Well, it was still gray today (Actually, it rained), but it was much milder. The sun did peek out a bit later in the afternoon - that was nice.

Materials:

• plastic shower cap
• 2 wigs for dolls (I assume they are for dolls – found them in my daughter’s arts and crafts drawers).
• an unravelling poofy pink yarn ball

As I was bathing, I thought the shower cap would make a very credible jelly fish body. The problem was finding something for the tentacles.

Today it was cool and gray in Madrid. I missed the sun. The sun definitely makes the days brighter.

So, to cheer myself up, I made a little butterfly.

Materials

• 1 sheet of paper folded in half
• some crayons
• pair of scissors

Drew the outline of half a butterfly along the edge and cut it out (I did not trust myself to draw a symmetrical butterfly – I certainly didn’t manage to colour it in symmetrically). I think I should have pressed harder with the pencil crayons (or maybe used markers) to give the butterfly more vibrant colours. The butterfly is photographed against a white background.

Today I played with “invisible ink”. After much rummaging about, I finally found a small paintbrush – although it was still quite “fat” at the tip.

Materials:

• lemon juice
• salt solution
• ammonium persulphate solution
• small paintbrush

Lemon juice, onion juice, milk, sugar water, honey solution will all work as invisible inks. As you heat the paper, the message will be revealed by the caramelization of the sugars.

Salty water doesn't work too well. An ammonium persulphate solution works very well, although, I am pretty sure most people don’t have this at home (I use it for etching away copper from printed circuit boards) – and, being corrosive, you don’t want it in contact with the metal nib of a fountain pen (which is why I used a paintbrush).

Writing in invisible ink is tough. The problem is that you can’t see what you are writing. The tendency is to over soak the paper, leaving telltale “water damage” marks. It also take s along time to dry out the page. I was impatient and set the paper to dry atop a hot water radiator. Unfortunately, it seems to have started the revealing of the lemon juice message.

Blank sheet of paper awaiting a message.

Over zealously dried paper with message started to be revealed.

Lemon juice (Invisible ink is cool) was not too great. Of course, the brush also made me write in big sloppy letters.

The salty water (salt) just underneath is barely visible – not really a surprise. Salt is fairly unreactive.

The ammonium persulphate came out very nicely. Of course, it is quite a strong oxidative chemical, so that was no surprise.

One thing for sure, writing in invisible ink with a paintbrush really plays wreaks my handwriting.

Being creative everyday is tough. Of course, some of that difficulty is self-imposed – wanting to do something new everyday and having no clear plan or focus. Today was one of those uncreative days.

On the other hand, doing Thing-A-Day forces me to get out of comfortable routines and patterns; forces me to actually do something instead of just think about it. For me, it is a good exercise.

Today was not a very inspiring day. I went through all sorts of “junk” in the hopes of being inspired, but ... nothing really jumped out at me. In the end, I decided to photograph a vacuum thermocouple and try to make it into a squid or jelly fish type thing by adding more legs using GIMP. In the end, I just grafted it into a picture of a flower I took last Summer.

A vacuum thermocouple. Give it four more legs and an eye and it could pass as some weird octopus. Give it lots of legs and it might pass for a jellyfish.

A poppy from my flower bed in Montreal.

The overlaid images. Not terribly exciting, but I think (in terms of technique) it came out very well.

Wrapped and mailed a birthday card and small gift to my sister-in-law. Pretty amazing, actually, I actually sent it two weeks before her birthday instead of 3 days after.

I am pretty sure that things for Thing-A-Day can be practical as well.

Materials

• 1 old calendar
• birthday card in envelope
• box of chocolate covered figs with a liquor filling
• drawing made by Tania
• tape

First I taped the card to the box of chocolates.

Then I taped Tania’s picture over the top. It is wrapped in thin plastic wrap because Tania did it with oil pastel’s (Tania’s favourite medium).

Two shots of the finished package: top and bottom.

Every day it is a challenge to come up with something to do.

While I can’t speak for the other participants, my goal is always for something simple, yet visually appealing  - since I think a picture carries more impact than words.

Materials

• rubber belt from a vacuum cleaner (new)
• a short piece of yarn
• some sort of black cap
• 2 little plastic pebbles

Below, some simple experiments in facial expressions – mostly focussing on the eyes.

e-books seem to be all the craze right now and I can’t deny I wouldn’t mind having one. Although ... I wonder how I would get all my books on it – I certainly don’t plan to re-buy all my books (and many of them are out of print).

Having decided to rid myself of some books, I thought there must be something crafty I can do with a few some of them. Hence, an e-book.

Materials:

• 1 old book
• 1 metal ruler
• 1 exacto knife

This is definitely the scariest thing-a-day I have ever done. I was terrified I was going to cut off a finger or stab myself in the leg. Cutting through book covers is a lot harder than I thought. I eventually opted to cut the pages inside using a pair of scissors: it was safer and quicker.

I’ve many times seen projects to convert a book in to a secret safe. After this experience, there is no way I am going to try cutting out hundreds of pages using an exacto knife. You really need some sort of press to make nice a clean cut.

You can see my Thing-A-Day post here or here.

I encourage you to check out the work others are doing. Lots of fantastic stuff there.

Thing-A-Day is here again and I have sign up (again). It was a lot of fun (and stress) last year, but it did a lot to make me feel alive. Probably the fact that I was “forced” to do something creative each day helped.

As usual, I spend my day fretting over what I am going to do. Pursue some blind leads and, finally, come up with something (I hope).

Materials:

• candlestick holder
• two slightly used birthday candles
• a tallish and clearish plastic bottle
• the sun

Assembled, they look something like this:

A snail’s shadow:

Cleaned up in GIMP to remove the artefact of the plastic bottle, but as I look at the images, I think the artefact is fine, rather like a slime trail.