Christmas Already?

In case you don't know me well, I love Christmas.  And crafting.  And crafting for Christmas.  Basically it is an excuse to make fun things and give them away to people I love, two of my favorite things.

You might think that having a toddler around would curtail this little hobby, but I could as soon give up air, or ice cream, as I could give up crafting.  I simply had to streamline a little and make it a year-long process.  Sounds insane, I know.  But it really isn't that bad!  Especially if you wake up dreaming of crafting and spend too much time on Pinterest like me.

Since people seemed shocked by my slightly obsessive hobby, I thought I'd write this post to give some insight into my Christmas organization.

Step 1: Make a list of the people you plan to give gifts to.  I keep mine in a Google Spreadsheet so I can access it from anywhere. 

• Column 1: Person's Name.  
• Column 2: Gift Idea #1
• Column 3: Gift Idea #2
• Etc.
• Column 6: Future Ideas(See Step 3)

Once you've make your list, you can easily copy it from one year to the next, adding and subtracting people as necessary.

Step 2: Keep your eyes and ears open.  If my husband mentions in April that he'd love a Red Ryder BB Gun, I run home and put it on my list.  If I'm passing through a store or on a website and see something my father would like, I run home and put it on the list. 

Step 3: Reduce. About mid-year, give or take a month, I start to look over my list with a critical eye.  I think about how much time each project will take and make sure I only have one or two time-consuming projects and the rest are simple.  Time consuming to me means something that cannot be completed in one 2-3 hour nap period.  Any rejected ideas are simply moved to the future ideas column and saved for next Christmas.

Step 4: Repetition.  Now that I have a bunch of feasible ideas, I start thinking about which ones can be repeated.  Example: My mother-in-law would like this idea I have for my mom if I simply use a different color.  It is usually easier to make 2 or 3 of the same thing than a bunch of different projects so I double up wherever I can. 

Step 5: Fill in the holes.  There are usually a few people that you can't accommodate using the repetition step.  You know, the picky ones that have everything.  I actively seek out ideas of these people by searching online and complete the list.  Sorry, this is just explaining how I do it.  I can't actually give you ideas for all those difficult people.

Step 6: Project List.  Working from my "people" spreadsheet, I make another spreadsheet of projects and what it will take to make them.

• Column 1: Project Name
• Column 2: Quantity
• Column 3: Goal Completion Date (See Step 8)
• Column 4: Supply #1
• Column 5: Quantity
• Column 6: Supply #2
• Column 7: Quantity
• Etc.
• Column 16: Source (example: website of original idea)

This year I decided to increase the quantity of some of my more practical projects and keep one for myself.  Might as well, eh?

Step 7: Shopping List. Copy and pasting from my project supply spreadsheet I grouped and gathered all my supplies together into one master shopping list.  Then I sorted by store.  Printed list.  Put in purse.  Now whenever I go to one of those stores I can check for sales to save money or I can buy it all at once to save time.  Depends on which one you have less of.

For fun, here is a sneak peek at my shopping list for this year.  I've blacked out a few things that might reveal too much.  But you can have fun guessing with the rest.

Step 8: Schedule. Think about which projects are time consuming or or questionable quality and should be started first.  Perhaps some are perishable and need to be done close to Christmas.  Fill in your goal completion date or month.

Note that steps 3 through 8 only take a couple days for me, mom days at that!  It is just the little bump in the road between being open to ideas and making them.

Voila!  Organized and ready to craft at a moment's notice!