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.

My annual look back at what I got up to this year.

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. (more…)

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.