were watching football, we made the rules for our challenge.

All three of us committed to doing crafty pursuits for an hour a day, 12 days a month, for the next 12 months. If you get more crafty time a day, GREAT! but you can't use the 'extra' time for a day when you don't craft. Since we all have numerous UFO's (unfinished objects for the non-crafter), part of the challenge is to finish these UFO's before starting new projects. We used a fairly loose definition of UFO's - if you already have the majority of the materials needed for the project, it can be counted as a UFO. Another part of the challenge is to use your stash since we are all trying to get organized and get rid of stuff! My sister and I will hold each other accountable by blogging and Facebook. Mom will keep a journal of what she does and spends since she doesn't blog. If you want to follow my sister's progress, her blog is http://cutsnstitches.blogspot.com/

My sister and I want to allow our income from crafty pursuits to offset our expenses, but Mom doesn't want it to be too complicated. Alicia and I may have a side challenge going since she teaches sewing and embroidery classes, and I sell finished items. We'll iron out (no pun intended) these details soon, since there will be a winner to this challenge. And we need to decide a prize. But I figure that if we get 144 hours of dedicated sewing time and can clean out stashes, we all win!