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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

It's Talk time Tuesday with Ask Jo~



Hello my sweet friends!
Welcome back to another Talk time Tuesday! I hope everyone had a great weekend and a beautiful Easter! Our family always gets together every year for an early dinner and a fun filled afternoon and evening down on the boardwalk here at the New Jersey shore coast. It was a very cold and dreary day. We even had a few rain drops here and there. So most of our boardwalk time was spent inside an arcade. We did have a great time overall. Here are just a few photos from my Easter Holiday with the family. 
Family Dinner
 
Ski Ball-Left to right, my niece, cousin and daughter

Carousel Ride L-my cousin, R-my daughter 

The entire Family

So moving on, today's question comes from Karen L. who wants to know, " Do you usually finish a project within a specific time frame or do you work on it over time? Also, do you have any unfinished crafts that you never seem to complete? How do you motivate yourself to complete those projects, or do you just scrap them (or take them apart) after a certain period of time? Those unfinished crafts always seem to haunt me and I wonder if they'll ever be finished?"

  Hello Karen!

Well Karen these are some great questions and I am willing to bet there are a ton of my readers that are facing the same problem.  Okay so let me answer your first question first. When I sit down to work on a project, my mindset is to finish it right then and there. I have always worked this way. I would go to crops and see people working on more than one album or would be working on a new project while the other one was sitting there drying from stickles or whatever. I could never understand how people could work on more than one project at a time. Today, I still don't know how they do it lol. I have to finish a project before I start another one. That is just my mindset. Now because I do have health problems, there are times that I'm unable to finish a project. During those times, I will work on a project until the pain becomes too much to deal with. At that time, I will just walk away from it, go rest and come back to it later. But I still will not start a new project until the one I was working on is finished. 

Your second question, " Do I have any unfinished crafts that I never seem to complete"? YES! I have quite a few craft projects that I have set to the side that I know I want to do, but just haven't found the time to do it. I actually have a crate full of altered wood projects that I would like to get to. I also have a running "to do" list of projects that I would like to cross off my list. I hope to get to them very soon :)

How do I motivate myself to complete my projects? I honestly can say that I talk to myself all the time (i know sounds crazy lol) and remind myself that those projects are still sitting there. And when I do this, I keep my mind on it and I keep it at the top of my list of things to do once some free time opens up for me. I am a very busy person. While I do not have a job that I go to work at ( I am disabled), I do still have a job at home. I am a full time mom to a 12 year old that I homeschool. Schooling my daughter takes up a good few hours during the day and when I am not in teacher mode, I am in mom mode. Anyone knows that being a parent is a full time job in itself. Also, I am a designer and I am currently on a few design teams and so those obligations come before my personal crafts. Add to that, I am disabled and I suffer from a great deal of ailments that cause my body to be in pain 24/7. My body can only take so much and then I need to lay down and rest. So when that small window of "free time" does open up for me, I will go get crafty. So those crafts that sit neglected right now, will eventually become a finished project as soon as time allows it. But I never think negatively about it nor tell myself that I'll "never get to it". I keep it in the forefront of my mind and I look for those windows of time for me to go grab a project and work on it. 

I have never taken a project apart and redone it and I have never thrown anything out just because I couldn't get to it. I enjoy looking back at my work when I first started crafting because it shows how far I have come in the crafting industry. My work in the beginning looks like a 5 year old did it LOL ... but it was who I was back then and it allows me to look back and see how much my style has evolved. Never redo your projects, they are a small fraction of the crafter you are now... you had to start somewhere right? :)

As far as having those unfinished projects haunting you... My only response to you Karen, is why? Why are you allowing them to haunt you? There is no time limit. These are YOUR projects that you will do at your own pace. These projects do not need to be rushed. 

 Look at those projects as a positive for you.. a way to have some alone time, something to do when there is nothing else to do. And if you are that worried about getting them done, schedule the time into your days so that you are making time to craft. If you see a window of time during the week of an extra hour or two that you have open, set that time to craft a project that has been sitting there for awhile. :)

I hope my answers have helped you a little bit today Karen. I really do appreciate you taking the time to write in. I hope to hear from you again soon! 


Well friends, that is it for today. Please write in with questions you want answered or topics you would like to see talked about during our Tuesdays together :) 

 Thanks for stopping by and until next time.... Enjoy life's blessings~




6 comments:

  1. What fabulous pictures of your family!! It looks like you had a wonderful Easter!! Have a great day!! Big hugs :)

    Lisa
    A Mermaid's Crafts

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  2. So fun to see pictures of your Easter! Looks like you guys had a wonderful time! :) I'm generally a one at a time crafter too (unless I'm preparing kits for a crop and sadly I still have a few of those from a crop I did years ago that I still never got around to finishing). :)

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  3. Great picture of your family! looks like you all had a great time

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  4. Awesome family picture!! I am so glad you had a wonderful Easter with family! So sorry you had a cold and dreary day tho :( We actually had pretty decent weather-in the high 40's and sun shining, yay! Now we are in for cold and snow this week, bummer :(
    Have a great day~
    Sherrie K

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  5. Wow, I somehow missed seeing your answer to my question, so thanks so much for such a detailed reply! Your Easter get together looks wonderful and you are lucky to have such a fun family. My parents are both gone now and half of my family lives over 400 miles away so our holiday dinners are much smaller now. With two adorable granddaughters though, they are full of activity. Your advice to schedule time to work on those projects that sit unfinished, and continue to bother me, is a great one. I have about 10 layouts that need journaling and titles, but that I never get to. Recently, I put them all in a box next to my craft table and am going to finish them up before I start something new. The satisfaction I'll feel as I add them to my album will be worth it! My new motto is, simple and done is better than fancy and never finished.

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Your lovely comments always put a smile on my face! I love reading each and every one! Thank you for stopping by~
Hugs,
~Jo~