Vol. 2, No. 120, April 30, 2017

2120 - 30 - It's a celebration. April Tree Time-Lapse.

Day 30 Create a trophy or another award for yourself.

Official Sprint or not, I celebrate the end of every month by creating my tree time-lapse. It is fun to see the changes in the tree, and I am really liking the green that developed this month. As I assemble my photo-collage, I look back at the other projects I did during the month as well. Although this is getting to be a pretty easy project, it is a celebration I look forward to every month.

Vol. 2, No. 119, April 29, 2017

2119 - 29 - Rip and Repair.

Day 29 Take something you have made during this sprint, rip it up (literally or metaphorically!) and create something different with the pieces.

I looked at the pictures of all my projects from the past month, about half of them I didn't have anymore because I left them on location where they were made, and the other half are things I want to keep. So I had to get a little more creative.

I rescued a dress scrap from the garbage. It was leftover from my dress to apron project. I "ripped" the fabric into strips using a scissors and wove the strips together to make a coaster. It could be better if I took the time to sew the cut side shut, but it holds together on its own, so I will probably leave it as is.

Vol. 2, No. 118, April 28, 2017

2118 - 28 - Super Sprinters.

Day 28 Collaborate with fellow Creative Sprinter and make whatever you want!

Today I was dress shopping with my family for my sister's wedding. Since I had to focus on spending time with them, I decided to collaborate with them rather than my fellow sprinters. So, at lunch everyone took their straw wrapper and made an animal for our zoo. We made the Loch Ness Monster, a snail, a crane, a work, and an elephant-esque thing. It was a challenging, but fun activity to do while waiting for our food.

Vol. 2, No. 117, April 27, 2017

2117 - 27 - Wearable Art.

Day 27 Create something that you can wear and share a photo of yourself wearing it in public!

At first I was going to make this simple and just make a little friendship bracelet, but then I remembered that I had an old dress at home that I have been wanting to turn into an apron. So after my long day at work, followed by grocery shopping, I stopped at my parents house to pick up a sewing machine. Then I went home and got to work. Two hours later I have a new, cute apron. While it may not be fair worthy, or Granny approved, it is wearable.

Since it was late when I finished it, I didn't get to wear it in public, but I look forward to the next time I work in the church kitchen, as I will be sure to bring my apron with.

Vol. 2, No. 116, April 26, 2017

2116 - 26 - #wisdomwednesday.

Day 26 Tell a story about your family—its history, its identity, a family motto, or words of wisdom—in exactly six words.

Since my family name has six letters, I decided to make it easy by finding one word for each letter. The hard part was figuring out how to present the words. I was subbing in am elementary school today and I found Unifix Cubes. I used white cubes for my name and a different color for each word. I wrote one letter on each cube and stacked them in front of the wall.

Vol. 2, No. 115, April 25, 2017

2115 - 25 - The Song That Never Ends...

Day 25 Make something inspired by the song that always gets stuck in your head

One song that always gets stuck in my head, to the point that I've stopped listening to it all together, is Stuck Like Glue by Sugarland.

With the song running rampaged through my head, I pulled out a glue bottle and got to work. I drew a picture with glue on black construction paper. Then I used chalk pastels to color the picture. I guess the picture doesn't really have anything to do with the song, but I used glue so it works in my book.

Vol. 2, No. 114, April 24, 2017

2114 - 24 - Elemental. Re-funk your Junk.

Day 24 Choose an element from the Periodic Table as your inspiration for today.

#64MillionArtists
Re-funk your Junk - what old stuff can you make new?

Take your unwanted or unusable objects and breathe new life into them. Would an old chair look better with a new coat of paint? Could you make an empty jam jar into a pen holder? What old stuff can you make new?

I combined today's Creative Sprint prompt with the weekly prompt from #64MillionArtists. For my element, I chose Rhodium, because my initials are RH.

Rhodium (RO-dee-em), derived from the Greek 'rhodon' meaning rose, is a chemical element with symbol Rh and atomic number 45. This hard, silvery-white element, is one of the rarest and most valuable precious metals.metal. It is a member of the platinum group. Rhodium occurs natively with other platinum metals in river sands of the Urals and in North and South America.

Most of the rhodium metal sold in the United States is used to make alloys. An alloy is made by melting and mixing two or more metals. The mixture has properties different from those of the individual metals. Rhodium is often added to platinum to make an alloy. Rhodium is harder than platinum and has a higher melting point. So the alloy is a better material than pure platinum.

Most rhodium alloys are used for industrial or research purposes, such as laboratory equipment and thermocouples. A thermocouple is a device for measuring very high temperatures. Rhodium alloys are also used to coat mirrors and in search-lights because they reflect light very well.

Using the what I learned about rhodium, I decided to draw a silver rose on a mirror. I had bought the mirror a long time ago at a thrift store, and just had it sitting in storage, waiting for a reason to be used. It tied well into your project today. The rose was drawn with Sharpie, and the periodic table information was added in PhotoShop.

Vol. 2, No. 113, April 23, 2017

2113 - 23 - Globe Trotter.

Day 23   Make a piece inspired by all the places your shoes have been.

This morning, I took advantage of the tiny window of time I had between church and the final show of LCYT'S Lion King Jr. To do my project. I was having trouble coming up with a project so I asked my mom. I showed her the map showing the places I've been, all of which are in the United States. She came up with something for each region I've visited, sand, water, snow and wildflowers. Conveniently, I had all of these on hand and was able to combined them in this cute little jar.

I filled a small jar with sea water from Florida.  Then, I used Mod-Podge to attach sand that I had gotten from a beach during one of my costal travels to the bottom, and a flower that I had picked and dried to the sides. Finally, I put a fake snow compound over the cap of the jar.

Vol. 2, No. 112, April 22, 2017

2112 - 22 - Happy Earth Day!

Day 22   Celebrate the Earth!

I used the little bit of extra time I had before the play tonight to take a walk around he outside of the theater and enjoy the beauty of the earth. It was such a beautiful day, I was sad to have to spend most of it inside.

Vol. 2, No. 111, April 21, 2017

2111 - 21 - On this Day.

Day 21 Make something inspired by an event that happened today in history.

After some research, I discovered that on this day in 1918, the Red Baron was killed. Manfred von Richthofen was a legendary German fighter pilot. He earned his renown and nickname by achieving 80 air combat victories in World War I. He was shot down and killed during combat at the age of 25. 

To commemorate, I made paper airplanes. I started with a lousy attempt at a WWI Fighter Plane (the gold one). The instructions I found weren't super clear, and eventually I gave up.  To redeem myself, I followed up with a simple paper plane using a white index card. I stuck a paperclip in it to make it fly better.

Vol. 2, No. 110, April 20, 2017

2110 - 20 - Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.

Day 20 Make five small identical things and give them away or leave them for people to find (don't forget to document those interactions!)

Wanting something easy, I chose origami balls. What was I thinking? Sure, I've been making them since my Junior year of high school, and could probably do it with my eyes closed, but it is very time consuming. Each ball requires me to fold 12 squares of paper into little triangle shapes, then connect them together. Oh well, it was worth it because they are cute and it was fun to hide them throughout my day.

I was really into today's project, so I actually made 8 balls rather than just 5. The picture shows the location of all 8 blue balls as I distributed them throughout my day. My day starts in the top left corner and moves clockwise around the square. The picture in the middle is a close up of the top middle picture.

1. TL - Lamp table in the entry way of Holy Trinity Church in Winsted.
2. TC - A statue of Mary and Jesus on the second floor of Holy Trinity School.
3. TR - On the band teacher's desk. He told me to hide one in there. I conveniently found a time when he wasn't in the room.
4. MR - On my school computer with the eraser frog that I made for one of my projects earlier this year.
5. BR - On a shelf in Supervalu. I had to pick up snacks for Art Club.
6. BC - In Elmo's hand, in the window of the Winsted Arts Council.
7. BL - On the bulletin board in the lobby of the Meeker County Family Services Building, with the poster for Lion King Jr.
8. ML - I gave the last one to one of the Lionesses after the show.

Vol. 2, No. 109, April 19, 2017

2109 - 19 - #wisdomwednesday.

Day 19 Emulate your second grade self and use only materials that could be found in an elementary school classroom.

Two art materials readily accessible in elementary school are paper and markers. As I pulled out my Crayola markers, I was drawn to thinking about things I drew frequently in elementary school. Two things that came to mind were fish and the word SMILE, with that funky 6-line S.

I made a quick SMILE drawing on a sheet of notebook paper, because lets face it, that is usually what I was drawing on in elementary school, and usually when I was supposed to be doing something else.

Vol. 2, No. 108, April 18, 2017

2108 - 18 - Stars Align.

Day 18 Use your horoscope as your inspiration today!

I am a Cancer, so I kept it simple today and made an origami crab. I looked up instructions online. Of the step-by-step instructions I found, the crab I liked the best, had it's instructions written in Chinese. I don't read Chinese, and it was a picture, so I couldn't just put it in google translator. Therefore, I relied on the sub-par images and made up the parts I couldn't figure out.

Vol. 2, No. 107, April 17, 2017

2107 - 17 - Open to Interpretation.

Day 17 Finish this statement any way you want: One thing I know to be true...

...is that Litchfield Community Youth Theatre's production of Lion King Jr. opens on Thursday. For this reason, my project today was to make 45 more dandelions to go with the 10 I made a few weeks ago. I need 55 all together so that each actor and crew member gets one. While this tends to be a large under taking, I like ensuring that each child receives at least one flower during the show. I started about 5 years ago and I try to make the flower relate to the show; for The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley Jr. I made "flat" flowers, which were painted on a bookmark; for My Son Pinocchio Jr. I made "wooden" roses from cardboard.

The process of making the dandelions is to sew string on to a straw; wrap the string around the straw and a fork, tying it off and snipping the loops to create a pom-pom; dye the flower; let it dry completely; rinse out the excess dye; let the flower dry completely again; finally fluf the flower and wrap the straw with floral tape. It is a time consuming process, but they look really neat when they are finished. Unfortunately due to time constraints, I wasn't able to actually complete all of the flowers today. I did get them made, dyed, and rinsed, so all I have to do is wrap the stems after they are dry.

Vol. 2, No. 106, April 16, 2017

2106 - 16 - Museum Moment.

Day 16 Recreate your favorite work of art.

My all-time favorite artwork is Vincent Van Gough's 'Starry Night'. I've recreated it multiple times, but I couldn't resist recreating it again. Since it is Easter, I created a jellybean mosaic a blue tablecloth.

Vol. 2, No. 105, April 15, 2017

2105 - 15 - Charting a Course.

Day 15 Create something using an old map or something that ends up looking like a map.

I got the honor of making dessert for my family's Easter dinner tomorrow. I decided on carrot cake, because it is delicious and seemed fitting for the holiday. I decorated the cake, creating a maze/map for the Easter Bunny'so carrot fields.