There are a lot of people who will do crafts or art, and they will do it with absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. I know that sounds like a normal way to do it, but even though it's normal, doesn't mean it's the right way. I know, I know. There's no "right" way to create. Though that is true, having a plan for your crafting isn't exactly the art itself. It's just a way that you can get more time and enjoyment out of your craft. So here we go. I guess I'll show you guys a certain way to come up with a simple plan. Some people have their plan in their head. And then there are others (like me), who would rather write it all out. In my honest opinion, writing it out is a better way of doing it since then you can see the whole thing; all of your ideas and future plans for working. Especially if you want to start a business selling your crafts, crafting a plan is especially important to the success of your business.
So let's get started in crafting an arting plan. The most important parts of writing a crafting plan is the goals. I know that we briefly touched on the importance of goals in your crafting in the last post, but right now I'd like to just say that you need goals for your crafting plans. I'll give you a couple of examples of good goals in this post, just so you can have a sort of idea of some goals. Feel free to come up with your own, or use mine. The basic idea of goals is to have a bunch of different types of goals. Such as some easy, intermediate, and long term or hard goals. Let's start with goals for ATC making. An easy goal would be to try a new technique; such as working with distress inks, or setting eyelets. A more intermediate goal would be to create something like 30 or so cards within a time limit; say 30 days. Some harder goals would be something like create a card every day for a year, or, perhaps my personal favorite and currently one of my goals, trade 1,001 cards with other artists.
It is important to have more than one type of goal. It's sort of like when you're working with money, trying to save it. Especially as a kid. You have short term goals (like action figures) and at least one long term goal (like a new bike or a car.) It's the same way with crafting. If you have short term goals, you'll have the pleasure and enjoyment that comes with completing something, but the long term goal will give you something to work towards. Another part of your creative/artistic plan, is that you work towards those goals. And you use one spot to track your progress towards those goals. That's sort of what I'm doing with this blog. You however, can do it on a blog if you want, but, if you'd rather, you can do it through notebooks. This also works very well. In fact, before I started this blog, that's what I was doing. I also used a ton of other blogs. But I thought that it would be a better idea to just have one blog and post everything on here. It'll probably work a lot better for me.
So now that I've at least somewhat explained to you the importance of having a plan for your crafting and arting, now it's time to give a type of progress update/first post on my art. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures yet, but I'm hoping that soon, hopefully next time, I should have some. So today I was working on some ATC's for a technique swap I'm in. I think I did two or three. Also, I did a little bit of planning for a clothing line/collection that I'm working on. So far the colors are turquoise, lime green, chocolate brown, and an ivory color. The lime and turquiose are pretty much my favorite colors ever, so you can understand why I picked them, and I just think that chocolate brown goes so well with bright colors. Black is another that works really well in combination with blacks. Also, earlier this afternoon, I actually started a new project. It's a knitted project. Fingerless gloves.
You see, I've been wanting some fingerless gloves for a long time now, but it seems like I'm always broke, even though I don't really buy that much stuff. And these gloves are sometimes going for as much as twenty bucks, which I personally think is ridiculous. So anyways, long story short, I was searching through blogs (like I always do) and I came across somebody who was making these gloves. And I thought 'Hey, I've been wanting some of those! I bet I could do it too...' And then, one thing lead to another and next thing I knew, I had another started project. So these are going to be my first knitted "garment" if you could actually call it that. Also, they have a knitted cable running down the center of the top of the glove. And this is also my first time ever working with cables in general. So here's the dealio. Now you know how normally, when you're working with cables, you need to have an extra needle known as a "cable needle"? Well, I didn't have one. And I didn't have the money/I was too impatient; to go and buy one. So I searched for a tutorial for knitting cables without a cable needle. And it came up with a ton of results.
The first one I found worked like a charm. So that's another lesson. If at first you don't succeed, go do a search! It always works for me. As a side note, the part of the glove I've done so far is about 4" into it or so. And they're black. Yep. Black. I'm more of a bright color girl myself, but I thought I'd try something different for a change, and get away from blues and greens. Plus it was the only thing I had in my stash. Besides a soft baby pink, which is pretty much my least favorite color in the known universe. I don't know why I own it. But who cares. Some people like it, so I'll probably make something with it and sell it. Who knows.
