Have a Sequintastic New Year!

Hi there, bloggy friends!

I've decided to cut my Blogcation short and share some fun things with you.

• The first is my New Year's present to myself... an order of Sequins from Cartwright's Sequins! All in neutral colors for beading cabochons.

• The second is a series of posts on New Year's resolutions. Each one offers a different take on the idea.

From Scoutie Girl, a post on New Day resolutions. I love the idea of having a resolution for just a day instead of a whole year -- it's much less intimidating and lets our goals change as time changes. My resolution for yesterday was to make a Barbie handbag:

(Awesome doll photography by Mr. Sequin.)

(Ken makes a guest appearance to ask: when am I going to make him some clothes???)

From Scoutie Girl a year ago, making an "I did" list for the year. I did this last year, and I'm going to do it again this year. There's something about looking back on the cool things I did during the year instead of the things I failed to do that gives me a serious surge of energy and makes me want to keep going.

From Mayi Carles, a post on setting small goals to create the snowball effect. I'm going to try this with fitness stuff, since exercise has always been something I fight with myself about. I'd much rather bead! Or eat raisins... and I hate raisins.

• The third and final thing is my word for the year. I'm not sure where this concept came from, but it's really intriguing to me. For 2011, my word was health, and it proved to be a very relevant word. For 2012, my word was fun, and while it didn't turn out to be as meaningful as the first one, I did have a lot of it.

For this year, my word is bravery. It's the one I struggle with the most -- finding courage to be who I am, to follow my own path in spite of all the people in the world (including me) who believe I should do something safer, to get my work noticed, and to try new things. To stand up to myself and for myself when things get rough.

And also... bravery to get back into fiction writing! I've created a writing blog, where I'll focus on fiction, good books, and spooky stuff, in case anyone's interested.

Now it's your turn: Do you have any resolutions, or words, for the new year? Or do you like the idea of daily resolutions better? I'd really love your input!

Thanks for reading and commenting, and have a sequintastic New Year! <3