Welcome back! I hope I haven't scared you away completely with my post from yesterday. Even though they sound like a lot of work, I've found the process of creating projects and doing them to be very rewarding and invigorating in my life.
For the next two days, I am planning to share a LOT of project ideas with you. Some of these are projects I've done in the past, some are ones I plan to do in 2011. Others are by different Write.Click.Scrapbook members. And yet others are ones I've found but haven't tried. My goal is to inspire you with different ideas so that you can pick one (or more) that really speaks to you and covers some of the items on your Priority List. Please don't be overwhelmed. Just read them, look at them and see if one sticks out to you. Commit to just that one and see how it goes.
Today, I am listing projects centered around photography, arts and crafts. As you can see from my Priority List from Monday, I like to spend time doing Art, Photography, Crafting, and Scrapbooking. By the way, these are not in any particular order and I will explain each briefly and then link to the source for more information.
Layout a Day
Commitment Duration: Daily for One Month
In May of 2010, I decided to do a layout a day. The idea came out of nowhere and I hadn't planned on doing it but I did it anyway. And it completely changed my life. It changed my attitude towards scrapbooking, it changed my process, and most significantly, it changed the way my pages look. I cannot say enough about the good things this commitment brought into my life. You can read more about my specific journey here and here's a shot of all the layouts I made in May.
Even though I didn't do it personally, I know Lain Ehmann runs a regular and very popular layout a day class several times a year. This experience has also led me to create a Big Picture Classes workshop of my own and you will find out all about it tomorrow.
If making a layout a day feels too overwhelming, you can also do a layout a week or even one a month. I do a monthly prompt at Creative Therapy and there are many other challenge blogs that do the same. The wonderful Scrapbook and Cards magazine has a yearly challenge called Project 12 where the amazing Becky Fleck shares a free sketch each month and you can do a layout based on it. There also the Sketch Support project which will give you four new sketches each week.
Art Journal Month
Commitment Duration: Daily for One Month
This is similar to the Layout a Day idea but instead it focuses on creating an art journaling page each day. Because layout a day was such a success for me, I decided to try the same idea during October 2010. I created an art journal page each day. While this wasn't as successful, I still created 31 new art journaling pages and filled up an entire journal. Something I'd been trying to do since 2007.
52 Tags
Commitment Duration: Weekly for One Year
I did this project during 2009. Emily Falconbridge was doing an art journaling challenge where she posed a question each week and you were challenged to do some art around it. I used manila tags for each of the prompts and coupled them up with techniques I'd been meaning to try for a long time. You can see all the prep work I put into the project in this post and here's a link to the tags. This was a fun project because the tags were small and restricted the amount of time I could possibly spend on each tag. This project was the catalyst for me to open my easy shop and I even sold some tags. It worked that much better because Emily kept posting prompts and there was a Flickr community so there was accountability and tracking.
Crafting Month
Commitment Duration: Daily for a Month
Even though this is similar to Art Journal Month and Layout a Day, I wanted to mention it because I don't want you to think you have do art to do a project like this. During June 2010, I did a crafty project every day. There were a wide range of projects that involved knitting, embroidery, sewing, and painting. I even made a wreath. These were all projects I'd wanted to do for some time so I reserved June to spend some time working on each one. Here are all the things I made in June. You can do the same idea for painting something everyday for a month, making a piece of jewelry every month, drawing a zentangle, making a card, etc etc. My friend Tonya did a Christmas project everyday for 25 days in December.
Project 365 - A Photo a Day
Commitment: Daily for a Year
This project is very involved as it requires a daily commitment for a year. I've now done a Project 365 for three years and it's one of my favorite things to do. I make sure to take photos of my kids everyday and make sure to take a photo of something that's not my kids everyday. This year my commitment is to also make sure I get in the photos more often.
Becky Higgins has an excellent system that allows you to track your Project 365 and now, there is also a Big Picture Classes community around this project that you can join for free.
If taking a photo everyday is too much for you (as it is for many many people) you can certainly adjust the schedule. You can take daily photos for a month. You can take one photo a week. You can even take one photo a month. Any of these options are perfectly wonderful.
Rebecca takes 12 photos a month and then creates a beautiful layout displaying them each month.
She says "After having my fourth - some things just had to go and Project 365 ended up being one of them. I've found this to be a bit more doable for me right now - but at the same time I'm still capturing those everyday photos that when combined together tell the story of our lives at the end of the year." If you love Rebecca's idea as much as I do and want to play along, she offers a free template for 2011 right here.
Also, Lisa and Monika just started a new challenge called 52 Photos in 52 Weeks where they will be taking a photo a week. They will also have creative photo challenges to help you each week!
Week in the Life or Day in the life
Commitment: Daily for a Week (or Day)
This is another Ali Edwards project that I love doing. The idea is to capture your typical week (or day) with photos and words. It's meant to be ordinary life. Doing this project year after year is a very rewarding experience since you can look back and remember what a typical day was years ago and how much it's changed. I've made two different versions of this project: a mini album and a fully digital one (you can download my template at that link.) I loved doing both of them. Here are some of the ones Ali's done. They're absolutely amazing.
The great thing about this project is that it's a one-week commitment. Feels a lot more doable than a month or year-long commitment and it's still a very rewarding project to complete.
Draw/Paint/Sew/Scrap Everyday for a Week
Commitment: Daily for a Week
I did several versions of this during 2010. I drew faces and I sewed hearts. I love the idea of focusing on something everyday for a week. It's a short commitment and yet it's long enough for you to really get immersed. If the idea of a month-long commitment is overwhelming to you, this is a fantastic way to dip your toes in and feel a strong sense of accomplishment.
For 2011, I am continuing with Creative Therapy, Weekly Layout and Daily Photo. I'm also starting a weekly Art Journal page inspired by Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesdays. She also has an awesome Monthly ATC club that I might do, and finally I have committed to doing what I assume will be a very involved project. I have decided that this year I want to learn how to draw. Specifically, I want to draw portraits. So I am committing to drawing a portrait six days a week. I will track them weekly on my blog by posting a photo of all seven of my drawings from that week but I am committing to drawing every single day. Ever since I did my Layout a Day project, I believe in the power of doing something every day and learning to draw is very important to me so I am going to do it every day until I get comfortable with it and make progress. You can read more about my plans and my prep work here.
Have you completed any crafty projects in 2010 that you loved? Have you made any crafty resolutions for 2011? I would love to read your ideas and goals, please share them with us in the comments! I love discovering and trying new projects!
