Chatty Sunday: Plans for 2016

In my last post, I mentioned that I wanted to make a chatty post about my plans for the new year, and I figured today was the best time to do so. The rest of December is jam-packed with holiday prep and events, work and trying to make sure I haven't forgotten anything major. I'm also looking forward to spending some quiet moments with the family, once the holiday celebrations are out of the way.

You may recall my super excited post last year, where I talked about my One Hundred Cards challenge... Sadly, I did not complete that challenge (boo). After some thought, I'd come to the conclusion that it's because it was just too ambitious. 100 cards is a lot - even in a year. While I definitely want to take up this challenge again, I don't think I can make it into a yearly resolution. Instead, it will be an ongoing project - maybe one I can finish in 3 years or 10!

So... For the upcoming year, I decided to scale back quite a bit and make a more reasonable goal. It might sound like a bit of a boring goal, but I'm personally really excited and inspired by it.

In 2016, my goal is to spend the first half of the year just using up my existing supplies. I'm planning on keeping close track of how often I use up my consumables such as adhesives, patterned paper, cardstock and embellishments. At the same time, I plan to also make use of all the stamps and dies I own -- especially those that I've owned for a while. In doing so, I'd like to see if I have any stamp/die themes where I need more variety or areas that are getting too large to use effectively. I'm also thinking about posting my reviews of the products I used up. I know I love reading reviews, as they help me make a better decision about what to buy (or not to buy!), so hopefully all of you out there enjoy them too.

One of my recent big challenges has been finding room for all the supplies I own. A big part of that is my tendency to be prepared, so I stock up on things like extra adhesive, extra cardstock, extra embellishments, ink refills etc etc. However, without a clear idea of how many materials I use up on a regular basis, this can quickly (and easily!) lead to being overstocked. I think I probably have enough re-inkers for my hybrid inks to last me for years, for example. Since all of those things take up valuable stash space, I definitely want to make sure they're being used up. This is especially important because newer and better supplies continue to come out, and I don't want to end up throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of things years from now because they're just not useful.

The only thing I did not stock up for is Copic refills. I'm sure there are a few of them I could really use refills for, but I'm going to try to hold out and either use the palette that still works or switch around to other methods of coloring (pencils, watercolor, etc). I've been meaning to branch out and use all kinds of coloring techniques, so that works out very nicely for me.

For the second half of the year, I'm going to continue using up supplies while making a few small purchases to replenish my consumables and grab those can't-live-without supplies (spoiler: it will be a lot of new Lawn Fawn and Birdie Brown stamps). I'm hoping that those first 6 months will help me make much more informed purchases and help me focus on getting things I really truly need instead of things I'm afraid of running out.

In preparation for this, I've been working on some extra organization in between finishing up my holiday projects/prep. I've made some mini-kits for papers and embellishments, as well as pulled out a few stamps I feel especially inspired to use. As geeky as it might seem, I've really enjoyed planning this out and I'm looking forward to what the new year will bring!

Thanks for reading through my rambly chat.
~Elle~