New Year, New Goals and New Skills

It was a crazy December as usual. We traveled to Connecticut for Christmas to visit my husband's extended family. It was fun to catch up with everyone and to see how much my nieces and nephew have grown. I was also able to meet some fellow EMC Team members in person! I was able to meet Lis-el of Heart of the Fire, Janice of Destinys Creations and Lucia of Gulino Art Jewelry. All of these lovely ladies meet me at Lis-el Art and Soul Gallery! It was great to meet everyone and to talk "shop" with someone in person. Thanks Lis-el for opening your gallery to us for such a lovely chat.

I can not believe it is 2010. It just seems weird to be in a new decade. It also the beginning of a new year and I have slowly begun to realise all of the goals I want to achieve this upcoming year.

I unfortunately received the bad news that I did not pass my Professional Engineering Exam. That was a pretty big blow but after reviewing my test results, I found I did fairly well in the morning and completely bombed the afternoon portion of the exam. The afternoon portion of the exam is a more discipline specific area that I did not have enough time to focus on. Hopefully with some more time spend studying this area I will pass the second go around in April 2010.

One thing I do not want to repeat is how my studying took over my life. I have resolved to be more organized with my time. To actually schedule in my crafting time into my day. Chris not crafting makes for a very unhappy Chris.

This organization of time will be hard because I want to explore some new craft skills. Over Christmas I was able to amass several amazon.com gift cards to purchase a plethora of crafting books that have been on my favorite list since forever. The two that have really capture my attention is Clay Art for Special Occasions by Yukiko Miyai and The Art of Resin Jewelry: Layering, Casting, and Mixed Media Techniques for Creating Vintage to Contemporary Designs by the always crafty Sherri Haab. The lovely bouquet to the left is called the Yellow Mellow Arrangement and can be found in ccbycherrie Etsy shop. I would love to be able to make soft clay flowers like this!

Resin has also captured my attention and hopefully I will be off to the craft store this weekend to get my resin supplies. I fell in love with Quercus Silver Etsy Shop! I absolutely adore her Treasure box resin rings. I love the red one in particular listed above. Check them out.