The daily card, week 12

I feel like this week is more "autobiographical" than many- or at least more drawn from what was going on in my life those days. I doubt that in 20 years I'll look back at these and remember the events and thoughts that inspired them, but I like that I've captured little snippets of things going through my head- which is probably more evocative than a detailed account of my daily life would be anyway.

I can't remember if I've written about it before, but the daily card project is one piece of what I think of as a daily creative trifecta. In addition to making a card every day, I'm also aiming to take a photo and to write a line in a line-a-day journal. I think they all complement each other nicely. Maybe if I put the photo/journaling/card for each day side-by-side someplace, it would result in a fuller picture for posterity - at the moment you'd have to cross-reference three different spaces - but I like that I'm guaranteed to document at least a bit of my day in three media.

The top-left card, which was pulled together a bit randomly, is what inspired one of my favorite art journaling spreads so far. I hoped that this small-scale project would generate ideas for larger-scale ones so I'm glad that the wheels are turning in that direction.

And sorry for the weird lighting in this one (and, truth be told, on many of these daily card posts). I never knew it could be so hard to get a decent photo of paper products against a white background until I started blogging.

Fleeing to the Cleve

Anyone keeping score at home may note that I've been trying to post M-W-F (though it's more like M-W-F with a bunch of random art journal pages thrown in whenever I finish them). Having a set posting schedule feels like overkill some days, since I'm so new at this, but I like having the structure to make sure I keep writing and showing up here.

But that said, I'm going to sign off for a few days - I'm heading to Cleveland for Easter! (Because we can't always fight those urges.) I'll be back on Wednesday with a new week of cards.

The daily card, week 11: Q1 edition

As of today, April 1, I am now exactly 90 cards in and a quarter of the way through 2015.

Some of the novelty has definitely worn off this project. I have pretty much run through the backlog of ideas that I started the year with and I've had to work a little harder to get the ideas to flow. And I often find myself dragging my feet about sitting down at my desk and making a card at the end of a long day. But I am learning to "trust the process," as they say- to know that the ideas will come once I get my hands moving. And I am always happy I made something and almost always happy with the result. Especially at the end of a blah or frustrating day, creating something gives me a sense of accomplishment in just a few square inches.

As daunting as it is to remember that I have 270+ cards stretching out before me between now and the end of this project, it is so cool to flip through my ten pages of cards (they are in trading card protectors) and see everything I've made so far. If I didn't work through the hump of "I don't feel like doing this today," I wouldn't have all this.

Because it's all about taking it one day at a time. I can't think of a better illustration of the idea that "big things happen one day at a time." (This is the goal tracker that was a big part of the idea to attempt something every day for a year.) The thing is, I don't have to come up now with the ideas for the 270 remaining days. I don't even have to have a plan for that day's card when I sit down at my desk. It is all about making the creativity happen one day at a time.

The cards, as fun as they are, are not much individually. But having a body of work that I've contributed to on a daily basis is pretty cool. It makes me think about how much else I could make progress on if I chipped at a project every day, just a few minutes at a time. Good stuff.