Celebrating 2010 | My Creative Achievements List

According to Gretchen Rubin, Lytton Strachey observed, “Perhaps the best test of a man’s intelligence is his capacity for making a summary.”

I love summing up my life and writing long lists of this and that. Today I choose to look back a bit on 2010, and a few of my achievements. Here is a list of a few of the things that I accomplished during 2010:

1. I got more involved in the embroidery guild and am now the board’s secretary
2. Continued to work with the member’s magazine, being one of three people in the editorial “staff”
3. Wrote quite a few articles for the two issues of that embroidery magazines that came out this year
4. I took the cover photo for the summer issue and…
5. …was responsible for collecting material for the December issue for the first time!
6. I went to Denmark for one of the editorial meetings
7. I arranged my first postcard swap on my blog and counted 160 participants!
8. I experimented with making cloth paper using tissue paper (and wrote a tutorial)
9. I made my first big vision board that has been up on my wall all year
10. I finished the brown quilt and was very happy with it (sitting wrapped in it as I write this)
11. Didn’t craft very much but I have been knitting a little bit and finished two projects the last day of the year, so I will post pictures of those later
12. So didn’t craft as much as usual BUT did more art and collages than ever before!
13. I continued to sew in paper and had a blast with that
14. I wrote extensively about how to keep a travel journal
15. my article on travel journals was published in the Australian zine Mixtape
16. Via the crusades I started using tissue paper in my art journal
17. and then later did a class called Layers of tissue paper at 21 secrets
18. started another blog just for writing in Swedish
19. Registered an account at Google analytics to keep track of blog statistics
20. Was asked about having a sponsor but never got around to do anything about it
21. I continued to be fascinated by zine publishing and reprinted my own Mettazine issue 1 several times!
22. The Mettazine was a small but nice bestseller in my etsy shop and for the first time I enjoyed listing new items
23. I discovered how much I love the whole zine process but still did not take the time to make issue 2! :-/
24. thought a lot about writing but didn’t find a good writing habit that I could be satisfied with
25. I did layout for a digital photo album with photos from 2008
26. I started photo albums for both 2009 and 2010 but have not been keeping up with those
27. I collected my favorite colour in a colour sketchbook and became even more inspired by colours and colour collecting!
28. Created the Art Journal series Monochromatic pages and did pages in ruby red, green, turqouise, pink, and orange
29. I experimented with actions, textures and other fun stuff in Photoshop
30. From my flickr favorite photos by other people I created monthly Inspiration Mosaics that I tried to publish on the blog at the end of each month
31. I wrote a blog post for Archive along
32. Discovered TweetDeck and understood the meaning of twitter
33. started to tweet and went from a few followers to +610 followers!
34. Helped my friend Elisabeth set up her blog Textila inslag and am looking forward to more of her inspiring posts (she is born blogger and got great posts up straight away)
35. Worked extensively writing texts for a friend’s homepage for his consulting company
36. I fell in love with using brown paper as my canvas and…
37. …doodled big
38. I also started making miniature books and made several of those booklet style
39. I created owl collages that sold in my Etsy shop!
40. I finished and framed my mixed media embroidery series Fly photo of an Inner Landscape I – III
41. I created the poster for my embroidery group exhibit (and put it up around town)
42. I participated in our Embroidery Exhibition, my first!
43. Sold the green embroidery at the exhibit!
44. My profile was published in Vickie Howell?s book Craft Corps!
45. I created two embroidered Artist Trading Cards for me and one that I traded to my mom
46. Embroidered a lot of fishes for my embroidery group’s Ocean Themed swap
47. Started to go through stuff at my parent’s attic and then sold old stuff at a outdoor flea market with mom one weekend
48. I decided to fill a Moleskine notebook in the Sketchbook Project
49. One of my blog posts was published in the e-zine The Art Journal Journey
50. I was interviewed by Connie in her series 30 journals in 30 days
51. I filmed and edited my first flip through video
52. I bought a lot of plastic containers to organize my office supplies etc
53. I was invited by Connie to create a class for her online event 21 secrets
54. Sold the 21 secrets class via my blog as an affiliate and earned good money
55. So then I filmed and edited my first class and had a blast!
56. Inspired by Alisa Burke I painted fabric – this is something I want to do more of
57. I sewed together a colourful patchwork magic bag with those painted fabrics
58. After a few owl collages I created a series of Imaginary Boyfriend Collages and learned the joy of working in a series of artwork!
59. Was interviewed about journal writing by Kristin Donovan of Journaling Saves
60. Fell further in love with my sketchbook theme grids and lines through collage
61. Wove a cloth base for further textile work
62. Created my own embroidered Slow cloth inspired by Jude Hill
63. Started my first artistic try at abstract painting on wood…
64. …and was pleased with the finished painting, now hanging on my wall
65. Started a few more abstract paintings but non of those is finished yet
66. Worked and meditated almost daily during August
67. Decided to do the November project Art Every Day
68. Created 30 collages during that month, and have sold 2 of those
69. Found Pinterest and started to “pin down” images that inspire me there
70. Helped mom selling stuff at a indoor Craft Market in our town for two days
71. Took, was inspired and did art journal projects from the classes in 21 secrets
72. Was invited to participate in Pam Harrison’s Winter Holiday Cookie Recipe Swap with my & mom’s saffron buns
73. Made another baking video with music posted on youtube
74. Celebrated my Nikon d5 camera’s fifth birthday with a new project idea for 2011
75. Used my camera more than every second day this year (190 days of 365)
76. Started to re-read and edit old blog posts from 2008 for a blog book. I read through eight months of them before I got derailed.
77. Made two hand bound journals created with sewn pages and envelopes (inspired by Mary Ann Moss)
78. I visited one open for everyone Embroidery Caf? this year
79. I created a Project Page on my blog where I’ve listed big finished and ongoing projects
80. I did 8 of 10 art journal crusades with the street team
81. I bought a ♥ smart phone (htc wildfire) and did take a few photos using phone camera + photo apps
82. Sewed together a very pretty December Journal at the last minute
83. I created 195 posts for this blog
84. I wrote quite a few morning pages and filled about three notebooks with div journaling
85. I knitted a pair of gray socks (I wore them once and then they some how ended up in the washing machine and shrunk)
86. I read 40 books (The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin among my favorites) and watched a lot of movies too
87. Inspired tons of people worldwide to be creative! (added later)

Celebrating my accomplishments

I can not say 2010 was my best year so far or even among my favorite ones. I did not accomplished any big things from my life list during the year. I didn’t travel much, I did not take any creative classes, I have spend far too little time with my friends. My achievements are rather small and mostly experimental. But experimenting is moving forward and I have written this list of achievements as a reminder that even if I didn’t get my dream job or make enough money during 2010 I am moving forward. I was inspired by Lisa Call’s 100 accomplishments list and even though I did not get to 100 the list is enough for now. I still do a lot of things. I am not lazy! What you do in this world, small or big, is worth something. It is worth celebrating! So hears to a year well lived!

I continue to find inspiration and live my “projects”. I find myself happy when I work toward a goal and that is why I set them. I know my fears and have to keep trying not to let them rule my life. This list is about remembering some of my creative achievements in 2010! :-) I hope you are creating a similar list of your biggest achievements during 2010. Cooking, traveling, learning, walking, documenting life, a day job, taking care of your children and/or scrapbooking also counts! ;-)