The days between Christmas and New Years Eve are put there for us to use as days of reflection and time to look through resolutions, goals, achievements and plans. Or at least, that’s what I think. And the first week of January is also a great time to do some journaling, mind mapping and thinking about these very important issues in your life!

A new year is like a new page in a new journal. You can go about it as usual or think about the changes you want to do in your life…

The doors of the year open,
like the doors of language,
onto the unknown.
Last night you said:
tomorrow
we must draw signs,
sketch a landscape, hatch a plot
on the unfolded page
of paper and the day.
Tomorrow we must invent,
anew,
the reality of this world…
Octavio Paz

One year has passed and now one full year ahead with 365 days just for you to make something out of! So, let’s create!

I got a new calendar from my grandmother this week. It’s a thick leather book from a German company where every day is a whole page to write on.

I’ve taken on the Art Card Challenge (please join us!) and I will do one art card each day for at least for 30 days during January. Then we’ll see how that felt. I’ve already cut some cards and I’m eager to start. Kirsty’s advice for taking on a daily challenge is to start small, and I totally agree with her. I’d rather do one creative thing each day than five and feel overwhelmed by it all and giving up during the first week. I think this is manageable for me, but of course I don’t know yet. Though I still think I did something creative 95 % of the days during this year, they were not counted or measured in any way. Or? Maybe I’ll do a post about the items I’ve crafted during this year? I have tried to post about them though I’m very behind right now.

But my mind is jumping around with joy and excitement about the New Year and I think about all the things I want to do… I wish I could add to the list of Dailies My new calendar makes me want to do a daily drawing similar to the ones I’ve seen by Kathrin Jebsen-Marwedel at flickr (her journal pages are like small pieces of art)! The new year seams so long it makes me feel like taking on every challenge there is!

I want to do so many things each day; meditate, exercise, art journaling, blog, take a photo each day (of my daily walks or a self portrait), write in my diary and do some kind of craft too! But of course a daily promise about all these things is impossible. My New Year’s Resolutions will be more mellow but hopefully manageable and doable. Some of them are:

* Feel like a journalist and do more writing, hopefully each day or at least a couple of texts/articles/posts each week!
* Incorporate exercise and movement in my daily life!
* Use Nozbe to keep my goals on track and continue doing Next action! I recently registered and I think this is a great site that helps me focus on what to do before I go into my daily surf hibernation…
* Keep reading about happiness and doing my own happiness project!

I’ve already started a Happiness project, but more on a philosophical level than in reality (because happiness hasn’t felt doable either this year). I feel filled with hope about new adventures now though. I will make a page about this project on my homepage with links and some of the exercises I’ve thought about (and done) from various places! I think we all are on this trip towards more happiness (why would we otherwise read all those self-help-book?) in our life. Now is the time to name it and “start” doing something that takes us there faster and with more efficiency! Everyone needs a Happiness Project, and they are not very difficult to maintain. If you are interested I’ll let you know when that page is up. (I’m adding it to my To do-list at Nozebe as a Next Action right now! ;-)

Oh, another goal I’m adding to my list is this one: Plan more fun things so that I’ll have them to look forward too!

Plan is the most important word in that resolution. You’ve got to plan fun activities for yourself if nobody else is doing it for you, right? I want to take action and start doing instead of feeling nothing is happening in my life. By fun things I mean I want to plan ahead and add sentences to my new calendar like “fika with Inger”, “trip to XXX place”, “going to the museum/park”, “visit the knit café for several hours”, “party with friends”, “date with handsome guy”, “creative course at XXX” and “making papers with mom in the kitchen” etc. According to Gretchen having something to look forward too is very important for your feeling of happiness. This might seam to contradict the Buddhist saying about “being in the now” but when Gretchen wrote about this she said it’s not. Why? Because it might not be the actual event that makes us happy (it might rain on the trip) but the anticipation before the event! If you’re interested read her post A key to happiness: having something to look forward to! It was an eye opener for me, because I had to look back on 2007 as a whole and notice I have had nothing planned at all during this year. Strange, but true. Nothing! Everything has happened without me acting, with me feeling I could do nothing about my circumstances (which I couldn’t) and without me making future plans to change my situation! No trips, no parties, no adventure! That revelation was sad to see but that’s why I’m adding this to my new year’s resolutions:

* Plan more fun things to look forward too!

Strange as it is I have two pages left in my writing diary so I’ll be starting the next one in the new year! I’m going to use this turquoise one that I’ve made myself at a book binding class. It has cream colored blank pages (♥!) that now has round edges (because I got a very cool corner punches for Christmas)! Buying another Moleskine made me calm down about them and it still stands unwrapped in my book shelf waiting for its turn. When I don’t need to feel that longing after a new one I can enjoy other kinds of notebooks more. I made a couple of hand bound books but so far I have been holding of using these precious blank books because they are so unique! But no more, 2008 here we come!

I’m also about to finish my art journal, because yesterday I did several pages at once. I filled my spreads with some of the beautiful wrapping paper I saved at Christmas Eve. I hope you did the same if you have an art journal? I always save some of the papers, but this is the first time I’ve gone totally wild with it. So much fun cutting into that stuff! I also saved some of the labels, post cards and envelopes I’ve received and a couple of very beautiful paper bags with golden butterfly prints on that I got in a store. So new year will mean new calendar, new diary, new art journal and new challenge! Plus new shoes and a new coat that I bought at Christmas sale this week. I’m tired of looking like a bum. And all of those days to fill with happiness, yum!

Below are some inspirational links to the articles I’ve been reading this week. All of them are about setting goals and making resolutions etc. Some are about writing because of my own resolution to write more, but you can skip those if you’re not interested in writing specifically. I hope they help you if you’re in the same mood as me. New Year Anticipation Mood.

I guess I need to stop writing on this post now?

Happy New year darlings, thank everyone of you for being there/here/somewhere!

Inspiration for making new goals, looking forward and backwards on 2007 - and committing to new year resolutions of your own:

Journal recipe: HELLO 2008

The Essence of you - two questions to answer

What am I grateful for, what did I learn in 2007?

The Ultimate guide to New Years Resolutions

Have You Planned Your New Year’s Resolutions?:
“Simply and straightforwardly, the secret to achieving your goals is to turn them into habits.
You know what habits are. They’re activities we engage in without really thinking about them because “it’s just what we always do.” Nobody was born with habits ingrained in their psyche. Behavior is first learned, and then later becomes habitual. So, how do you turn goals into habits? You must train your mind into engaging in the desired behavior on a regular basis.”

Create YOUR Personal Development Plan

14 Tips For Resolutions That Stick in the New Year

20 Questions to Help You Reflect the Past Year:
“Material, Spiritual, Physical and Social prosperity. These four facets give us a complete and balanced view of prosperity. By reflecting on them, you will get a complete view of how your life as a whole progressed in the past year.” [from lifehack.org]

8 Ways to Achieve Success in 2008


6 Guilt-Free Steps To Review Your New Year Resolutions:
“The end of the year is always a good time for me to review my resolutions and take stock of what I have done over the past year.
However, for some people, reviewing New Year resolutions can be a painful affair. Some of you may have goals unaccomplished. A resolution review is just a stark reminder of how little you have achieved. ” [from lifehack.org]

Should You Write a Personal Mission Statement?
“Your personal mission statement should be a concise representation of what’s most important to you, what you desire to focus on, what you want to achieve, and, ultimately, who you want to become. In its purest form, it’s an approach to your life, one that allows you to identify a focus of energy, creativity, and vision in living a life in support of your inner-most beliefs and values.” [from dumb little man]

Cutting through the Crap:
Are you plagued each new year with the esteem-deflating cycle of making and breaking your New Year’s Resolutions before the month of January turns the corner on week two? [by Chris]

Writing:
Five writer/ blogger’s New Year’s resolutions to keep

A Year End Writing Prompt: What Does Your Future Pen Want You to Know?

The Slacker’s Guide To Goal Setting And Writing Success

This week: Make a list. (because that always helps)

Inspiration
PONDERING 2008 by Mae at doc-umenting
Creative writing goals for 2008 from here to create
To Resolve Or Not To Resolve by Alice at futuregirl
The diary project by Kristy Hall [found via CraftyPod]
The Best of 2007 a prompt from Melanie
Start a Happiness Project for 2008! by Gretchen

We made nine (9!) gingerbread houses this year. I decorated three, my cousin Charlotta made three, my brother two and my mother one.

Here they are:

The backside of two of my houses. They are happy houses, can you tell?

The house of death and the Chocolate roof house that my brother made.

(more…)

I’ve been wanting to make small gingerbread houses for more than a year now, but last Christmas we went to fjällen and no houses were made. But this year my sweet cousin wanted to make houses too, so we hooked up and made a couple (nine!) together! I think it was the best day for a long time. We laughed so much and made silly houses and just simply had a good time. I want more days of 2008 to be like this one!

(more…)

Merry Christmas to all of you from me and Smilla.

We’ve had a great great day today and tomorrow we celebrate Christmas with my wonderful family. I’m getting the best present ever and I already know what it is and I can’t wait to open it!

I so hope you’re feeling good, doing what you want with this holiday and that you are where you want to be. Happy, content, loved. I know I am. Please take care of your self, your friends and family and give away lots of love and hugs, okay?

XXXX

The baking is prosponed, maybe Christmas will be canceled? Haha, wouldn’t that be something? No, I’m not worried. I know it will be okay, we’ll all be well in two days I think. And in the meantime I feel like blogging, so I’m going to ramble on because I usually don’t. I tend to plan my posts a bit to much maby? We’ll see, I kind of like writing right now. Did I say that? ;-)

I’ve been making my art in bed lately as you know. I’ve been messing up the duvet cover with pink drips of acrylic paint. One of many thrifted wood trays was standing on the floor next to my bed all along, saying nothing. Not until this week it dawned on me that I could use the tray that I bought. I’m all this will be decoupaged and beautified with rose napkins and white paint later some day… But really, it’s a great steady tray, right? And very usefull for cups of water and acrylic paints when working on a soft bed! Now I’m thinking maybe it shouldn’t go shabby chic but instead artsy fartsy?! Yes, I think so!

This week I grabbed a plastic lid (not in the picture) for a lost bucket of jar (that just had me laughing, I meant to say:) a missplaced jam bucket that was stored in the food cellar. No use for a lid without its bucket you say? Well, it is perfect as a palette! I have been mixing my colours on bits of newspaper and it always creates a mess, which tends to make me use the colours as they are and not mix them very much. That’s just boring. An artist needs a artist’s palette, don’t you agree!?

Recent inspiration comes from the magazine Cloth Paper Scissors that I mentioned yesterday! It’s a collage, mixed media artistic discovery magazine that I’ve loved since they started to publish it and I read every article in it, sometimes twice. I’m still reading the November/December 2007 issue. Artis profile is about Judy Wise whos journals I love. I did even mark some of her quotes which I don’t do in magazines very often. I’ve started a little Book of Quotes (because I love to collect good quotes) and Judy’s words were some of the first I wrote in it. Like this one:

I believe we could all live in a heavenly place if we just put ourselves there.
Judy Wise

She is truly wise!

Another mixed media idol of mine is Kelly Rae Roberts who has written a very inspiring article called Patch it together! Under title: Create free-spirited patchwork paintings using collage elements and paint. With beautiful pictures and easy to follow step-by-step guide.

I’m always fascinated with backgrounds, and that is what her article is about. How to use beautiful papers as backgrounds and make the patchwork blend together to a new whole. Love it! Now, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because I don’t use my scrapbook papers at all because I don’t know what to do with them? Hmm… I’ve decided to start using everything without hesitation. Maybe I’ll add that to my list of news for next year? But I’ve already started!

And I covered the canvas with papers and did a sketch in my journal to see if I could do it, and then on the canvas and it looked like this:

I was supriced over how much I liked the finished little painting. I call it/her Joy. Joy is a redhead with a transparent blue skirt and a lot of happiness to share with the world. She loves her litte bird friend but wants more canvas friends. I’ve allready already patchworked another small canvas, but then I stopped and felt I couldn’t do another one. Maybe I will feel up to it soon again. A cool note: Paulette Insall with her artistic beautiful redheads and other paintings commented on this painting on flickr and that made me so supriced and happy. I mean, that is how I want to paint and here she is telling me my little doodle is So soft and sweet…!

All of this is amazing, don’t you think?

Who could have thought that little me, over here in Sweden, would read a magazine with articles by and about artists that I admire and whoes work I can follow from day to day (in their blogs) and contact from my fingertips without talking to publishers or editors? That they, these cool chicas of art, can come over here and have a look into my world of art and craft too? That you, out there, can read about this? And I can still remember reading about the Internet for the first time - and wondering what it was, feeling that tickling curious feeling in my stomach that I always get when I hear about exiting new things that I know I will have to try! And here we are today…

I could go on, I just wont. hehe.

Sketch in my altered book/art journal:

I know you girls really don’t have time for this… But I’ve made a list of the best magazines I know about journaling and art journals. Please let me know if you know of one I don’t know about?

• Astarte megazine - I just found this zine via Aisling.net, my favorite online expert on art journaling (♥). I don’t think I’ve seen this zine before and it looks very beautiful and filled with fun reading! I love that! And the first issue is downloadable for free! Yippi!
• Page by page - Kira’s beautiful zine about art journaling, now with a issue 2 out. A must have zine for anyone who wants inspiration, great reading and tutorials in the same place. GO Kira!
• Play - beautiful magazines (4 issues) that I bought this summer and still love and enjoy. I’m thinking about splurging on her new art books and back issues of Art and Life because I never sent that order to Amazon I was talking about. I think I need those. Yes I do, but can I afford them?
• Erraticus Zine - Melissas zine in small format is cute and filled with colourful mixed media fun.
• Portals Zine - is still going strong since I got the first issue.
• Edit: I forget about this zine, but of course and oldie but goddie: Artitude Zine! I haven’t read this one in person but it looks yummy and their galleries are huge and worth a look if you want mixed media inspiration!

Not a zine but a very cool magazine is Paper Cloth Scissors, more about some inspiration I found there next… (next post? next year?)

Oh, why did I even start this list. I do this all the time: I was just going to tell you about that first one zine I found and now… gah, and hour later and I’ve been clicking around. And I haven’t blogged about what I was going to write about. And I have 12 windows open!

(my new owl pen - Hanna ♥ owls)

But…
I just joined the group Postcards of Cats, something to look at if you do like kitties! So much cutness oh my gosh!

And, I decided to try to do Aisling’s 7/30/365 Challange that I found out about on her very cool blog wich I recently added to my daily reading (when I deleted quite a couple of blogs that are still beautiful but very “the same” so now I don’t have to read as many feed and oooh how freeing that feels). Oh, well. How about an art challange for next year? I think that is really what I might need, something to look forward too (also needed: a job, a place to live, big projects that makes me money, a trip, a creative course, a plan… hehe). So taking the making a card each day challange is a good start. Now. Who is with me?
Commonnow! Cowabunga! I’ve eaten dinner and lussebullar and done art journaling today, so I’m okay now though I still feel it was a crappy year (sorry, it’s bleak but it’s the truth).

Ooooh… did I tell you about the awesome podcast Aisling has? Nice voice, great topics, very inspirational and what a name: Views from Santa Flamingo - Express your self with art!

Yummy!

It seems so exceptional
Things just work out after all
It’s just another ordinary miracle today

The sun comes up and shines so bright
It disappears again at night
It’s just another ordinary miracle today

I’ve been really sick and that is always awful as you know. I got some kind of ill-willed germ that emptied my stomach and made my body muscles hurt. After one traumatic night I could finally fall asleep, and that felt like coming to heaven. Sleeping is so lovely. I’ve been sleeping heavily for hours and hours and I have not eaten a proper meal yet. I don’t know if I ever want to eat again.

When I drank my first glass of water that felt like the best thing that happened to me this year. It was so delicious, that pure and simple glass of water. When one can’t eat, walk or function one understands how lucky one is after all, in spite of everything.

I have several projects that I want to tell you about, and even some Christmas pages (!) in my art journal that I want to share, but I haven’t been able to sit straight up for a couple of days and now the rest of the family is sick. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write something, maybe not.

Before I became sick I wrote the Christmas cards which made me sad this year. I miss the people I wrote to so much and I would rather go to them and deliver hugs and presents instead of writing postcards from far away. It was hard to keep the Christmas wishes cheerful and happy when I wanted to sob into the cards and damn the circumstances that made this year to what it has been. Next year will have to be a better year, oh how I hope so…

I’ve also folded a paper angel that fellow blogger Jojo created. I think she is awesome (both Jojo and the paper angel). You can get a copy from her here.

I’m listening to Oprah and friends radio - lots of interesting people on, among other Eckhard Tolle! Don’t miss that Ellinor!

The night treads heavily
around yards and dwellings
In places unreached by sun,
the shadows brood
Into our dark house she comes,
bearing lighted candles,
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

Lucia is celebrated in Sweden on December 13th every year. Lucia is presented as a woman (or a girl) with long hair in a white plain dress that looks like a night gown. She walks around with her maids (and gingerbread and star boys), candles in her hair, singing Christmas songs and offering the traditinoal saffron buns that I posted images of yesterday because we did a little false starting on the buns! Who could resist?

The origin of this tradition is forgotten and mixed with all kinds of diverse belives. The origin of Lucia is how ever the story about Saint Lucia of Syracuse, a martyr who died in 304.

I was very fascinated with her story when I was younger, specially the one that originates from the Middle Ages where she stabbed her own eyes out as a response to a suitor who admired her beautiful eyes; “she cut them out and sent them to him, asking to be left in peace thereafter.” She wanted to live as a nun. I’ve even written a story about this event, but I don’t know where it is now.

Anyway, just like the traditions about Christmas many of us have forgetten why we celebrate this day and why the traditions are like they are. In Sweden I think it’s important to always remember to celebrate the light in the darkness of the winter (lux means light). Halfway through December maybe we need the carrier of light and joy to come visit us in the dark morning?

I posted a lot of bun images yesterday, of the traditional saffron buns. You can get the recipe here: Saint Lucia buns!

After Swedish cinnamon rolls these are my favorite - maybe even more so because these buns are season bound and not eaten during the rest of the year (except for December)? That makes them extra disirable, wonderful and something to long for. I love a cold glass of milk and one (or three!) of these saffron buns on a plate together with some gingerbread biscuits! Yummy!

Or if you don’t want it with milk, warm some glögg (mulled wine) with raisin and almond in the cup… That’s what we’re having tonight. Very Swedish all of this, hope you can share some of our tradition, let me know about your own - and don’t forget to light a candle for St Lucia (he patron saint of the blind) too! Plus please enjoy the free downloadable labels I posted below - great for Christmas presents!

Link: More information about Swedish traditions and Lucia - very interesting to read even for Swedes!

Have a great Lucia evening!