I've been busy this summer working on a dress for the Glam Trash Fashion Show, the annual recycled fashion show here in Taos.  My dress was made out of aluminum can tabs.  I saved tabs for about a year before starting.  I had a lot of friends collecting them for me.  I also told  someone who was passing through town about my project and he sent me close to 1000 tabs in the mail!  The finished dress has over 5500 tabs, and about 3000 of that is just in the ruffles.  I'm  so happy that after a year of collecting and a couple of months of assembling, that I pulled it off.  Here are a couple of pictures of me wearing my pop tab dress at the event:

Over the past few months, I have continued to make a lot of recycled art.  I make something almost every day.  I can't help myself, I'm so used to it!!!  I have been working on one major project for an art show.  It's part of a puzzle made up of eight pieces that is going to be in an art show in Philadelphia.  I sent it off in the mail a few days ago.  I am very excited to be a part of an art show outside of my own little town, it's a first for me.  I created this collage out of magazine pictures.  I cut up pieces of sky and buildings, and mixed them all up to create a new sky and a cityscape.  I populated it with tiny people and cars and such.  I added some perspective, yet allowed for some disproportion to give it a somewhat surreal feeling.  I wanted it to be fun to look at, with quirky little things happening, like a person floating into the sky with ballons.  I collected little people and cars for this for about three months, but only a few out of the hundreds of little pictures I collected ended up fitting right.  I had way too much fun making this and put so much time and love into it.  It is definitely one of my favorite pieces of art I have created!

Day 364:  It took about a week to post these last couple of projects.  My last day of making something every day for a year was Feb 2.  I'm done!!!!  For this day, I decorated some bike chain magnets with little picture collages made from magazine pages.  We are selling these at Seconds Eco Store.  They are loads of fun to make!

Day 365:  For my very last project, I added to the flower I had started a few days before.  This is all made out of identical mini business cards.  I cut the exact same shape out of each of them and then glued them together using the dark and light ends of each petal shape to create a pattern.  I feel very relieved to be done with this project.  What a challenge it has been!  I have been continuing to make art, but not every day.  There are still some bigger pieces that I started this past year that I still have to finish, and there are some ideas that I came up with that I never got to start.   I have been collecting pop tabs for the past year in order to make a dress.  I have about 7,000 of them.  So, there is still a lot of recycled art for me in the coming year!!!  I am looking forward to continuing to make art, letting it take up more time and intention than I allowed for in my life before I started this.  I feel like a gigantic door has been opened for me and there is still a whole world to explore out there.  There are still a million possibilities of things to make from recycled materials.  It has been truly inspiring to have made such a quantity of art in the past year.  My mind has been constantly thinking about recycled art, every time I came accross something I was about to throw out or someone else was throwing out I have been challenged by the question, "What can I make with this?"  Having to come up with 365 days of projects has put my mind in an almost constantly creative space.  Even when I've been almost too tired to make something, I dreamt about the things I would make on days when I had more time and energy.  My wish for the coming year is that my mind can stay open to ideas and creativity even if I'm not making something every day.  I plan on posting a few more times this year as a follow up to how this project has affected my life and the art that continues to emerge.  (I'd really like to be able to show off my dress when it's done.)  Then I'll be able to let this blog rest in peace!  Love and thanks to everyone who has supported me in this past year, giving me encouragement, trash, and company on this journey!  XOXO!

Day 357: I made some recycled valentines using some blank recycled paper cards and cuttings from magazines.

Day 358: I made an envelope from a magazine page for a valentine that I made.

Day 359:  I was so very sick on this day, it is the only day I haven't made anything, no matter how small.  Hanging up these hearts was as close to a creative endeavor as I could manage!!

Day 360:  Still feeling sick on this day, I just added to the coaster I started a couple of weeks ago.  I am still very very fond of the magazine reed technique.

Day 361: I made some more pop top bracelets. 

Day 362:  A friend of mine gave me a bunch of little cards that all had the same print on them.  They were mini "business cards" she handed out at a presentation she did.  I took several of them, cut petal shapes and glued them together.  I happen to have about a hundred more, so I might just add to this, making it a bigger, multi-layered flower.  I remember when I started this yearly project, I kept making so many flowers, so I started trying not to make flowers, and here I am near the end making a flower again. Maybe finishing it will be the project for my very last day.  One last big explosive flower.

Day 363:  I made the circles I had cut out last week into pins.  All the words and images were cut out from old magazines.  These were so much fun to make!  We are selling these at the store where I work and I feel really lucky that I can be creative and have fun at work.  I have only two days left to go of making something every day.  Although at times throughout the year I have felt like it would take forever to get through the year, it now seems like it has flown by.   I am feeling both relieved and sad  about it coming to an end.  I am hoping that I can keep my art and creativity a priority in my life even after I finish this commitment.  Before I started this yearly endeavor, I was not very dedicated to making art, even though I've always considered myself a creative person.  Over the past year, it has become one of the most important parts of my life.   I feel more like an artist than I ever have before.  I was just asked last week to be a part of a collaborative art project, where eight different people each decorate a large wooden puzzle piece, and then these pieces all fit together.  People approach me now, asking me to be involved in making and teaching art.  I used to be secretively creative; not on purpose, but most people in my life didn't know I was artistic at all.  It wasn't until I started making things every day that my art started making its way past the confines of my own personal world. 

Day 350: I drew a little doodle on a note I had written an order on at the coffee shop, my new sorta job (don't have many hours there yet). 

Day 351:  I went over to the highschool to teach some more recycled art.  We decorated CD's with black acrylic paint, scratched a design into it and then covered it with glossy Mod Podge.  This is a project I did earlier on but thought it would be a fun one to do with the kids.

Days 352 and 353:  I made more magazine circles.

Day 354:  I added on to the toilet paper/ paper towel roll art piece.

Day 355:  I made more circles for bottlecap magnets.   I am getting way ahead of myself on these.  I might end up with way more magnets then I'll ever sell.  I especially like the ones with scissors on them.

Day 356:  I made larger circles for some bigger magnets and pins we are making for the store.

Day 341: I decorated a puzzle piece.  I had been having so much fun decorating bottle caps for magnets, I decided to try doing a tiny collage on a puzzle piece.  I thought they might make fun elements in jewelry projects.  It ended up being hard to cut out the shape of the puzzle piece versus cutting out a simple circle for a bottle cap.  I decided it wasn't worth the trouble to make more than just this one.

Day 342: I was trying to make a paper crane, which I have made before, but I guess I forgot how.  I ended up making a bug like object with parts of a woman's body on it.  I actually like it, though I don't know what it's good for.

Day 343: I was asked to teach a couple of recycled art classes at one of the high schools here in Taos.  I had seen pictures of frames made using a technique I thought was really beautiful and I thought the kids could have some fun with it, so I tried it out.  This frame is made on a cardboard base and decorated with magazine pages that have been rolled into reeds.  I had a blast making this and loved how it turned out.

Day 344:  I made another frame using the same technique.  I just glued them on in a different way.

Day 345:  While at the high school hanging out with the kids while they made their own awesome frames, I made this.  I guess it could be a coaster or a mini piece of art.  I like the mostly black and white look of this one.

Day 346: I made another collage.  I felt like I was playing, tearing and gluing magazine pages.   

Day 347:  I wanted to make a wallet out of a cassette tape.  I took it apart and took out all the insides, then I glued a picture to each side.  That's as far as I got.  I like the side with the woman on the phone, because I think it's funny the hole ended up being right over her eye.

Day 348:  Getting a headstart on Valentine's Day, I made a few recycled magazine hearts.

Day 349:  A note to myself.

Day 333: I have been getting behind on posting my projects!  This one I made on New Years day on the drive down to Albuquerque to visit some friends.  Don't worry, I wasn't the one driving.  I found this picture of a girl walking in the rain.  I tried to give it a rainy kind of feel by ripping the paper into long strips. 

Day 334: I cut out a pair of scissors from a magazine page.  This was one of my sneaky short projects.  My mind was on hanging out and enjoying the friends we were visiting so I basically just made something as quick as I could!  The friend we were visiting has a scissor collection (little pairs of scissors nailed to the wall) so scissors were the first thing that came to mind.

Day335: I always get a little melancholy around the time of my birthday.  It's not about getting older, it's about struggling with accepting that I am loved and that it's okay to have a day that is supposed to be special for me.  In the days approaching my birthday I go back and forth between excited and wishing I could just skip the whole thing.  I decided to express some of that mixed emotion with some recycled tears.

Day 336:  This collage is a continuation of thoughts and feelings around my birthday and reflections on where my life is at the moment.  There is a crazy mix of words, some reflecting positive thoughts and outlooks, some of them a little more ambivalent, some expressing confusion and a sense of being lost.  All this comes to rest on the right side of the page where there are two statements that sum up what I've uncovered as a solid foundation for approaching my life.  It is important to me to be just as I am, without shoving my thoughts, desires, and impulses inside to please someone else (which I have indeed spent much of my life doing).  The other is to always have something to look forward to.  I am kind of an adventure/excitement junkie (though not in an extreme way like jumping out of planes).  I am always seeking/wanting new experiences.  I can get easily depressed when life becomes too routine.  I know it is my responsibility to keep myself happy by actively seeking the next adventure rather than slipping into boredom and blaming it on relationship or the responsibilities of being a mom.  This collage helped me to reconnect with that and curb the birthday blues.   

Day 337: More magazine circles for my ongoing art piece.  If this ever becomes as large and impressive as it is in my head, I will have really accomplished something!

Day 338: I drew a couple of pairs of scissors resting on top of each other.  This drawing totally sucks and it can just go to the cardboard bin!  I like the idea though, so I'll probably try a similar drawing again, hopefully with better results.

Day 339: Hanging out at the bar next to a basket of matchbooks and having a drink to celebrate my birthday (and having a good time of it too), I cut decorations into several of the matchbooks.  They turned out pretty cute!  I love projects that come about just cause I happen to be in a certain place at a certain time and start fiddling around with whatever happens to be in front of me.

Day 340: So, my birthday finally arrives, and it turns out to be a wonderful day!  On the drive to the  bowling alley, I cut a butter box up to look like a piece of swiss cheese.  I really don't know why, but here it is! 

Day 327:  I made another bow.  This one is made from striped wrapping paper and is the largest one I have made yet.

Day 328: I drew a picture of a kissing bug on a piece of cardboard.  I am really liking cardboard as a surface to draw on.  There is such an abundance of it and if the picture doesn't turn out well, then it just goes in the recycling bin with the rest of the cardboard.  I am extremely fond of insects; even the ones I'm scared of I find fascinating.  I call my daughter "bug" as a term of endearment.  Kissing bugs get their name from the fact that they are drawn to the odors that people exhale and will bite you around the mouth.  Cute, isn't it?

Day 329: Another sketch on a piece of cardboard.  I am happy that this 365 project has gotten me drawing again.  I used to draw a lot, but haven't much in the past ten years!!  I think it would be fun to try drawing a sketch every day for a year.  (Not that I'm ready to embark on this sort of journey again  any time soon!  As I'm nearing the end of the 365 days people have been asking me: "Are you going to continue?"  I usually say: "Are you crazy?")

Day 330: I made about fifty more little pictures for magnets.  I have so much fun doing these, every time I look at a magazine now I notice little pictures and colorful patterns that I want to cut out.  I have an envelope that I continually add to.

Day 331: I added stripes to my strawberries.

Day 332: I drew this for my daughter to color in.