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.

Day 321:  I made an ornament out of a juice pouch.  I found this project on terracycle.com.  I like it, but I know there's got to be even more potential for these juice pouches. They are such an interesting material.  I think it would be fun to make bags out of them, but the one time I tried this was a somewhat sorry attempt because I sewed it by hand rather than on a sewing machine. 

Days 322-326:  I made a bunch of magnets out of bottle caps.  I basically went nuts over this project.  I had so much fun searching for interesting backgrounds and teeny tiny pictures.  I made about a hundred a day for three days and then spent two days pouring the resin and gluing on the magnets.  Unfortunately several of them didn't turn out because the resin didn't harden.  The ones that did work out are super cute though!

Day 310:  I made another paper chain out of magazine pages.  I had so many strips left over from the last time I made a paper chain.  I also wanted to have one to put up at my house.  I made this really long and still have strips left over. 

Day 311:  I made more pop tab bracelets. 

Day 312:  I cut a bunch of stars out of a National Geographic.  I was thinking I might string them all together for a holiday decoration. 

Day 313:  I cut a flower out of a magazine page.  This is another one of those projects that is so simple it feels like I'm cheating.  I know at this point though, having super simple days keeps me going with the whole project and that more complicated projects will continue to surface as long as I stick with it.

Day 314: Using the folding technique I used on the last two projects, I created a bunch of snowflakes.  I have always loved making snowflakes.  I have been feeling a lot of satisfaction in making things from magazine paper that would usually be made from new paper.  Instead of buying colored paper for paper chains, or white paper for snowflakes, or plastic gift bows, I have been making all these things out of magazine paper.  There is so much that we make out of new materials that could be made out of recycled materials.  I am very aware lately of how this past year of recycled projects has changed me.  I think about how much packaging the things I purchase have and whether it is worth it.  Ultimately, everything has a life span and will end up being disposed of eventually.  I want to buy things that will last a long time and that will bring me a lot of satisfaction.  There is so much I used to buy that I just wouldn't think of buying anymore.

Day 315:  I made some gift boxes for the store out of magazine pages.  I have already given several away.  People seem more delighted with them than the regular gift boxes, which makes me very happy.

Day 316: I drew a robot on a book page.  This is not an original drawing by me.  I googled "robots" and this one was so adorable to me I wanted to draw it.  It is an image from shutterstock.com.

Day 317: Another robot, this one contains elements of  the robot pictures I was looking at, but is not a copy of any of them.

Day 318: One more robot, this one completely from my head.  It turned out kind of buggy.

Day 319:  I revisited this magazine/tissue paper/journal paper collage.  I added to it with oil pastel.   The black circles and blue lines are the new elements in this art piece.

Day 320:  I added to another of my collages.  All the blue tissue paper is newly added and I added  black circles again.  Adding to yesterday's collage was definitely worth it, I loved the results.  This time however, I'm not so sure I like how it turned out.  Another layer, perhaps?  (or should I feed it to a bonfire?)

Day 306:  I made more pop tab bracelets.  Surprise. Suprise.

Day 307: I drew a pair of scissors on a piece of cardboard.  I do adore scissors so very much.  I use them every single day.

Day 308:  I drew another picture on a piece of cardboard, this time a cassette tape.  Images of cassette tapes are appealing to me because of the nostalgia they invoke.  Annoying as it was with all the stopping, starting and rewinding, I have fond memories of making mixed tapes.  I used to paint them in bright colors with acrylic paint. 

Day 309:  I made this with a used piece of Christmas ribbon.  It was fun to make something unusual and useless, because I was just experimenting and playing without any expectations or idea of what it would become.

Day 298:  I made a mustache out of magazine paper.

Day 299:  I learned from an origami book how to make a pentagon shape by folding and cutting a square of paper, then I turned my pentagon into a snowflake. 

Day 300!!!!  So glad I made it this far!!! It seems as though there are hardly any days left of this yearly endeavor.  I think it is going to zoom right by me, and I'll be done before I know it.  Then what?  Everyone keeps asking me if I'll keep going.  I might keep making at least a project a week for a while.  It seems as though recycled art is now a part of who I am.  For day 300, I made another modular origami sphere, this time out of magazine paper.  Each little flower piece that becomes part of the sphere starts out as a pentagon, which is why I taught myself the pentagon making technique yesterday.  It is made from twelve little flowers all together. 

Day 301:  I made some more magazine page bows.  These are the smallest ones so far, much smaller from the very first ones I made.  I made them all from the same magazine page.

Day 302:  Another set of bows.  I really like the black and white ones!

Day 303:  And more bows!!!  After all, tis the season...

Day 304:  I made a bunch of rolled magazine circles for my art piece I've been working on (see day 287).  I made about 10 little circles.

Day 305: I was hanging out at a friend's house and he had a Christmas origami book with instructions for a paper gift box. I made this funny little box out of a couple of Rolling Stone magazine pages.  I liked the combination of the guy with the nerdy glasses on the lid with the text on the inside.