An Elephant A Day

Sheila Singhal in Ottawa, Canada is making An Elephant A Day...

Why did I decide to do this project? I picked up your book, and it inspired me to give a 365-day project a try. This was something I'd never considered before.

How has doing this project affected my life? It's made me finally try things I thought I'd never get around to, such as carving a watermelon, making drawings with sparklers, and trying just about every weird Surrealist technique there is. It's been exhausting, and there have been a few days when making anything and writing about it is just about the the last thing I want to do.

Thanks for the idea! I get about 400 hits a day, and my blog is currently being read in 122 countries around the world, with a total of 58,000 or so hits (at last count).

See all of Sheila's elephants HERE.

Fan-A-Day

Gina AKA Whee! Gina! in Houston, Texas is making a Fan-a-Day!...

Why did you decide to do this project? I decided to do this project after I had started a blog.  I didn't know how to, so I browsed randomly through blogs until I found some which were interesting to me.  Somehow I stumbled upon the 365 project.  I had been changing my Facebook profile picture every day with a picture of a nun....Nun-A-Day.....for no particular reason, and I thought,  this is quite similar, but a lot more creative. As I had a shop (on Etsy) selling painted fans, fans seemed obvious.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I was bored with the Etsy shop and the fans were getting stale.I had wanted to expand the fan making into more creative techniques and materials but I didn't have a venue to show them. This is it! At once, I became enthusiastic again, I woke up with an idea every morning and could hardly wait to jump out of bed and get started.  I think about it all the time. I have even dreamed some of them. The project has reawakened my enthusiasm and encouraged me in my blogging as well. It has made me want to learn more about using the computer, and introduced me to online friends. Sort of like penpals, but with the immediacy of new messages every day. I have bought some cool greetings cards from Marika Makes, who made a Bird A Day, and learned how to use translation tools so that I can follow several bloggers in Germany and the Netherlands. I never expected this to lead to learning Dutch!

I have done 6 months now, and am very pleased with the whole process, all the way from new ideas to stolen ideas to desperation last-minute fans. Sometimes I get the nicest comments from the most (to me)  last-ditch efforts. I am already thinking ahead to what I will do when I have finished the year of  fans.

See all of Gina's fans HERE.  

Slugline

Donna Mae Foronda in Santa Clara, California is writing a one paged script every day for 366 days, she calls the project Slugline...

Why did you decide to do this project? After inspired by Ira Glass' quote on creatives, I knew I had to "do a huge volume of work" to ever be a strong writer. I also had so many story ideas in my head, but no time or energy to fully complete them. They existed only as moments, but I felt like those moments, at the very least, needed to be shared.

How has doing the project affected your life? Surprisingly, the biggest way this project has affected my life is through the feedback from friends, family, and even strangers. I've always lacked so much confidence with my writing and kept it under wraps so I'm grateful for this project to help expose my voice.

Read all of Donna's scripts HERE.

366 Daily Photoscapes

Karl Lindsay an Australian in Nairobi, Kenya is sharing 366 Daily Photoscapes. He explains, "I am posting a photo from my travels online every day from my archives for 366 days."...

Why did you decide to do this project? I was falling behind in editing my photos so wanted to share some from my archives. Also, at the time I was planning on leaving the country in August (now in Kenya) I would have lots of photos to share with those back home. This was a good way to do it.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? It has given me a daily task that, at first, I wasn't so great at. Finding a photo every day and editing it can be a challenge to fit into my schedule - I'm not used to fitting that in to my life and sometimes it can take a while. When I go away for a weekend I have to schedule a few posts and that takes a little while. I don't mind doing that though, because I know I'm likely to come back on Sunday / Monday with a bunch of new photos to upload. So far it's been a good experience keeping me disciplined...

See all of Karl's photoscapes HERE.

366 Cranes

Ellen Fithian in Flower Mound, Texas is making 366 Cranes and leaving them for people to discover in various locations...

Why did you decide to do this project? My new project for 2012. Via instagram (@efithian #366cranes), I'll post and geotag a new crane everyday. Each will have a message tucked into a wing. I will also post the photos and quotes here as well.
I'm doing this for a couple of reasons:

1. Making cranes makes me happy
2. I need to read more quotes from people much smarter than me
3. Finding a new place to put a crane everyday will be a challenge
4. If someone happens to find one, that would be a great BONUS!

Along the lines of the ornament page from last year, Kiana and I have decided to donate $1 for every LIKE to Shiba Inu Rescue of Texas. Hope you LIKE, share, follow and maybe even find! 

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I'm only a week into this project and it's already been a challenge to find new places everyday since I work in one location. But, it forces me to seek out places and gets me out of my usual routine. I pick the quotes which resonate with me but they may equally touch another person if they read it on FB or actually find one of my cranes. I've also realized that at the end of the year, all the photos would make an awesome poster.

See all of Ellen's cranes HERE.

Lauren's 366 Photos

Lauren Coleman in Berkeley, California is doing a social photo-a-day project for the 366 days of 2012 (it's a leap year!) and posting the results on her Flickr page...

Why did you decide to do this project? Actually, your work inspired me. I had flipped through your skull book at some point (AMAZING, and I effin love skulls), which may have led me to your 365 blog. I made it about two months last year, but inspired my mother to go for the entire year. Which in turn has re-inspired me (and my best friend) to give it a go this year!

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I take a ton of photos as it is, but I rarely end up sharing them, so this project is socially driven. My mother really enjoyed the conversations on Facebook that revolved around each photo. At the end of the year, she was wrapping up and not planning on continuing, when all sorts of FB lurkers came out of the woodwork to tell her how much it meant to them to log on and look at her photos every day. While I am only on day 6, a friend already left an amazing comment on one of my photos:

"Lauren, this time last year, as I hauled myself out of bed before dawn, exhausted & in the depths of depression, I always looked forward to finding out what your latest pic of the day was & I made it the first thing I did while feeding my son. It was like a little ray of positivity to help see me through. I'm glad to see this project back — even now I'm back on track I'll continue to be inspired by your rare ability to find beauty in the simplest everyday things."

So, yeah, that makes a huge impact, and it feels amazing to have this community come together through sharing a daily image, whether they themselves are doing it (such as my mother and my bff — it is tremendously rewarding to be doing this together) or whether they find inspiration by following the project.

See all of Lauren's photos HERE.

Project 366 Moments

Kelly Van den Saffele in Belgium is taking photographs daily in Project 366 Moments...

Why did you decide to do this project? I really love photography and I think this project is ideal to experiment and to learn new things. I bought my first camera only a while ago, in 2008, so I'm still developing my skills. I think it's also a good way to see the progress that you make by taking a picture every day.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? I've just started this project, so I don't know yet how it's going to effect my daily life in the long run. But after 3 days I'm already experiencing that it's a real challenge to take a nice picture every day and that it pushes me to be creative in ways that I didn't explore before and that's a nice surprise.

 
See all of Kelly's photos HERE.

A Year and a Day of Mythical Poetry

Mythica von Griffyn in Denver, Colorado is doing A Year and a Day of Mythical Poetry. She says, "A year and a day used to be the amount of time for an engagement in the old days. It is considered a year of commitment."...

Why did you decide to do this project?  After seeing the movie "Julie & Julia" seeing how a year project affected her life, and became a movie, I decided to do write poetry for a year and a day. Also another poetry critic had said that American poetry only reacted to the environment rather than created something we could strive for. Thus began my journey on September 13th, 2010.

How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? After the first 100 days I then realized that I had also not had a migraine since I began the project! That in processing my emotions through the poetry I greatly reduced the frequency and severity of the ones I did get, now only sporadically due to something in the physical environment. I have had many people tell me through comments on the poetry website how the poetry has helped inspire them as much as it has me. My poetry website has grown from 2,000 hits a month to 5,000... and I have been FLOORED & deeply touched by the faithful following.


Read all of Mythica's poetry HERE or on Facebook HERE.