Day 55:

"Write an advertising jingle for something in nature (a tree, a bird, a cloud)."

Finally something that falls exactly in my theme and I have nothing.  Nothing at all.  A jingle?  I have tried to come up with something but I just can't get my brain to wrap around it.  I even thought I would give it an extra day or two as this is suppose to be Monday's post but I posted the weekend late due to a Christmas family celebration.  Still nothing.  So instead here is a photo out of the book of photo's I just completed for my mother as a birthday gift. 

A little winter wonderland to help me get in the mood for Christmas, because currently it is sunny and green, more spring like than Canadian Christmas.

Day 54:

"Connect the dots.  Make something only using dots."

I did today's project based on Australian Aboriginal Art.  I used fine tip markers instead of a quill and paint.  I know that dot paintings have a lot of meaning in Aboriginal Culture, depicting stories and meaning by the designs and choices of colour. I hope that my interpretation was not culturally insensitive in any way.

Day 53:

"Make something in which the sense of smell is the essential component."

Sorry for the late post.  I was hosting the family Christmas this weekend and just didn't have time to post my work on the weekend.  I will post the weekend projects today and Monday and Tuesday's projects tomorrow to catch up again.

Given that it is Christmas time I put cloves in an orange for my project today.  Totally natural materials.  The smell is fantastic and it reminds me of my childhood, my mom would always have us do simple projects like this to lead up to Christmas.

Day 52:

"Work upside down.  Create something in such a way that you have to rotate it 180 degrees to see/display it when it's finished."

I decided to try and draw upside down.  It was a little harder than I expected.  Especially the bunny.

Day 51:

"Make something that would not normally be considered cute and cuddly into something that is."

I had a lot of ideas for today.  I may use this prompt again if I ever get really stuck.  I decided to use a snake.  I have a totally irrational fear of snakes.  I can sometimes look at them in a zoo but even when they are behind glass they freak me out a little.  I do find green pythons fascinating though.  Their colour is so vibrant and they curl up on branches.  I drew my snake to have those sad 'puss 'n boots' eyes pleading for you to love it.

Day 50:

"Be a minimalist.  Work only with white materials today."

Day 50 already.  Wow.  Only white?  I think feathers.  I cut some white feathers out of copy paper and photographed them on cream white water colour paper.

Day 49:

"Quantity over quality.  Work with a lot of something."

Buttons.  I have lots of buttons.  I save the spares attached to new clothes, any that fall off and never get replaced as well as cutting them off things to be thrown out.  From time to time I buy them for a project and there will be one or two left over.  I drop them all in a jar and they become eyes on stuffies, get used in children's projects, sewn on to an new project or replace a missing button. 

I created an apple tree with a pond hosting a turtle and frog and wild flowers in the field under a starry sky.  You just need a little imagination to see it. (Note: that there is a heart carved into the tree trunk.)

Day 48:

"How tall can you make something that stands up on its own?"

Wooden blocks. 

Yes I pulled out the wooden blocks and created my take on a tree trunk.  It wasn't very tall but it was certainly getting unstable as the blocks are from a few different sets.  I used all but 5 small triangles.

Day 47:

"Work with flowers - artificial or real, live or dried, picked or bought."

Well it is a busy time of year right now.  Today seems like a bit of a cop-out as I simply took a photo of my spectacular poinsettia that I purchased.  It was beautiful on it's own, no manipulation required.

Day 46:

"Face it.  What can you do with a face - yours or someone else's?"

Well this was a bit tough.  What I wanted to do was layer the picture of the storm on the side of the face of a picture of  my son.  I have never used any photo shop type software and didn't have any on my computer. I really didn't have time to download and learn photo shopping (I intend to find some time to learn though) so I experimented with my printer.  In the end I just printed one photo over another for a cool effect. 

Day 45:

"Create an image with masking tape or any other kind of tape, for that matter.  Try making it on a nontraditional surface.  Extra credit: Leave it for others to find."

I seem to be making a lot of trees.  Maybe I should have done a tree a day project.  I made another tree today out of masking tape.  I did it on a tree at the front of my property, it seemed wrong to do it in the park.  Left my blog address on it in case anyone passing by wants to see what this tree is about.

Day 44:

"Make something that lights up."

I made a little paper lantern (7 cm by 5.5 cm) out of a piece of blue Japanese paper I had.  I then used a fancy hole punch to punch out little rabbits and glued them hopping around the lantern.  It fits perfectly over a tea light and is rather cute.  I couldn't get a good photo showing the illumination. 

Blog Feature Make Something 365

I have been featured on Noah Scalin"s Blog Make Something 365 & Get Unstuck  Check it out and see some other very creative projects.

Cheers

Day 43:

"Learn something new.  Ask a friend to help you do something using a technique or skill they're good at."

Well today I stopped at learn something new.  For many reasons, that I won't get into, I didn't consider the second prompt today.  I did get a book about tying knots called 75 Chinese, Celtic, & Ornamental Knots by Laura Williams and Elise Mann.  I tried a few but was only successful with two yesterday.  I am planning to continue to learn the knots as I think they are all very interesting and the more complicated ones looked fantastic. 

The pink and blue knot is called .... you guessed it .... dragonfly knot.  The green one is called Snake Knot but with the long tails untrimmed it looked to me like a bug with long feelers and pinchers. 

Day 42:

"Turn today's junk mail into something much more appealing."

I don't seem to get a lot of junk mail on a regular basis.  Today I got two pizza fliers.

I took them and ripped them into tiny 'leaves' for my tree.  The colours in the fliers just screamed fall leaves to me.  The results are:

In hindsight I should have looked for one of those fancy hole punchers that crafters and kids use.  I think the kids might actually have one that is leaf shaped.

Day 41:

"Think big.  Create a large version of something that would normally be much smaller."

I decided on a Bull Ant today.  I lived in Australia for six years and although Bull Ants are big (they range in size from 8mm to 4cm) they aren't as big as I drew at 23cm.  They can give you a painful stings by gripping you with their mandibles, curling their abdomen and injecting you with the venom.  I have seen them but happily was never stung by one. 

Day 40:

"What can you do with yarn?  You don't have to know how to knit or crochet; you can try yarn painting or just experiment."

First let me say sorry that I haven't been posting. I have been creating but not sitting down at the computer and posting.  I thought maybe I would post a whole bunch today but I decided I would continue with one a day.  That way if I get tripped up getting things done over Christmas I will have a few days grace.

Doing something with yarn is something I definately know well.  I decided I would just knit again.  I got a pattern from http://mochimochiland.com/blog/ for the very cute snails.  I used some sock yarn scraps I had on hand and made these two little friends.  I used little seed beads for the eyes. They were immediately snapped up by my youngest.