3×5 day 365 is here! Yay! To help celebrate the completion of this year’s creative daily practice, I put together a short video with all the index card art I created over the last 12 months:
I feel a deep amount of gratitude and appreciation to everyone who has helped support my 3×5 creating efforts…. Thank you! This has been in the form of generous encouragement, interest, & feedback via social media, this blog, and 6 Degrees of Creativity Paper Stash Swappers who helped provide some of the collage material I’ve used. And a big thank you to Tammy of Daisy Yellow, who has been such a huge inspiration in all things index card art related! One of the highlights of this year’s project was finally being able to participate in Daisy Yellow’s ICAD this summer.
This has been a fun, creative adventure! As I review the video and each of the days, weeks, and months from this project, it’s awesome to see the year come together and end in this way.
Looking forward to new creative adventures in 2015!
As fall gives way to winter and the year begins to finish out its final month, I find myself wanting to slow down while I adjust to colder weather, holiday anticipation, thinking ahead to planning for 2015, and reflecting on the adventures of 2014.
Here are a few things from this past week helping me take time out for some pausing….
I’ve embarked on a hot chocolate challenge 🙂 :
Fear’s Confections Hot Chocolate
My friend Lori and I have decided to enjoy this list of Top 10 Hot Chocolates in Cleveland by attempting to try each one throughout the winter. It’s a great reason to get together, warm up from the cold, and savor some chocolate. Win, win, win! Our first stop on this hot chocolate tour was Fear’s Confections. I recommend splurging for the gourmet homemade cinnamon marshmallow to accompany the drink- Yum!
I also started prepping the children’s board book I’ve chosen for creating a new revo’lution altered book, one of the creative rituals I enjoy taking time to reflect on as the New Year approaches… 2015 will be year/book #7 in the series…. Yay! If you’re in the NE Ohio area, I’ll be hosting a cozy Ready for Revo’lution art-making gathering (with hot chocolate available!) on January 7 that you can check out here.
Beginning a new revo’lution
Things are also winding down with this year’s 365 project, as my 3×5 art journey moves forward into its last month. Incredible that 11 months and have already gone by, with only one more to go…. It’s an ongoing reminder time and time again to slow down in each creative moment.
3×5 art filing (2014 365)Day 331
Here’s also a few blog posts to help embrace your pausing spirit & manage this time of year:
Month #10 just came to a close for my 3×5 365 project and in reflection I’ve decided to put together some of the words & phrases from days 274-304 in a poem of sorts:
Creative Chain Reaction
Welcome….stillness….
An artful perception
Of enoughness re-framed
Before & between
To challenge my adventure into imagination
A new day…. Always.
Believe! Work creatively!
Permission granted to do the things you love to do.
I wanted to take this mid-October creative moment to share some of the 3x5s I’ve created this month as part of my on-going 365 project…. It’s hard to believe there’s less than 80 days left in 2014 and for my daily index card art making fun…. The rest of this year is flying by!
October 3×5 Creative Mashup
I’ve noticed that with many of my recent 3x5s, I enjoy tearing/ripping bits and pieces of paper (usually from magazines or catalogs) and putting them together into a messy collage of sorts with my usual use of distressed inks & stains, dictionary pages, chit chat stickers, and the occasional washi tape cameo.
Day 274: Hello October…. Welcome….
Day 275: Support in Simplicity & Stillness
Day 281: Adventure into Imagination
Day 282: Beginner’s Mind Reflection
Day 286: [Doing] The Things You Love
The color palette these days shifts between cool colors of blues and greens to warmer colors like yellow and orange. October so far seems to reveal themes of welcoming new energy (or saying goodbye to old energy disappearing) with new adventures harvested from creative seeds planted earlier in the year or new space from things that have come to an end. My 3×5 art right now also reflects a time of honoring/remembering what I am most passionate about, but also balancing simplicity & moments of stillness as fresh, new air for my work, creative practice, relationships, and loves.
“Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not and never again will be; what is is change.” – Edwin Way Teale
I decided to take a look at this month’s 3×5’s I’ve created so far in a moment of creative contemplation.
Shifting Made Visible
This month I’ve been experiencing some major shifting, from within and out. I’ve been witnessing this surface & form in my daily creative practice of 3×5 work with themes that reflect new change, possibility, and discovery:
Day 213: Artful offering
“When everything is moving and shifting, the only way to counteract chaos is stillness. When things feel extraordinary, strive for ordinary. When the surface is wavy, dive deeper for quieter waters.” –Kristen Armstrong
Day 215: explicitly forming from within
“…art is knowledge made visible.” –Gustave Courbet
Day 217: [creative] restoration
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find ways in which you yourself have altered.”
— Nelson Mandela
Day 219: create hope
“All appears to change when we change.” — Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Day 221: artful passion
“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” –Sarah Ban Breathnach
Day 222: all my hopes
“It is enjoyable to make things visible which are invisible.” —Eric Cantona
In July, I organized a Paper Stash Swap for my 6 Degrees of Creativity online workshop community, where interested members signed up to exchange artsy paper stuff and goodies with another participant:
Let’s Swap Some Paper!
Below is some the creative goodness I put together for the couple of fun stashes I mailed to Nancy and Jessica. These packages included a variety of scrapbooking paper, tags, paper bag books, scrap collage bits & pieces, bingo cards, book catalog file cards and more:
Preparing Creative Goodness for Paper Stash Mailing
Here’s a collection of awesome paper stashes I received from Jessica, Roseann, and Nancy (thank you!) which included lots of colorful printed paper, book & dictionary pages, maps, tags, tickets, and so, so much more:
Paper Stash Treasure
The second part of this Paper Stash Swap is this month’s Show & Tell where we can share what we’ve created with some of the gifts & treasures we’ve received. I’ve used a lot of the stash stuff in my 3×5 365 cards during the past month. It was also really easy to take the stashes (contained in a large mailing envelope or plastic bag) on the go with me to create with. I really thought the patterns, textures, & colors of the stashes I was generously gifted with brought a new excitement and an inviting warmth to my 3×5 art. It was a pleasure to begin incorporating these positive elements into my creative practice and feel these meaningful additions come to life (each day and each week).
My Paper Stash Show & Tell: July 3×5 Art
I look forward to seeing other Show & Tells from this exchange on the 6 Degrees of Creativity site and how what was received was used or what it inspired. 🙂
“…And for most journeys, we need a map…” ~Patti Digh
This week’s theme for Daisy Yellow’s ICAD Challenge was focused on all things maps. It has been lots of fun to work on different creative concepts combining my 3×5 art making with map making. I used a variety of maps I’ve collected….. from maps I have picked up in hotels, local & regional maps, prints of maps in magazine catalogs, and maps gifted to me in paper stash swaps. On the 3rd day of this theme, I was also inspired by researching maps of the hand.
As this week’s ICAD theme comes to a close, I’m spent time today reflecting on themes around finding, discovery, navigating, & adventuring.
My companion for today’s reflection was the book, The Geography of Loss, by Patti Digh which I took off the bookshelf in my creative space this morning as I looked over the 3x5s I created this past week.
“The word map: A process of seeing, of charting, of knowing, or journeying into and through.”
I often include paper hearts in my 3×5 art (and art journaling for that matter!) and the map theme really inspired its inclusion even more. As a compass of sorts.
Today, post 3×5 making and having these maps & paper hearts before me, I re-visited Digh’s section on thematic mapping for widely opening our hearts (Part 2). Digh prompts us to create a metaphorical map of our heart and to think about what’s inside, what/who opens or closes this heart, to honor what is by honoring what was, and to feel the difference between a heart that is protected and one that is free & open. Inspiring stuff….. 🙂
I love this combination of heart & map making…. As I worked on each of these cards the intention of progress, readiness, and journey honoring was definitely on my 3×5 making brain. It’s nice to see the series together, as well as pieces of the terrain that create a larger perspective.
I tried to purposefully use simple materials to visually explore text: from dictionary and old calendar pages, a page from a paperback’s index, an old airplane ticket, baggage claim stickers, magazine print, & tiny printed words I already had in my paper stash, as well as scrapbooking paper. Other materials I mostly used were distressed or stamping ink, washi & masking tape, and wite-out strips.
I really enjoyed working on a theme dedicated to text and discovering different ways to express it. I don’t think in the consecutive 520+ days I’ve been doing my 365 projects that I have spent an entire week intentionally focused on just one concept. As I reflect on this week’s collection, I connect to the strength & liberation in the single cards, the images the words collectively create, and the series all together.
I’ve also enjoyed the community, connection, and inspiration of the Daisy Yellow ICAD Group and the awesomeness of seeing so many different index cards of art, materials, techniques, and ideas. It’s refreshing and inspiring to have probably 90% of my newsfeed taken over by a creative flood of 3×5 or 4×6 art. Love!
I am looking forward to starting ICAD’s Week 2 Theme dedicated to all things collage and my favorite creative superpower of gluing stuff together!
Thanks to Tammy at Daisy Yellow for all the inspiration, enthusiasm, & index card love we get to enjoy together over the next two months. 🙂
Get ready! Daisy Yellow’s Index Card a Day (ICAD) Challenge for 2014 is coming! I cannot wait to officially participate this year (my first time!) and enjoy all the 3×5 inspiration and creativity from Tammy and the ICAD community.
The challenge is simple: Create one 3×5 index card a day for 61 days!
ICAD begins June 1 through July 31, but you can start preparing for it now! Get geared up with a stack of 3x5s, gather some art materials of your choosing (simple stuff is encouraged!), and check out Daisy Yellow’s ICAD FAQ to learn more about how the challenge works. The ICAD 2014 FB Group has been lots of fun already to see the variety of 3x5s, material use, and prompt ideas from past years. It’s awesome to see my FB Newsfeed full of artsy index cards!
In the 4 months I’ve been working on my 3×5 365, I’ve experienced a great fondness for creating in this simple rectangle space. Larger than last year’s 365 space (1 x 2.5), it’s been super nice to have more breathing room to create in everyday. And…. for me, this (expanded) space also creates manageable containment, so my commitment to daily art-making does not become overwhelming.
It is a great balance and win win!
Some of my April 3x5s
Day 91 : April 3×5 | creativity in motion
Day 104 : April 3×5 | creativity in motion
Day 113 : April 3×5 | creativity in motion
Now it’s your turn! Discover your own 3×5 magic and the ICAD love with Daisy Yellow’s two month challenge:
“Do what you love. Know you own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.” ~Henry David Thoreau
Here’s the first 2 weeks of March’s 3x5s for my 365 project… work in progress (!):
March 1: time + place = right now
I continue to play with materials within this daily space…. (distressed & alcohol) ink, collage, paint (watercolor, acrylic, pens), & wax mostly so far during month…
March’s first 8 days
I love the textures, colors, and layers…. and uniting these single cards together…
creativity in motion 
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