31 days of Unfinished Projects
Hiding Painted Rocks
day 1: Readying painted rocks to hide in and around the city.
day 1: Finishing painted rocks from this past summer to be “hidden”for walkers and wanderers to discover.
day 2: Hid the first 7 rocks...
day 3: Hid these 3 rocks...
day 4: Hid these 2 rocks...
day 5: Hid these 3 rocks...
day 6: Hid these 3 rocks...
day 7: Hid these 4 rocks...
day 12: Hid the last 7 rocks...
day 22: This rock from Schenley plaza discovered, and on the move.
"10,000 Steps" Selfies
days 4 & 5: Creating a time-lapse of selfies taken over a one year period 2016-2017
days 4 & 5: 10K Step Selfies Time Lapse
From May 2016 to May 2017 I would take a set of selfies - including one of my feet - every time my Fitbit buzzed at 10,000 steps. It was the start of year two of Walking all the Streets of Pittsburgh. The end goal was to create a time lapse showing all of the backgrounds as I hit 10,000 steps while walking or going about my day. Some times waving my arms in an animated conversation advanced my step count to 10,000. And some days I reached 20,000 steps taking a second set of pictures with a 20K sign!
I'm especially fond of the cameo appearances of family and friends that jumped into frame. Such good sports!!
Collage
day 6: Resurrecting a collage project circa 2011.
day 6: Resurrecting a collage project circa 2011.
During a retreat in 2011 in Mexico I started this collage project by covering a piece of paper with paint.
After waiting for the paper to dry there was not enough time to complete the project, so I've been carrying around these strips and squares for years.
But today I can call it DONE! And I'm thrilled with the results.
Balloon Painting
day 11: Balloon painting, splattering paint on walls and canvases.
day 11: Balloon Painting
An unseasonably warm day calls for an outdoor project. Quilting outside was lovely, but I have been waiting for such a day to try balloon painting.
There were a few trials and errors. The first error being the water balloon full of blue paint that exploded all over me when trying to fill it.
Balloons were hard to break, bouncing to the ground time and again, and the paint mixed with water was too runny and mostly ran off the canvas.
The second canvas I placed flat after inserting pushpins. Balloons popped instantly upon hitting the pins.
Take a look at the balloons popping in slow motion:
The paint stayed on the canvas and swirled in beautiful patterns while wet.
...but lost a lot of that luster after drying. Still a really fun day experimenting with Balloon Painting!
Photo Slide Lamp
days 19 & 20: Creating a specialized lamp shade using photo slides.
days 19 & 20: Photo Slide Lamp
I love transforming old slides into colorful light displays for the home. I purchased a small lamp some time ago to create a Slide Photo Lamp for the table top. This travel-themed lamp will go to a friend of mine.
Doodle Tattoo
day 22: Permanently tattooing one of my mom's doodles on my body.
day 22: Doodle Tattoo
My mom doodles. Walk into her office and invariably you'll find a notepad or an envelope with a handwritten phone number surrounded by a page full of doodles. I have been eying her office space to try to steal away some of those doodles. I've had the idea for some time that I'd get a tattoo of one of her drawings to remember her by so that when she's gone I'll have a part of her with me. Then I realized I could have her create some doodles for me and have her pick out her favorite. And so today, for my birthday, I had one of her hearts tattooed on my wrist.
Geometric Quilt circa 1995
day 27: Resurrecting this Geometric Quilt circa 1995
days 1-4: Resurrecting the Geometric Quilt
Started this quilt 23 years ago when I lived in Menlo Park, CA. It was intended as a wedding gift for my brother. It has been packed away and carried with me across the country and through 7 moves. Time to resurrect it.
days 6-12: Reconfiguring the Geometric Quilt
Yellow blocks weren't really working, so they were removed, and I'm loving the red blocks amid the cooler colors.
Creating new blocks is taking quite a bit of time to cut and sew together. A tedious process when sewn by hand. I am reminded that 23 years ago my endurance for such things was greater, and my eyesight much better!
days 14-18: Making progress on the Geometric Quilt
Pleased with the progress, making the tedium seem worthwhile. I very much want it to be done, so the question is, keep it as a square, or go for a more pleasing rectangle?
days 23-26: Squaring off the Geometric Quilt
Small setbacks when changing direction with how I'm handling the edges caused me to rip out recent work. Hoping to at least have the top piece completed by the end of the month. Considering a chevron type top stitching following the block shapes to finish the quilt.
day 27: Geometric Quilt top is FINISHED!
After working on this hand-sewn, half hexagon, geometric quilt nearly every day this month, the top piece is DONE!! This quilt was started around 23 years ago as a wedding gift for my brother. It has sat untouched since then, boxed up and following me from home to home and back across the country. It feels good to resurrect this quilt and will be a great addition to my wall art collection (Sorry Bro!) once the quilt is completely finished. But that's more than I can fit into a month of FunADay!
Photo Slide Light Fixture
day 30: Transforming this garbage light fixture.
days 20 & 21: cleaning, preparing, and experimenting with slide layout
This past summer I found the PERFECT light fixture to transform into a Photo Slide Light. This was on the curb slated for the dump.
I'd removed the outer rings and needed to clean the glue and the inner drum.
I then started experimenting with slide layout. My first sampling of slides was rather boring, so I opted to include the original rings with a much nicer effect.
day 30: finishing the photo slide light fixture
Once I settled on this setup, I removed the sample slides and worked on removing the glue and residue from the rings.
I have a stack of carousels a friend gave me from a photographer friend of her brothers. His photos are the perfect sampling of countries and cultures through his travels in the 70's and ideal subjects for this light.
I was so close to finishing this project when I ran out of connecters. I worried I'd have trouble locating more and would have to take this apart and reconfigure the slides. But I was able to hunt down enough to finish and the light is now DONE!!
Torn Vacation Photos
day 31: Creating a collage of vacation photos that were slated for the trash.
day 8: Experimenting with layouts
Trying to work with these old vacation photos slated for the trash. I love the collection of tropical beach and ocean images and feel there's something good here, but it's just not coming to me. I think I need a large panoramic frame, which I'm not easily finding.
days 28 & 29: Experimenting with layouts
Still trying to find the right combination of photos in the right aspect ratio for framing.
day 31: Calling it DONE!
Projects still left Unfinished...
Some projects that remain unfinished following a month of Fun-A-Day...
Bottle Cap Collage
day 1: Sorting Bottle Caps
I have been collecting these plastic bottle caps that cannot be recycled. When Creative Reuse stopped accepting them, I had quite a number of them and, from habit, kept saving them. I'm going to try creating a self-portrait in bottle caps.
Ottoman Cover
day 2: Choosing fabric for a new cover.
I've been wanting to create a more colorful ottoman cover for this piece from Ikea. I picked up these fabrics today from Creative Reuse's fill a bag for $5.00
Entrelac Scarf
day 2: Searching through Ravelry to find my notes on this original scarf design.
days 4 & 6: Working a section of entrelac on this scarf and remembering why I quit knitting and the toll sitting and knitting takes on my body.
Resurrecting this Entrelac Scarf from 2009. The lenticular entrelac pattern is my own design, and I'm thankful for Ravelry for keeping my notes so I can pick it up again.
And some projects I never even got to...
