So, it seems Winter has finally arrived. We didn’t get any snow, but instead we got freezing fog which is almost as much fun. I wandered home from town via the new supermarket and Glasgow Green and I was amazing how unfamiliar everything looked. It was also a good test for my new furry jacket, which held up brilliantly – it’s so warm. I’m glad I don’t have to draw it though.

Other than that, I have mostly been waiting for things to arrive. I have a whole bunch of new products in the post so hopefully my postman will bring them soon and I can show you. There’s still time to pick up some cards and gifts for Valentine’s Day though – I gave Mr Pancake a little upgrade so he now comes with a pretty yellow envelope! Perfect for Pancake Day too :)

I wasn’t really prepared for Day in the Life, but I jotted some things down so here you go. Sorry I didn’t take a single photo!

What I Did

1. Won a luxury champagne cruise for 2 on Loch Lomond in the work draw. Unexpected!

2. Invited Claire on aforesaid cruise as our joint birthday outing. Let’s hope for some reasonably warm weather .

3. Got a payslip in the post and NOTHING ELSE. Lame post for 8 days and counting

4. Wondered how exactly they get Amazon super saver parcels to arrive 5 days later than standard mail. Is it a special service via Belgium? Claire suggests yaks are involved. To be fair, I remember when I worked at the sorting office, the second class mail would get ditched under the table the very second even a single first class letter arrived.

5. Discovered it was also Hourly Comic Day and enjoyed following Edward Ross’s day.

6. Was so cold I had to go find a warmer jumper, and actually put socks on.

7. Watched people slowly start bidding on the Plan B magazines I listed on eBay at the weekend. Please take them so I don’t have to bin them.

8. Checked on all my printing products – all still queued for printing, sigh.

9. Wondered if I might be getting addicted to sourdough bread

10. Paid my Etsy and Folksy bills. $20 to Etsy, how did that happen?

11. Got a bit excited when Pusheen the Cat requested to follow me on Twitter

12. Coveted a Japanese enamel kettle

13. Bought the live action Paradise Kiss DVD from YesAsia. I hope the subtitles aren’t too atrocious and the adaptation also isn’t too atrocious.

14. Made pancakes for dinner. Because I can. And it’s almost Pancake Day.

15. Randomly made an Etsy treasury of mountains (see top of post).

16. Had a peek at the Moon, Jupiter and Venus all hanging out together

17. Ditched all my plans and went to bed at 9:30pm because it was cold and I was tired out. Mind you, I read for hours.

What I Ate

An actual proper breakfast of cereal, oats, 9 hours out of date yogurt, half a banana and a cup of tea. A hardboiled egg on sourdough toast, cheese on sourdough bread, some carrot sticks and a cup of coffee for lunch. A bag of Quavers. Some dark chocolate caramels from Thorntons. Some water. A ham and cheese pancake. Peppermint tea.

Check out Nikki’s blog to read about everyone else’s days.

So, how are all you 5 year diary owners getting on? I’m pretty pleased to have finished 7 months of entries and I only missed a couple of days. I was using a prototype from July last year to make sure everything worked as expected. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider that pushing half the pages to the back temporarily would mean half the years are wrong in my diary so I am still in 2011, oops.

Those of you with real actual diaries should have just completed your first month so how are you finding it and what are you recording? Mine seem to be mostly what I got in the post, what I worked on, where I went and what I watched on TV. I kind of wish I’d noted the weather or what I ate every day but then I might not have stuck to it so easily.

At some point after I became self-employed, I starting thinking of daytime reading as an unacceptable indulgence, probably because I love reading and could happily do it all day every day. However, this does mean I don’t get as much reading done as I would like and my unread magazine pile is growing at an alarming rate*. I was waiting to meet Katy in West the other day and enjoyed my peppermint tea and book above so much that I am now allowing myself a reading outing at least once a week. I can go anywhere I like and have lunch and/or tea and/or cake and read whatever I like from my unread pile.

I realise it’s a bit sad that I have to resolve to spend more time doing fun things, but it is hard when you run your own business(es) in that there’s always something you could be doing. I’m posting them as an irregular series on I Like Zines, if you fancy keeping up with my reading and eating choices. That practically makes it a business expense…

*which is especially pathetic as I only buy 3 magazines regularly.

I liked 2011, but found it extremely annoying to say, so I’m glad we’re into Twenty Twelve. According to my fortune from Animal Crossing I’m going to be Super Lucky this year. Let’s hope so.

So, how did I get on with my resolutions? Well, some good, some bad.

The Good

Project Clearout was a great success – by the end of the year, I was pretty much addicted and getting rid of things that would have upset me greatly in January. I’m going to post up some tips soon in case you’re in the same boat this year.

My publishing projects went well too – I got my Kawaii Japan book and 5 Year Diary published, updated my Tokyo Shopping Guide and finished a few more zines. I’ve got a couple more zines on the go just now that I hope to get up for sale soon. Plus, of course, I set up Pushpin, so it’s been a zine-filled year.

And I successfully completed another 12 months of What I Wore drawings and collected them in a free zine.

The Bad

My new Shopify theme never got far, though I did so much Shopify work in 2011 that I have plans aplenty for when I do get the time.

My graphics tablet was a sad casualty of an upgrade – Photoshop CS5 goes completely doolally when my tablet is installed. Hopefully Adobe have fixed the issue by now – I should check.

My mum still hasn’t got a sewing machine so I ended up putting my fabric up for sale instead. Hopefully we can get this collaboration going in 2012.

And I still haven’t been commenting much, though I do heart a lot of things in Tumblr and Instagram.

I’ll carry those over as extras but here are ten things I want to do in 2012.

1. Draw more! After 2 years of What I Wore drawings, I’m a bit bored of Illustrator and so it’s time to get back to my sketchbook. I plan to do some watercolours and lino printing and share something every month.

2. Make a big decision. I still can’t decide what direction to take Asking For Trouble. I’m ready for an investment but which way to go? Trade Fairs? Licensing? PR? I need to choose one and push on.

3. Book Clearout. While I got rid of loads of books last year, I still have an enormous pile of books to read. I want to have read or ditched them all by the end of the year, with a good amount gone by July 1st.

4. Learn about fabric design. Not being a quilter, I don’t really do the whole collection thing with stripes and basics as a buyer or a designer. The fabric industry is all about collections though, so I’d like to have a go at learning all the rules I already own Lizzy House’s ebook and the True Up Field Guide to Fabric Design so I have lots of things to try.

5. Explore more. I’ve just been totting up my holiday allowance at p/t job and I only took 5 days off in the entire year! There’s been a real lack of trips in 2011, especially to new places. This year I’d like to take more short breaks and day trips. On my wish list – Portmeirion, the Isle of Wight, Skye, and I’ve already picked up a deal for a couple of days in Boat of Garten near Aviemore.

6. Answer emails. I am getting worse and worse at responding to emails promptly. Partly it’s forgetfulness/busyness, but often I get lengthy and/or bizarre emails and eventually I end up just deleting them as answering 3 months later feels even more weird. I’m going to try and respond to most emails within 24 hours, even just to say thanks, I’ll get back to you later.

7. Finish my zines. I’ve been working on a bunch of stuff this year, but I’d like the contents of my zine planning folders to either be part of published zines or deleted by the end of 2012. I’d especially like to get my Zelda zine, my space zine and my 2 how-to zines published.

8. Review your zines. I want to do more to promote the zines I love to read, so I’m going to make the effort to post about the majority of zines I read over the next 12 months, over at I Like Zines.

9. New eats. I’m in a bit of rut with food as I tend to use my favourite ingredient combinations over and over in different ways. I’m going to make a little book collating all the recipes I’ve bookmarked and try and make something from it at least once a month. I’ve already made the booklet and now I am hungry.

10. Contact 5 scary people. I’m exaggerating, but there are a few shops I have always had in mind as dream stockists and I sometimes come across other great opportunities for my products. I’m always putting them off for another year until I do x, y and z but I’m going to actually contact 5 of them this year and see what happens.

Well, that’s what I’m excited about doing this year, but no doubt 2012 has its own plans for me.

January

I made a book! And that was about it.

February

Project Clearout got underway, as I sold loads of stuff I probably wasn’t ever going to use again. Goodbye typewriter I wrote all my early zines on! My mum also came to visit, to help me get rid of things and I made some new products and a silly free zine about hats.

March

It doesn’t look like much but slicing my hand open was quite the gamechanger this year. Nothing like sitting at home on your own for a month with 1.5 hands to make you consider your plans for the future. I did manage to get down to London at least, which involved both the ace Pet Shop Boys ballet and a  visit to the Royal Observatory. We also got new windows installed (still amazing) and I did lots of design work for my friend Jo’s lovely wedding.

April

Mostly a month of sitting around waiting for my hand to heal but buying fresh flowers regularly cheered me up a lot. I also designed a load of new fabric patterns.

May

I took myself Up North to visit my parents and met these fun guys at Macduff aquarium. I also bought too many books and started work on an updated Tokyo Shopping Guide.

June

In June I opened up Pushpin Zines, and did my first zine fair – I’ve really loved running Pushpin this year and hope to introduce even more folks to zines in 2012. I also made a new zine, my guide to Glasgow (which has been really popular, yay) and designed even more new fabrics.

July

I finally made something with my own fabric – some placemats for my dad and some tea towels. I finished work on a secret project – my 5 Year Diary!  I also completed my new Tokyo Shopping Guide zine and launched some new products including new gift wrap. My sister came to visit (and helped me pack gift wrap!) and then I went down to London to sell at Anime Con, and climbed all the way up The Monument for no particular reason.

August

You’d think August was a fairly safe month to book a holiday but not in Scotland. Me and Claire ended up having a very rainy two days in Rothesay. At least it stopped raining long enough for me to try a Top Hat ice cream. I also made two mini trips to Edinburgh to hang out with JGram and do another zine fair

September

I spent a lot of time playing with perler beads, inventing ghoasters and making a big Arecibo message. I also designed and ordered all my Christmas products and updated my shop design.

October

I spent a large part of October looking at the Moon and forcing everyone to go look at Jupiter. My little childhood telescope is not really up to the job of anything further away than the Moon, but I still got this nice fuzzy photo. I also finally got a new iPhone, which cheered me up no end. I was back in London for a last-minute jaunt to see the Renegade craft market, though we were more excited by our day trip to Legoland! It was pretty awesome and my love of Lego has been reignited. I made some pocket ghosts for fun and came fourth in the Spoonflower ornaments contest with my cookies (and sold loads of them, yay).

November

November was mostly a month of payoff – all the planning I’d done in September/October finally resulted in new products, new wholesale accounts and a lot of orders. It was also a month of house change as my dad came to do some DIY, my flatmate did a lot of painting and we finally got our buzzer system replaced, after 5.5 years of frustration dealing with postmen, couriers and other delivery persons! Project Clearout continued well, except for inheriting a gigantic 5 volume encyclopedia. It is awesome though. My epic trading sequence to get a Zelda 3DS was much more productive.

December

We finally got some snow in December, but it didn’t last long and instead was unseasonably warm with added hurricanes and gales. Bah. I spent most of the month battling with Royal Mail’s new improved totally broken online postage system (thanks for that!) and made some cute Christmas cards. I then went into full-on holiday mode and spent the rest of the month doing nothing more than playing Nintendo, watching TV, eating and catching up on a year’s worth of sleep. Mind you, I still managed to get one last zine out, collecting all my What I Wore drawings.

Looking back, 2011 wasn’t that big a year for me – I didn’t even go any further than London. It was a good year though and I achieved a lot, but I probably need to push things a bit further next year. Expect some changes!

Well, 2011 is almost over so I best post something about Christmas before it’s too late. I don’t really do Christmas soI can’t promise it will be exciting. Above are most of my gifts including lots of Paperchase and Lego stuff from my sister!

My Christmas Eve tradition is digging out my Gamecube and Animal Crossing, pulling up a year’s worth of weeds, stomping on all the cockroaches in my neglected house and then hunting up Jingle the reindeer for some gifts. It’s really pretty with the snow and the tree lights and has so many more fun things than the DS version, like balloons and Halloween and getting a gold statue of yourself when you pay off your mortgage.

On the right, a Lego minifig ice cube! They are really ace, except having Lego men floating face down in your drink feels a bit wrong.

Christmas noms – fancy dinner at Malmaison with my workmates at 5pm. Tablet ice cream on Boxing Day. Would eat again.

And finally, my bestest present – the bunny lamp I have been coveting from John Lewis. It was a bit out of  my budget but everyone else loves it too so I got it with my Christmas money. Plus, since I saw it, my main bedroom light fitting fell apart and had to be replaced and then the bulb blew on my beside lamp. You can’t argue against that. Hope you all had a good Christmas too.

Well, it’s almost the end of 2011, which means another 12 months of what I wore drawings. I’ve decided to stop drawing them so regularly next year so it seemed like a good time to collect all the ones I’ve done so far into a zine. I’m rather pleased with the cover, which took me all of fifteen minutes and yet looks like a real book you might see in a shop.

The zine is FREE to download so go get yourself a copy from Pushpin Zines. You should check out the rest of the zines on offer too – there’s some great new stuff available.

PS. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

I’ve packed and shipped all my orders, wrapped and posted all my gifts and have one more day of work to do – then I have two whole weeks off! I’ve closed my Folksy and DaWanda shops, but my own shop and Etsy will stay open, though orders may not be posted until January 5th.

While I am looking forward to having a bit of a rest, I’ve got plenty of projects planned. I’ve already started on a couple of zines I hope to finish soon. I’ve also got a little giveaway planned to thank you all for your support so look out for that!

These are a few photos from my weekend wander around Glasgow Green. Quite a contrast between the icy river and the warm winter garden.

I saw this tiny (real!) Christmas tree in M&S and had to buy it since a) I am tiny and b) I only like Christmas a tiny amount. It was pretty cute already but I thought I should add a few tiny decorations.

I thought I would probably have enough phone charms to use, but most of them were too big or had long loops. I had to keep the little orange guy though as it’s too cute. I clipped a bunny brooch on the top of the tree, that I made previously from felt easter decorations.

The rest are made from stickers! The square ones are by Moo (from my gift wrap sets) and the others are from my collection. I just found two the same and stuck them together with a loop of thread in between. The paper doves look particularly nice.

I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. If I can keep it alive I can change the decorations after Christmas – I’m thinking some pompom ribbon would be cute.