So Fearless Goals 05.11.2015 (My Portfolio Site Launched!)

I hope everyone had a very happy Mother's Day! I was lucky enough to spend a good portion of it with my mom and my Grandma, who in my opinion are some of the coolest people ever. After a busy week of finals, I was happy to spend a nice Sunday with my family.

Let's talk about last week's goals.
• Personal: Get a new sketchbook - Done! I received a 55% off coupon from A.C. Moore and walked ran to the store.
• Financial: Look up better ways to keep track of my finances - Not really. When I realized I didn't achieve this goal Sunday afternoon, I looked up some articles through Pinterest, but nothing really made think "woah, that's the system I need to use!" If you have any ideas or suggestions, I'm all for it!
• Work: Get going on my website - Done! I launched it Saturday night! You can now officially visit melissahebbe.com. Be sure to stop by and let me know what you think. For now, I put up 3 final projects. One new branding project will be put up on the site later in the summer once that organization launches the new branding.
• Health: Start yoga back up again - Done! I went to two classes last week and have two or three classes scheduled for this week. I'm loving yoga and the new studio I joined. I even bought a new yoga mat.

Now for this week's goals:
• Personal: Work on my garden. - My sister and I wanted to grow a garden this year. So far her and my mom have a lot of flowers, vegetables and fruit going on, so I need to catch up! Are you growing a garden this summer? Share your tips! I'm sadly not that good at keeping plants alive.
• Financial: Keep looking up better ways to keep track of my finances - Enough said.
• Work: Apply to at least 2 jobs. - I'm so excited to start applying! I'm seriously one of those people who love working. Nothing wrong with that.
• Health: Keep up with yoga. Go hiking once. - Yupp you heard it here, more yoga. Surprised? I didn't think so. I'd love to get back into hiking now that the weather is warming up.

And here's a little behind the scenes of making this blog post... That's my dog Riley. I know the picture is a little blurry, but I thought it was too cute to not to share.

Komorebi: Typeface

Guys! I created my own typeface! And it was awesome!

For my Advanced Typography class, our final project was to create our own typeface. We started off sketching letters. And more letters. And more letters. And when you thought you were done, even more letters. Then, we brought those sketches into Illustrator where we used the pen tool trace over each letter sketch. Those letters were brought into FontLab Studio. In that program, we worked on kerning and finally exported the final typeface. I'm thinking of uploading mine to dafont or another typeface website. Any particular site you recommed?

For now though, here is the type sheet of my final typeface: Komorebi. You can check out more of the process on my Behance account.

So Fearless Goals 05.04.2015

Last week I announced how I was going to keep up with sharing my own goals now that the Weekly Wishes series is over. I'm a huge goal orientated person, so I still wanted to keep up with sharing my goals and I still want to hear what your goals are. If you'd like, you can download my free printable which can help you keep track of your goals if you're the kind of person that needs to write things down for them to actual happen (like me!). If you end up using it, be sure to leave a link to your blog below or use #sofearlessgoals on Instagram or Twitter.

• Enjoy my last week of classes: Totally! Well, as much as anyone can enjoy class (you know what I mean). My friend and I spent some time outside working on our 3D type project #morethanaverage. You might've seen me post a picture on Instagram. And I'm starting to wrap up my final projects.
• Walking: Nope, that didn't happen.

Here are my fearless goals for the week:
• Personal: Get a new sketchbook - I usually get a new sketchbook every semester, but I'm no longer going to be a student anymore! *gasp* So I'd like to get a new sketchbook. You might've caught my job search post last week. I mentioned that even though you are no longer a typical student, that doesn't mean you stop learning and I'm totally holding myself to it. Even though, I'm not going to be going class anymore, I'm still planning on working on other things. For instance, I'd like to work on calligraphy more... hence the new sketchbook.
• Financial: Look up better ways to keep track of my finances - I got lazy with this last month, but I don't want to continue being lazy with it. This month I want to look up better ways on how to budget my money and keep track of expenses and then implement that new system maybe mid-May or next month.
• Work: Get going on my website - I bought my domain, signed up for a host, but now I just got to get going on working on the actual site. I have a Behance account and while I love it, I need/want my own site as well. I'll be making mine through Wordpress.
• Health: Start yoga back up again -There's a new yoga studio opening nearby and I just signed up with them the other. I have three classes planned so far and can't wait to start yoga back up again this week.

What are your goals for the week?

April Wrap Up

April flew by and to be honest, I'm surprised. Considering it was my last full month of school before graduating, I really thought going through April was going to take forever! I'm so ready for May and graduation.

What's Going On 

The weather finally started warming up in April, so I spent a little bit more time outside. Other than that, I've been working on final projects for school. Also, this past weekend I finished my first Wordpress website for a client ever! I love using blogger for my blog, but I enjoyed working with Wordpress for this project and am looking forward to using it more in the future.

Instagram

A picture of nearby trees on one of the most prettiest days this April.

Links

This particular link is one of my favorite's ever. I went to high school with Caitlin and I am so incredibly proud of her for writing this article. She hit the nail on the head when she wrote, "Health comes in all shapes and sizes." I urge to you all to read Caitlin's article.

Earth Day was earlier this month and Free People posted tons of articles, but this one really caught my eye. I'd love to make the multipurpose lemon cleaner: The Green Way to Spring Clean.

I look forward to Elsie's Scrapbook Sunday posts every week. 10 Random Facts About Me was my favorite. It's about that time again for me print out a a bunch of photos and catch up on my scrapbooking and I'm thinking of incorporating something like this.

I probably mentioned Kory at least once in every monthly wrap up, but that's because her posts are so good and she gives really good advice pertaining to graphic design! She wrote a guest post for XOSarah.com about freelance business skills they don't teach you in college. Anyone who freelances should totally read this!

Admit it. You've been dreaming of starting up a new hobby haven't you? Whether it's rock climbing or scrapbook, just start already! A Pair & A Spare gives you some tips on how to finally start your passion project.

Speaking of passion projects, Alisa wrote about her friends' new project: opening their own gallery. I'm so excited to read more about Staci and Sara's adventure.

What have you been up to this past month?

8 Pieces of Advice For You Job Seekers Out There

Get ready for the job search posts of all job search posts. This is a compilation of advice that I've complied from other sources as well as some of my own input. And you'll probably notice that a good amount of advice comes from The Muse and The Prepary, but they seriously know their stuff. Look into them more than just the posts I mention here.

This is a last minute tip I just found, but I'm seriously going to put this one to use soon to keep up with possible employers: The Free, Career-Boosting Google Feature You Should Be Using by Aja Frost published on The Muse.

If you're not quite sure on how to go about sending a thank you after an interview or when to follow up, read this by Jamie Petkanics: The 3-2-1 Rule of Following Up After Interviews published on The Prepary.

I think these networking tips could work for anybody at any time during their career (5 Smart Networking Strategies for Career Changers by Lily Zhang published on The Muse). I really like Tip #5: Going to Industry Events. Just recently, I went to an art career day at school. Though my field is graphic design, I decided to join in a printmaker's talk and really liked it. I'm even thinking of taking a class!

These resume dos and don'ts are some of the best advice I've heard (or read): 42 Resume Dos and Don'ts Every Job Seeker Should Know by Aja Frost published on The Muse. One piece of advice I liked: don't hide any gaps. Embrace them. I took a semester off between graduating from community college and starting a four-year college and I let people know that it was the best thing I've ever done. For that semester, I interned two days a week in the city and worked the other three.

If there you are going to read one link on this post, it's this one. It's an actual to-do list of what you should do prior to a job interview: An Interview Prep Checklist on Wunderlist by Jaime Petkanics.

And some of my own input:
1. Get a LinkedIn account. And keep it updated. And post things relevant to your field on it. Now that my senior year is wrapping up, more and more people are getting LinkedIn accounts or are using them more frequently. It's a great way to connect with your peers and other professionals. Trust me, you'll thank yourself later.
2. Lists are your friend. Keep lists of jobs you found, where you found them, who to contact, when you applied, when you followed up. Made an Excel spreadsheet. It's something we've gone over in class and something I've seen on Pinterest. Lists will be your saving grace.
3. Just because you're graduating doesn't mean you stop learning. Maybe it's the field I'm in? But just because I'm no longer going to be attending an actual class doesn't mean I'm going to stop learning. Future employers want to see that you're excited about your career and are willing to learn more about it.

What job search tips do you have? Share below, whether it's from a personal experience or another blog post you found online, let us know!

The Last Weekly Wishes... Get Ready For So Fearless Goals

Melyssa announced last week that this week would be the last weekly wishes. Instead, she's going to be talking about her goals monthly and will be launching a new project called The Blog Hive, which I am so excited to hear more about. With this series ending, I thought I'd take the opportunity to recreate my weekly wishes.

But first let's talk about last week's wishes.
• Make some time for myself: This might be hard to judge, but I think I did pretty well with this goal this week. I'm finishing up my final projects for school, but found some time to just relax.
• Go through my closet: Done! I woke up on Saturday morning, grabbed a trash bag and got rid of all the clothes I no longer wear. And guess what! I went through my drawers too! I'm planning on donating them soon.

As I mentioned, I'm going to recreate my weekly wishes posts into So Fearless Goals (named towards the name of the blog). I don't know about you, but after I post my goals on Monday, I sometimes forget about them for the rest of the week. Unless I write them down on in planner. I mentioned my planner rather frequently on this blog I think and it's not an exaggeration. I'm lost without my planner.

What I had been doing was if I wanted to achieve a particular goal on a certain day, I'd write it down on that day, but it seemed more like a chore, which I do admit that some of them are. I wanted to be excited about my goals and have them motivate me. So, I made this printable for myself. I use a paperclip to put this in my planner, but you could easily tape it in or if you like to journal, include this in there. How cool would it be if a couple weeks from now, you looked back and saw all the goals you made for yourself and how much you've done!

I decided I want to break down my goals into categories. I may not use each category every week, but these are the ones I'll use more often.

And here are my fearless goals for this week!
• Enjoy my last week of classes: Yeah, I know. Enjoy class? But I take art classes, not regular lecture classes and I love seeing all my friends in class. It makes it ten times more fun. This will be last week of classes before finals start and then I'll be done with my undergrad degree.
• Walking: Go for a walk at least twice this week if the weather's nice. I don't know what happened last week, but one day it was sunny and 70 and for the rest of the week it was all in the 50s and 60s. Kinda cold for Jersey in late April.

So those are my goals for the week and my new printable. I'd love it if you would join in with me! I'm including the So Fearless Goals printable here as a PDF (it's free!). There are four to a sheet of letter-size paper with each printable measuring 4x3 inches.

If you decide to join in, feel free to leave a link to your blog post below or share it on Twitter or Instagram with #sofearlessgoals or tag me! It's @melissahebbe for both!

Free Wallpaper Download #1

iPhone / 1280x800 / 1440x900 / 1650x1050 / 2560x1440

So I thought it'd be fun to create a wallpaper that you could use on your computer or phone. I chose a quote that I liked and worked some Photoshop magic using my Wacom tablet. I'm thinking about making this a monthly thing. It was so much fun to make! Later on, I'd like to eventually incorporate my own handwriting into the quote, rather than using a font.

If you have a quote in mind you'd like me to use for next month's free wallpaper download, leave it in the comments below!