Considering I drew my outfit before Christmas, you’d think I’d have gotten this post up sooner! I’m still deciding how/if to do these updates this year – if you want me to continue, go enter the giveaway and tell me so!

What I did in December

Loads of Christmas and market prep, had an amazing day at the Holiday Hullabaloo, decorated a tiny tree, sold loads of diaries, had a nice quiet Christmas. I also added a new snowy banner to my blog – have you spotted it yet?

Things I bought for myself

A tiny Christmas tree, a bunny lamp, a dress with birds on it, a bone from Tado, some new records, loads of zines. My first piece of Le Creuset cookware (and now I want more – it’s awesome stuff!) Oh, and a trip to Boat of Garten, to tie in with my visit up North in the next couple of months.

Reading, Watching, Playing

If you want to read about my favourite records, books, zines and events of 2001, you can check out my end of year lists at diskant. I also finally started reviewing stuff at I Like Zines.

Nothing To See Here by Anne Ward
I feel like we’ve been waiting years for this but it was worth the wait. The book version of Anne’s ace blog, this pocket-sized guidebook contains some of the oddest and most interesting places to visit in Scotland. Perfect for anyone who likes to get off the tourist trail and a refreshing change from all those ’10 Places everyone MUST visit’ type lists. The descriptions are all great and there’s loads of photos too. Get your copy here.

The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle by Sara Wheeler
Really interesting book about the people who live in the Arctic Circle. It’s easy to forget quite how many countries are partly in the Arctic but she visits them all and describes the lives of the inhabitants, visitors and scientific communities. Bit of a coincidence that I ended up reading this around the same time as Frozen Planet was on the BBC  - the last couple of episodes cover some of the same ground. The book is way more in depth though and includes lots of personal anecdotes as well as discussion on climate change, and some of the history of Arctic exploration. I feel like I learnt a lot, even if only that ‘lowly member of Polar expedition team’ is bottom of my career plans since it pretty much always involves frostbite, living in a cave for 2 years and having to eat your boots.

Animal Crossing
I always end up picking up Animal Crossing again in the winter – not only is the snow really pretty, but it’s a nice way of wasting whatever time you have. I’ll probably stop again once work gets back up to speed but it’s been fun hanging out with my animal friends again. I would like to pay off the last of my mortgage to Tom Nook though – only 300,000 bells to go, you extortionist! Also really makes me want a new Animal Crossing game. Please tell me there’s one on the cards Nintendo.

The Adventures of Tintin
I picked up this collection of the animated series super-cheap in Fopp and  it still holds up pretty well. Shame the DVDs are so cheaply made they didn’t even bother joining up the 2 part episodes so you get titles and a recap after 15 minutes. They’ve done a good job of cutting down the stories to fit in half an hour, though some of the accents are lamentable. Also, I’d forgotten that story where they get abducted by aliens – what the hell was that all about? I’m guessing that’s not on the list for a movie remake.

iPhone app of the month

Etsy (Free!)
I am well impressed with this app. Not only can I relist sold items and answer emails anywhere, but it actually notifies me every time I sell something, unlike the sadly rubbish Shopify app which would tell me 5 days later. Haven’t bought anything with it yet but the buyer part looks really good too.

New Product Round-up

- Fabric Fat Quarters
- What I Wore – free zine

Online sales

Items sold on Shopify: 31
Items sold on Etsy: 30
Items sold on Folksy: 23
Items sold on DaWanda: 38

Pretty quiet December, I have to say. Sold a lot more pricier items this year though so maybe it all evens out. I need to update my annual sales spreadsheet and see!

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…)

So late this month! December has been really busy so it took ages to draw my outfit. If you’ve met me recently, I have probably been wearing this dress – it’s so comfy! I have also instigated a ‘use it or lose it’ policy on my wardrobe and was pleased to discover my ancient dayglo orange Rocket Dog trainers now fit me better. You’ll also be glad to hear my ubiquitous grey cords finally fell apart so I have new trousers to draw next month.

What I did in November

Lots of web designing and wholesale order fulfilling. Ordered lots of fun new products. Went to visit Claire’s house in the country. Showed Marci & Deth around Glasgow. Sold my iPhone and DS Lite. Visited the new Wholefoods – insane. Spent way too much time battling with the awful broken new online postage service. And most momentously, had a new buzzer system installed in our building! Only took 5.5 years of complaining.

Things I bought for myself

Zelda 3DS! A lot of zines, some cute masking tape stickers, a Christmassy top.

Reading, Watching, Playing

I have SO MANY ZINES to write about. I’ve been swithering about where to post them, and I think it will be I Like Zines so go follow that if you want to read about some awesome stuff soon.

Ocarina of Time 3D
Which came with my fancy Zelda 3DS of course. I have played Ocarina before on the N64 but it is one of the greatest games ever so I was pretty excited to play it again. I’m already about 2/3 of the way through and it’s still awesome. The 3D effects are pretty cool too, though I am a panicky gamer so I have to turn it off when there’s actual stuff to be done as you have to hold it pretty still to get the 3D to look right. Finding it’s not as difficult as I remember either – pretty much right on the edge of my skill level (I’m a 2D top-down gamer really). A few things are almost impossible with the different controls though – I am totally useless with a bow and the targeting is worse than ever. Yeah, thanks Navi – it’s those torches I want to kill, not the big ghosts hurting me. Hoping I can complete it this time!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
This was totally great – one of the best western animated films I’ve seen in a while. If you don’t enjoy watching food fall from the sky then I pity you.

Shackleton
I read the book this is based on while on a train back from London with my cut up hand so I was pleased to find this on 4OD. It’s a big epic 2 part TV movie and covers the whole story of Shackleton’s disastrous expedition across Antarctica when their ship gets stuck in the ice. It’s an amazing story and really well made. Check out the making-of documentary too – they actually filmed it on ice floes around Greenland and nearly got stuck themselves.

Fringe
Poor Fringe is getting a rough deal this season, which is awful as it’s still one of my favourite shows on TV. It didn’t even get to air all the episodes in this mini-season thanks to baseball or something. I have no idea where this season’s plotlines are going but the alternate universes stuff is done so well, and all the characters are so great, I’m happy just to watch and see. Fingers crossed they get to finish it off properly.

iPhone app of the month

Quora(Free!)
I signed up for the website a while back but never remembered to check it. Now it’s on my iPhone, I can have a browse every now and again. Basically Quora is where you ask a question on a topic and experts in that field will attempt to answer it for you. The experts can be anything from a hobbyist or fan to people working on that actual project. It’s a bit hit or miss at the moment – a lot of really interesting questions sit unanswered if there aren’t many experts in that area. Obviously the more people that sign up, the more chance of getting a good answer so why not join in?

New Product Round-up

- Cakeify Letter Set
- Hello Cakeify Tote Bag
- 2012 Calendar Magnets
- Cookie Cute Ornament Postcard

Online sales

Items sold on Shopify: 43
Items sold on Etsy: 41
Items sold on Folksy: 14
Items sold on DaWanda: 38

It doesn’t feel as busy as last November but then it’s only just started feeling like Winter, let alone Christmas. Hoping for a bit more of a rush in the next couple of weeks. Really pleased how many 5 Year Diaries I’ve sold though!

Boring outfit again. I have bought some new clothes but it’s still too warm for winter clothes since the shops all have their heating up too high. I had a cardigan on one day in town and thought I was going to die from heat exhaustion. That isn’t stopping me from wearing my pompom hat at any opportunity though.

What I did in October

A lot – I did blog 19 times. Started a global sales map and Facebook page. Added a bunch of new stockists. Made the Arecibo message in perler beads. Finished the new Miso Funky website. Looked at the Moon a lot. Went to Renegade London and Legoland. Announced my new Cookie Cute range of products, and my 5 year diary. Made some ghosts and had a spooky giveaway. Ordered lots of cool stuff from Moo. Designed quite a few custom address labels. Made it to fourth place in the Spoonflower ornament contest. Added new stuff to Zazzle. Had another murder in the area. Busy month!

Things I bought for myself

An iPhone 4s (yay!), plus a Rilakkuma screen protector and a Cakeify case (the latter still to arrive). A dress with little birds on it. A few secondhand books and a couple of zines. And all I bought in London was a little bear bowl, a Lego minifig of myself and a kawaii Christmas pudding ornament from Paperchase. I fear I’ve become too successful at not buying things.

Reading, Watching, Playing

Really need to make an effort to finish some of the books on my pile. Instead I’ve been re-reading old books so I can discover they’re not as good as I remembered and donate them.

Tintin

Well, they did an amazing job. Of cutting out everything I liked about these stories and replacing them with crazy action stunts and 3D nonsense. So disappointing. I try to be understanding about adaptations but I hate this trend of rewriting perfectly exciting storylines to make them more ACTION-PACKED and to stuff in some pop culture references and Hollywood twaddle about believing in yourself. See also the Narnia movies. I found the ending totally baffling – did they really undo a clever twist about the treasure not being buried at sea but actually at home, and instead set up a sequel where they go on an adventure to find the treasure? Well done everyone. Other than that, and my constant confusion at wondering how they were going to fit all of the 3rd book in the next 20 minutes, it was an enjoyable film for kids though the animation was so realistic as to be distracting. I’m off to add the original animations to my Lovefilm list.

Alice in Wonderland

The Tim Burton version. Everyone hated this so I was surprised that I really enjoyed it. Hardcore Alice fans probably had a me watching Tintin experience and it was totally stupid making a sequel that is basically the same story but it kept me entertained and the effects were really well done. Would watch again.

iPhone app of the month

Instagram (Free!)

I am so glad to have a new iPhone that actually opens apps and lets them work at a usable speed. I haven’t gone too crazy with new apps yet ‘cos it’s still exciting being able to use to old ones properly, but I do like Instagram a lot.Basically like a cross between Flickr and Hipstamatic, you can post photos from your phone and give them various effects. A lot of my favourite creative friends are on it, and ‘cos people can only post 1 photo at a time, I rarely get overwhelmed by new updates.

New Product Round-up

- Kawaii 5 Year Diary
- Cookie Cute Christmas Cards
- Cookie Cute Gift Wrap
- Cookie Cute Badge Set

Online sales

Items sold on Shopify: 19
Items sold on Etsy: 15
Items sold on Folksy: 16
Items sold on DaWanda: 16

Hey, almost equal! I don’t think that’s happened before.

I don’t think I liked September. I was just starting to enjoy Autumn when it swung back to Summer (but with torrential rain) and it all went by too quickly. I did get to wear my bunny dress though, and my balloon shoes, while hanging out with my workmates eating sausage rolls. My kind of party.

What I did in September

Did a load of web design work, added customer accounts and a mobile theme to my shop, played with a lot of perler beads, designed all my Christmas products and some fun stuff for my Moo prize voucher, invented ghoasters.

Things I bought for myself

A bunch of 1p Amazon books, lots of zines, perler beads, a cute jumper with deer on it, train tickets to London, 3 records (Mogwai, Nicola Roberts, Pet Shop Boys).

Reading, Watching, Playing

NANA 19-21 by Ai Yazawa
Oh no! I didn’t realise Ai Yazawa had abandoned NANA due to illness. I hope she gets better soon and feels able to continue. At least she managed to end it at a point with a major character death and a few clues that the other characters’ futures are much happier than previously hinted. Blimey.

Futurama
Started a bit patchy but got pretty amazing at the end and the season ender was one of the best ever – Futurama in an 80s Japanese anime style was hilarious.

Sherlock Holmes
I pretty much only watched this so I would be able to make fun of it. This is the Victorian steampunk Hollywood movie and compared to the BBC version, it’s a travesty, but it is quite enjoyable in a stupid way. I particularly liked how the plot made no sense.

Norwegian Wood
One of my favourite books but the film made me want to gnaw my own arms off. Too melodramatic and anguished. I had to give in half an hour from the end as it was all far too depressing. Looked lovely though.

iPhone app of the month

SkySafari (starts from £1.99)
Yay for free upgrades. I forget what the occasion was, but everyone got an upgrade from the cheapo version to a professional version. Considering the professional ones are all over £10 this was awesome. Anyway, it’s a virtual night sky so you can check what that is you’re looking at. I used it to confirm that yes, that was indeed Jupiter. Would be even better if Glasgow’s skies were dark enough to see anything less bright than Jupiter and if I had an iPhone 4 with the compass stuff but it’s still pretty great at showing the right area of sky for you. Also, it automatically switches to red light when it’s dark so as not to mess with your telescope viewing, which is always fun.

New Product Round-up

- Cakeify and Friends Sticky Notes
- Cutie Fruity Coasters
- Kokeshi Flowers Coasters

Online sales

Items sold on Shopify: 7
Items sold on Etsy: 24
Items sold on Folksy: 11
Items sold on DaWanda: 10

Another reason I dislike September – slow sales month but I have to pay out loads of money on preparations for Christmas. Can’t wait to launch all the new stuff though.