I'm Still Here

I've been feeling better for a few days now but have been using that time to make a few Christmas gifts and get them ready for shipping. I would show you what I've made but I don't want to take a chance on spoiling what little surprise there will be. ;- ) And I know I forgot to take pictures of a couple of the items. My bad.

I do have something to share though. For a couple of years now I've been using a form I developed to keep track of the various projects I was either working on or wanted to work on. The day came, however, when I wanted something more visual to keep me motivated. I sketched out some ideas in my studio journal:

I went to our local Office Depot to see what they might have that I could use or adapt. I'd looked at project boards and flow charts online. There are white boards and such that could have worked were they not so expensive and so stinky. I was beginning to think I would have to shelve this project when I found packages of cork strips. I bought them in the hope that I'd be able to find something at home on which to mount them. Turns out I had the perfect thing!

This is a piece of bead board my husband had turned into an easel for displaying the fairy dolls I used to make and sell. I took off the easel part, removed the protruding screws, and stuck the cork strips down with the adhesive tape that came in the packages. It's about 12 inches by 15 inches.

I also found these at Office Depot:

How could I not buy them?!

So now I have this hanging on the wall over my desk in the studio:

Working from left to right, the first column is for projects I want to make or have committed to making but I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do yet. The second column is for projects I've begun, the third for Works in Progress (I'm well into them but they're not close to being done yet). The fourth column is currently labeled "Flimsy," meaning the top is complete and I have to make a back. The fifth column is for quilts that need binding. The last column on the right is where I'm pinning the projects that have made their way all across the board and are DONE! I'm using the two horizontal strips across the bottom to pin up ideas for future projects.

So far this system is working pretty well. I think I'm going to need to fine tune the "Flimsy" and "Binding" columns but I haven't quite figured out what I want to do yet. The DONE! column is filling up in a satisfying way. The child in me enjoys marching the squares across the board as the projects progress from one stage to the next. I can easily arrange and rearrange priorities too. I've pinned up my Ben&Jerry's bumper sticker right below the board to remind myself "If it's not fun why do it?"