Crafty Neighbor's Neighborhood Gossip: 365 Challenge

If you are new to this blog, you may be wondering, “What is this ‘365 Challenge’ she keeps talking about?” Simply put, our 365 Challenge is a commitment to do something creative every day for one year – all 365 days. It could be painting, writing, scrapbooking, photography…the list is endless, but the end result is the same – creating something every day.

I’ve wanted to do a 365 project for quite some time. But like a lot of you, I am terrified of the actual commitment. After all, the prospect of doing something (anything) every single day for a whole year is quite daunting, let alone doing something creative. I’ve conquered Lain Ehman’s Layout-A-Day three times now, and it was a real challenge trying to keep up. That was for just one month! I even got inspired to start a smash book that I have been putting together in an outdated date book, but it’s not an every-day kind of commitment and I often go weeks without touching it at all. All the same, I still wanted to do a 365 project, and I had a good idea where I wanted to start.

Several years ago, a crafty friend told me about a project she was working on. She was inspired by a 52-week art journal challenge done by Emily Falconbridge on her Life is Art blog. Emily used 52 questions as inspiration to create an art journal on a deck of cards. This project in itself is a great idea, but my friend, Kerry, took it one step further. She had the idea of combining the 52 questions with a power word .

The idea of a power word is not a new one. My son’s high school orchestra used power words in a unity circle before every concert. Each student would share his or her word and the idea was that in unity, all these powerful words come together to make a whole, cohesive orchestra.

Blogger Christine Kane uses power words in a different way. She contends that your power words give you intent. Each year, instead of making New Years resolutions, she does a lot of soul searching and comes up with her Word of the Year. The word becomes her touchstone to stay focused on what’s important and to remind her of her goals.

So how do you combine a power word with 52 questions? Easy, just let the power word be your guide to answering the questions each day. Your answer to the question is the inspiration for the creative work. It’s really that simple. Your word could simply be the answer, or for more of a spiritual challenge, you could answer the question and then journal whether or not (or how) that answer fits in with your power word.

For instance, if my focus for 2013 was going to be Home and my question for the day was “What song do you have on repeat right now?” What if the answer to my question was Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again?” Obviously, that song is not about home. Or maybe it is. Maybe you feel most at home when you’re on the road. Maybe you love being on the road, and are trying to balance travel with your duties at home. Maybe you don’t like going anywhere at all. Or maybe the song reminds you of the home you grew up in. Either way, you’ve tied your power word to your question for the day.

To make this a little more fun, and to up the ante on the challenge, we’ve created a Flickr group for our 365 Challenge. Participants are encouraged (not required) to post their creative works to the group pool for the rest of us to see. We’ve had some spotty participation, and that’s okay, too. Just remember there are no rules to this project, you can jump in or out at any time and really just do whatever you want to do. This whole thing is an exercise in creativity, so if you’ve figured out some creative way to interpret our non-existant rules, then more power to you!

So…are you intrigued by the concept, but still afraid to commit? Tell me, just what are you afraid of? What are the dire consequences of failing to stick with a big project? I’m here to tell you, there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Go on! Jump right in! The water’s fine and there are no sharks in this pool! No one cares if you start and never finish. No one cares if you get behind and have to catch up. No one cares if you decide to do a 52-week project instead of 365 days. Just get started! To make it easy for you, we have created a list of 365 topics to help you get started, but you don’t have to use those prompts at all, they’re just a tool to get the creative juices flowing.

Does it sound too complicated?

Here are 5 simple steps for you to start your own 365 Project

Pick a project: Whether it’s a layout a day, Project Life, an art journal, a painting, a photo, or creative writing – whatever you decide to do is just fine. Find what speaks to you and commit to doing something every day. (See the list below for some ideas)
Pick a power word: This step is definitely optional, but it is often a great tool to add to a daily prompt. For more information about picking a power word, read this blog by Christine Kane: Word of the Year
Pick a place to start: You can either start at the beginning (see the list of prompts below), or you can start with today. The complete list of prompts is available for download here. Use one of the prompts we’ve provided, or come up with your own.
Create something: Use the prompt or don’t use the prompt, it’s okay either way. You can scrapbook, make cards, create an art journal, make a smash book, quilt, crochet, paint, write essays…do whatever you want to do. The point is that you are creating something. Do you have to create a new something every day? Absolutely not. If you are working on a painting and you work on it every day, then that’s okay, too.
Share it: When your project is done, upload a picture to our project gallery. Working on a long-term project? Share an occasional picture of your progress and tell us about it! We love to hear how we’ve inspired you! The discussion board is open to anyone who wants to post. The address for the group is: http://www.flickr.com/groups/cn365/ After you’ve joined the group, you will upload your photos to your stream. You can select to add them to the group while you are uploading, or you can come back and add them later. Another great place to share your work and/or get inspired is the Facebook Art Journalling group.

That’s it! That’s all there is to it! Here are some more tips to get you going:

Pick the project that’s right for you!

Six Suggestions for a Year-Long Project

Project Life: Project Life is a memory-recording system of scrapbooking that uses photo pocket pages and pre-cut/pre-printed products as a starting point. All you do is add journaling and photos. This is a great alternative for someone who wants to do a 365 but doesn’t have a lot of time to commit to their project each day. You can still follow any 365-day, 52-week, or even Layout-a-Day challenges very easily.
Art Journal: Use an art journal or Smash Book to express the answers to your daily prompts. You can use the questions or prompt as part of the art, or you can simply let the artwork do all the talking. The possibilities are endless.
Layout A Day: Although Lain Ehman’s LOAD is designed to run in one-month increments several times a year, committing to creating a layout every day is a great way to boost your creativity and get a lot of scrapbooking done. Or, if 365 is too much for you, do it for one month at a time.
Tags: In her Life is Art blog, Emily Falconbridge creates her art and poses the question on one side of the tag, and then answers it on the other. A large ring could hold all the tags together.
A Deck of Cards: This method lends itself best to a 52-week challenge, but you could still use it for a full year by creating multiple decks.
A Gratitude Journal: I just saw this video and knew I had to add it to my list of 365 projects. Check out Hailey Bartholomew's 365 Grateful Project.

I started my 365 project in January 2013, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start today! I hope you’ll consider joining me in this exploration! I would love to see what you come up with!

The following list is also available in an Excel Spreadsheet by clicking here: http://www.craftyneighbor.com/downloads/2013_365List.xls.

Current list of published prompts: