How About A Year-Long Project?

As we creep towards 2009, you might be thinking that now is the good time to get involved in a year-long crafty project. I have to agree. Here are some ideas that might interest you...

Project 365: A Photo a Day

As the title suggests, the goal is to take a photo every day and post it online with absolutely no photo editing. I did this in 2008. Or, rather I tried to do this in 2008. I did manage to take a photo almost every day, but the printing and keeping track of it kind of fell by the wayside. But, Creating Keepsakes Magazine has come up with a genius kit-of-the-month to take care of that problem. I'm truly tempted to try it again using this kit. It's a two-page spread for every week done with slip-in page protectors. So smart and so easy and so tempting!

The Diary Project

An artist named Kirsty Hall spent 2007 working on this. Essentially, she wrote a note on piece of paper, placed it in an envelope, drew on the envelope, and mailed it to herself every single day. I'm kind of charmed by the idea of sending it out into the universe and getting it back again.

A Life Well Crafted

Kolette and Jason Hall of Colorbök fame are running a year long course through the online classroom, "Big Picture Scrapbooking." I'll admit that I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but it looks like Jason and Kolette will spend the year inspiring you to take risks and create a better life through crafting. Intriguing and you can either buy a month-by-month "membership" or the whole year-long shebang.

Project 365: Draw the Line

The link above goes to George G's blog. He draws something - from a portrait to a doodle - every single day and posts it to his blog. I'm not a particularly good draw-er, but they say practice makes perfect.

The Journal Quilt Project

This one has been going on and on for ages. Basically, you create an 8.5x11" quilt once a week (or once a month). In addition, you're meant to keep a diary of your thoughts on doing the project. There's a great book that pulls from the first five years of the project called, Creative Quilting. It's a huge book full of inspiration!

Project Fifty-Two

Finally, this is my own project for 2009. The idea is to get a year of your life recorded in some way. Every week for one year, participants will create something inspired by an event, a thought, or an emotion from that week. And since I dabble in lots of different things, I wanted to make sure that other people who dabble could participate. So, what you create doesn't have to be consistent. You can create an art journal page one week and a quilt the next. Or you could stay consistent and make fifty-two scrapbook layouts.

Why not try out a year-long project as part of your 2009?!