As promised, here is August’s checklist!

In August, it is all about planning your craft projects. As you have seen in a previous post, I have already begun designing my Christmas cards. I will finalize all my designs this month but will post them over time for you to see. I will also share my craft gifts that I am making.

Christmas Card List

This is another document I created once and then just keep up to date. I created an excel spreadsheet with each person I want to send a Christmas Card to along with their mailing address. I send to around 200 people so I group them into categories also so I can filter by these categories when I review the information each year.

If you have not picked up on it by now, I am a very organized person. As a Project Manager, I track all aspects of a project and this project is no different. In my spreadsheet, I also track which card design I send each person. I shared that I create many different designs each year and I love nothing more than sending a different card to people that might see someone else’s card. I assign out the designs and track them year to year. This way, if I have leftovers from one year, I can make sure not to duplicate the design to someone the next year. I know, this might be taking it too far. You can feel free to disregard this section if you wish 😉

Gift Giving

Spend August continuing to develop gift ideas for your list. I don’t necessarily start buying gifts, unless it is something I see that I will not be able to get later (I love gift shopping when I travel). But every time I have an idea I record it, because I KNOW I will not remember it later.

I also make sure to inventory what I might have already purchased (remember the trips in the first half of the year?), I add these items to my master gift list. I try to keep gifts I buy early in the same location. This is a lesson learned when I “lost” gifts and was not able to find them until after Christmas 😦

The Full Checklist

If you are anything like me, you are frustrated right now because I am only sharing the tasks for the month, and you want to look ahead and customize it in advance, so you are ready. I get it. So here is my full project plan for Christmas.

There are items on here that may not pertain to you and there are probably tasks missing. Remember I am in Florida so there are no tasks for building a snowman, snowball fights, and snow angels. Though I miss those items I would prefer to be warm and not have the tasks of shoveling the driveway and hanging lights in the cold. I do really miss being able to cuddle up in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot cocoa but wait until you see what I do!

Throughout this Christmas planning, I would LOVE to hear all about your traditions and the tasks you add or change to prepare. I hope I can learn from you as well! So please comment and share! I would also LOVE to see pictures of your creations 🙂