Ok let's recap

So now we are (over) a month and a half into 2009. Where do I stand with my goals? Where do you stand with yours? I'll go first.

1. Be healthier. Well I have to say I have exercised more frequently than in '08 but it's still not where I want to be. I think I've actually gained weight. This is mostly due to a batch of fudge that I made and finished off in record time. We work out together now, which makes it more fun too. We did succeed in abstaining from fast food during all of January so we celebrated Feb 1st by eating McDonald's. It wasn't very good actually, I think the habit has been broken!

2. Quit biting my nails. No progress on this yet, although I haven't been trying. In fact I think I've been doing worse lately. Maybe I should try some of that horrible tasting polish you can buy?

3. Using my day planner. Yay a goal I can say I've actually been working towards! I use it both to track the things I accomplish at work and things for londonpurple like purse parties, etc. Sometimes I do get behind and have to go back and fill in, which it can be tough to remember, but overall I'm doing pretty well!

4. Guest room --> Office. Unfortunately both areas are even worse than before. My method of transforming the guest room so far has just involved dumping everything on the chair or desk. There's boxes, shipping labels and tissue paper piled high on every available surface. I'd love to get this one done soon though.

5. >30 bag inventory. Currently there are 20 bags in my shop, I think the highest I've gotten so far is 23 or 24. I do have 5 bags in progress that got pushed aside when custom orders came in, and a couple prototypes in the works. Hopefully I can finish up the custom ones this week and get back to work. I'm also trying to stock for 2 purse parties and a craft fair in March (more to come on this...).

6. Shortening TAT for custom orders. I think I've gotten better on this but I've still got quite a bit of room for improvement! My BazBiz orders took a loooong time. Currently I've got 2 diaper bags and 1 Chelsea to work on. The first diaper bag really should have been done already but with Valentine's I didn't get much done over the weekend and I am a bit short on supplies, which halted progress last night. Still waiting on fabrics for the other 2 bags actually, hopefully they'll be waiting when I get home tonight! A quick trip to J0-Ann's is in order for this evening (is that even possible?) and then I can get to work.

Overall not a good place to be. Perhaps I should turn these into S.M.A.R.T. goals to help me get motivated?

Yay for 2009!

Happy New Year everyone! Although I signed up for this blog in September, obviously I've been a bit lazy with my posting. But, it's a new year so I thought I'd give this a whirl.

I'd better introduce myself. I'm Brittany, I'm 23 and I'm from the greater Cleveland area. I recently started my own business, london purple! Basically I was accumulating quite a fabric stash (and a finished product stash!) and a friend suggested I start selling my bags. It made sense to me, I love creating purses but it's not really feasible for me to have 18,000 of them. And so london purple was born!

The "theme" of my bags is that they're all named for different areas of London. One of my favorites is the Paddington Travel Bag (named for Paddington Station), a duffel bag that's the perfect size for holding everything you need for a weekend away. My general style is mixing classic solid colored fabrics with fun designer prints, either on the outside for a bag that will stand out or on the inside for a pop of color on a bag you can use every day. I also like functional features like adjustable straps, zipper pockets and reversability. You can check out my current bags for sale at http://londonpurple.etsy.com/. I'm creating new bags all the time!

So that's enough about me! Onto the real post...is everyone else excited about their resolutions? I have many, although I guess I'm not calling them resolutions. Goals for 2009 I would say. So my goals are:

- Eating healthier and exercising more. Isn't this on everyone's list? To do this, my boyfriend and I are abstaining from fast food for one month. This will be interesting, considering we are fast food junkies!

- I'd like to stop biting my nails. It's a really gross habit (even I think so) but it's hard to stop since I've been doing it since kindergarden. Yes I have managed to quit several times, but you get that one broken nail and it all goes downhill from there.

- Using my new day planner! So often I let these things fall by the wayside (hence, why I haven't blogged in months) but I paid a lot of money for a beautiful *pink* handbound planner so I'd love to use it every day! Actually I sketched some quick designs in it today. Let's hope this becomes something I can't go without.

-Turning the desk in the guest bedroom into my london purple office area. Right now my paperwork (receipts, invoices, custom order forms, etc.) is scattered about my sewing room. Not good!

- Building and maintaining an inventory of >30 bags in my shop. This shouldn't be too hard, I have a ton of ideas floating around. Just need to finish up some custom orders first!

- Shortening my TAT for custom orders. This will be tough. Although I love doing custom orders because people often choose fabric combos I wouldn't think of, or sometimes they pick ones I've been dying to do, sometimes it's hard to get the motivation to finish them when I have new ideas I want to try. I also feel bad crafting for myself when I have orders waiting.

I think those are some pretty good goals for the year. I'd love to see some of the things you all plan to do this year!