DON'T FORGET

Just a friendly little reminder that my new site and shop launch tomorrow!! New Found Love will not disappear immediately but all posting will be moved to www.morganalexandra.com, which will go live on Friday May 2, 2014... YAY! Below is a sneak peek at some of the beautiful prizes you could win in the giveaway featuring some of my favorite designers!! Including Rifle Paper Co., Emily Ley, Lara Casey and so many more!

January Goals

2014, goodness gracious I can not believe it is 2014! This year holds many big changes for my life and as a girl who is not to fond of change that is quite scary. I learned many things in 2013 and one of the most important things I learned was to not try to plan out my future. I know only one person knows the future and I know I am safe in His arms. Before I get into my January goals (2014 goals are in the making), I want to look back on my December Goals.

December Goals:

Design the family Christmas Card this is one of my favorite things! I love paper and sending handwritten mail to family and friends

Practice my calligraphy  calligraphy is very challenging but I am working on practicing for a little while each day

Get a present for an Angel Tree child  my roommate Emily and I got a sweet angel a beautiful Belle princess dress

Build a gingerbread house {or barn}  attended the Southern Weddings gingerbread barn building competition with my roommates see our creation here

Wrap Christmas presents beautifully {no rushing!} as usual ran out of time... maybe next year!

Join Lara for Present December I intend on keeping this going!

Practice Adobe Creative Cloud Programs I am learning my way around Indesign, Photoshop, Lightroom, Muse, and Illustrator

Buy or make 5 darling ornaments to give away  I loved doing this! see the lovely ornament I made here

Slowwwdown, spend meaningful time in the Word I still need to set aside time daily in the word. Wanting to start my day with a candle burning, coffee or tea in hand, journal writing, and bible reading!

Begin to work on my new website design I am SO excited about this! A domain has been purchased and I will start sharing sneak peaks soon

Start working through Lara Casey's PowerSheets  I began my PowerSheet journey on December 29, 2013 and PHEW it is kicking my tail into shape! I am so excited about digging deep in this journey and facing my fears head on.

Buy a stranger Starbucks  This was so much fun! I loved the sneakiness of surprising the family in the minivan behind me that their drinks were taken care of by a stranger!

Craft...something! & post a how to  I made and ornament! See how you can too here

Drive around neighborhoods to see Christmas lights  My family did one better! We drove around James Island Holiday Festival of Lights in Charleston, South Carolina. It was absolutely incredible... I highly recommend this light show and the fireworks on New Years Eve!

Coffee or Cupcake dates with friends over finals week  This goal was a favorite of mine. I loved the sweet time I had with two of my best friends to take a second, slow down and be present in each others lives. You can read about it here

Phew, What a month! Now that January is here and a bright, shiny New Year is in front of us, it makes goals that much more exciting. While my 2014 goals are in production, I will leave you with my goals for January!

January Goals

work through Lara Casey's Goal Setting series

continue working on my personal goals for 2014

be completely transparent and honest while working through my set of PowerSheets

begin working on some lovely paper products

keep practicing Adobe programs

work on my new website, YAY!

DAILY quiet time in The Word and my journal

dance around my room to music daily

go on more friend dates

SIMPLIFY

volunteer and serve at a local charity

continue to BE PRESENT

Happy January friends, I would love to hear some of your goals! May this month be the beginning of a great year :)

Bring on 2014!

A new year means new goals, new challenges, and new adventures. Happy New Year friends, may 2014 be the year you MAKE THINGS HAPPEN!

Five on Friday

Joining Christina {here}, April {here}, Natasha {here} and Darci {here} for the weekly Five on Friday link-up! 

{one} I'm going to be a Second Cousin y'all!! It sounds silly but the Jones side of my family is so close. We are lucky that all of the cousins are in roughly a 15 year age range {33 to 19}. Growing up our families would go to the North Carolina coast every summer for vacation as well as have annual holiday gatherings at Grandmom and Granddads. I love how close all us cousins are to each other and how we feel we can call or visit each other whenever! Last week the family received the most exciting news from the oldest cousin Matt, who is married to Christina of Carolina Charm, that they are having a baby!! AHHH I couldn't be more excited!! The news came in the sweetest form of Grandmom finding out...

{two}Does anyone remember Phantom?! When I was little we would take a Phantom with a cute little rhyme on it and a bag full of Halloween goodies and spread the spook around the neighborhood! Otherwise known as the only acceptable time to run around in all black at night and ding-dong-ditch friends...so much fun! This past weekend when I was home I was able to babysit the sweet Johnson kids. When I was brainstorming something fun for us to do, Phantom came to mind! I headed to the store and loaded up on fun things like glow sticks and of course... mustaches!

 Needless to say the mustaches were a hit!

   The kids and I had such a great time! It's always fun to run around and act like a kid :)

{three} Updating a blog is an all consuming task! I love decorating and am a little bit of a perfectionist so I find myself trying to make improvements whenever I can. This week I worked on the logo, getting rid of the pixel look and centering it! I also made a new pin it button and will be working on a blog signature in the next week. Lets just say I definitely enjoy working on the blog more than my building pile of school work.

{four} The State Fair is in town! This is the absolute symbol of fall in the Raleigh area. My roommates and I are lucky enough to live so close to the fair grounds that we can hear the 10 minutes of fireworks everyyyy nighttt from 9:45 to 9:55.... but other than that, I love the fair!

{five} This week was the Making Things Happen conference in Chapel Hill! This inspiring conference was created by the oh so talented Lara Casey and Emily Ley. While I in no way had the funds to be able to attend the conference, I was able to follow along on instagram and twitter with #mthconference. These women are incredibly inspiring... fear is something that drives our lives and unfortunately prevents a lot of people from pursuing what they love.

Fear is something that has followed me all of my life, especially during creating this blog. Fear told me I was not good enough, interesting enough or creative enough to be able to create a successful blog. I often feel inadequate in the blogging world as there are so so many blogs out there that are very similar. I want to stand out in this crazy blogging world and show whoever comes to my site who I truly am. Being transparent, that's what I am aiming for!

Y'all, I have such big dreams for this blog and my life in general! Making Things Happen is all about conquering your fears and pushing yourself to reach your goals today, not tomorrow. We all have something standing in our way of that illusive goal, why not move it out of the way today!

        {via}                                                                                                                                   {via}

Have a Fall filled weekend :)