Trust God. When you run out of trust, just Obey Him.

It seems like winter is the time I learn a lot about myself and when I see how much I actually need God. I've had so many things I wanted to share on here about what I'm learning but didn't because I wanted this to be a place for "business". Yep, my creative online studio turned in to business...  I'm not sure how I got there and I'm not sure I'm gone either but I know that isn't how I want things to be. Business is good in the fact that it provides for my family, but the reason I am able to have a successful business isn't just about how professional my blog is, or how beautiful my Instagram account is. I'm not saying those don't matter, cause they do, but thats not the entire story.

This blog and business started as some place fun that I could share my heart. I talked about what was happening in my life whether it was art or budgeting or marriage goop. And when I was sharing and speaking boldly from my heart this blog and my business was much more successful. I think there are lots of reasons I could chalk that up to, like people just think I'm interesting, or I got hooked up with the right blog group, but what I really think it was was trusting God. I didn't have some big plan that told me how I was going to use this space and lead me to be successful. I just used what God gave me and knew that it was good.

One thing that I've been hit over the head with a lot lately is that my plans suck. Well, they may actually sound really amazing and it may look like I've got it all figured out. But God says, "Nope, stop planning and just follow me, do as I say and all your needs will be cared for". Like seriously, He says that in the bible in Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?".  I know my value in Christ, I know He sees me as priceless. For heavens sake He DIED for me!! So why do I think He has forgotten what my desires are or that if I don't succeed on my own that my family will never be able to move forward? Like seriously whyyyyy does that plague me so much.

Like I said earlier, that thought process of trying to provide always sneaks back up on me in the Winter months. I think it's because I have time to sit, its slow in business since because it follows the Holidays, our bills are higher than normal because of the cold. So basically the winter sucks. Except for the fact that I can always count on it to lead me right where I need to be. I hate the cold weather, and I hate not having much business come my way BUT each time this happens I am reminded that I need to trust in the Lord and when my trust runs out I need to OBEY Him. I need to boldly trust that if I follow His plan for me that I will not only make it through the winter but that I will be successful in all that I do.

So I pray that each of you will also learn that sometimes our plans aren't what we need. What we need is to trust that our Heavenly Father values us much more than the birds of the air. He is going to take care of you and your family. He wants you to have the desires of your heart so be patient in His timing, trust that He is good, and obey what He says to you.

Love y'all!!

2015 Goals and How I plan to Achieve Them

For New Years Eve Reed and I headed down to Charleston, SC to spend a night with good friends enjoying the coast and lots of bubbly drinks. On our 3 hour drive down we discussed goals we both had for 2015. We are both pretty stoked about our list and think with a bit of elbow grease we should be able to achieve all of them by 2016!! The list is kinda long but I thought I would share a handful with you because I'm hoping to keep you updated through out the year :)

First I'll do a couple of my Business goals.
As an owner of a small business I have a long list of things to learn and improve on but the biggest three for me are advertising, taxes and new products.

Hopefully in the near future I will do a quick write up on some of the easy, cost efficient and most effective ways I've found to advertise. It may be a bit redundant from other sources but I'm hoping to put it in a perspective that other people who have no clue what they are doing with a business can find a little guidance from my years of running blindly :)

TAXESSS. Basically they suck so no surprise they are something I need to get better at. I've had lots of mishaps that I've had to fix and am learning quickly on how I can make this dreaded topic a bit easier on myself. So I'm going to attempt to make taxes cute and somewhat approachable in 2015.

New Products! This is the fun one. Usually I produce a couple new products every month. But this year I want to push myself to produce 2 new "lines" of products and 5 new large scale furniture designs. Thats a lot. BUT I think the more I push myself the larger audience I can reach and with that the more stream line I can make my shop! (I'm working on starting 1 of the lines this January and having 3 of the furniture pieces completed by April!!)

Now, for the family portion of my 2015 goals. These are the ones I am most stoked about.
I may be like super weird, or getting old, but I'm  a big time budgeter. And I love it.
Like seriously there is something about figuring out how to be smart with our money that just makes me giddy in side! (Weird because I hate math and usually anything to do with numbers...) Most of the goals I will be sharing with y'all are for our 2015 budget. We have some big dreams we are wanting to move forward with and the first big step with all of those is figuring out the MONEY side of things.

First things first. Revamp our 2015 budget. I shared our Envelope system with you almost a year ago and we are still rolling with it and LOVE IT. So be on a look out for a revised version and an update on how we feel about it :)

After we tackle that baby we will be adding the 52 Week Money Challenge to our 2015 budget. We are hoping it can be a fun and rewarding thing to keep track of.

The biggest most exciting goal for 2015 is that we are going to PAY OFF THE TRUCKKKKK. Yes, its going to be the hardest part but we are hoping with revamping our budget, and with the 52 Week Challenge that we can achieve finishing off 3 years of payments in just 1 year.

I know this is "supposed" to be an art/craft/DIY blog so you may not understand why I'm sharing so much about dumb numbers (I'm not sure I do either). But I think the biggest lesson I learned in 2014 was that even though I am a creative person, I cant be creative and complete the projects I want with out proper planning on all sides. That means I need to budget my time and money in order to achieve the projects I've so excitedly planned in my sketch book :) I hope you will join me and maybe find some help from a few of these new little "series" that I will be sharing!!