Get a bunch of little plastic cups, fill them with soil, and sprinkle some seeds in them. It doesn’t matter what kind of seeds you put in — they can be flowers, or fruit, or vegetables. After you put everything in the cups, put a little label on them with a message like “Make the world a better place. Plant me.” Then, go around your neighborhood, or any neighborhood for that matter, and simply place a cup on everybody’s doorstep. Theyll find the cup eventually, and who knows, maybe sooner or later youll notice new plants along your street!
Noah Gampe
Bellflower, CA
One night while out on a smoke break, I looked at a sidewalk tree outside our building and thought, “Man, that is one sad tree. It looks cold and wet and pathetic. It needs a sweater!”
I went home and whipped one up, it only took an hour and a half to knit. Then another fifteen minutes or so, standing outside in the cold at half past midnight, stitching it up.
The instructions are pretty basic: essentially you just measure the tree of your choice, and make a very, very small sweater. The seam is a little unusual, because it has to fit around the tree (you can’t pull it over the tree’s head, for obvious reasons).
Knit in acrylic yarn, the treesweater has withstood two months (and counting) of Seattle winter weather. It’s still hanging in there!
I have more detailed instructions, as well as pics, posted on my blog here.
I would love it if more people made treesweaters for sad urban trees!
Erika
Seattle, WA
erika.fisherking.org
My sister and sister-in-law actually came up with this project.
I’m from a pretty big family, we have a lot of fun together and they are some of my favorite people in the world. Unfortunately, now that we’re all grown up we’re spread out across the Western U.S., and don’t get to see each other too often. So we’ll be doing this project partly just to keep in touch, but also, I think it will be a good bonding kind of thing. All the women in my family (sister, 3 sisters-in-law, mother) will each read a book, making notes in the margins, highlighting favorite quotes or sections, maybe including a short review or thoughts about the book as a whole. Then we’ll mail them on, round-robin style, so we can each see what the others thought. I guess you could say it’s a long distance book club, but I think it will be much more personal than that. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and very rewarding.
Lucy
San Diego, CA
heylucy.typepad.com
Draw (or even create!) an action figure/doll modeled after yourself. Plan out a wardrobe, accessories, capabilities, etc. If it could talk, what would it say? “Talking [your name] says up to 10 phrases!”
Ashley Grubb
KS, USA
Agree to this with your partner ahead of time: The next time you are having a seriously non-serious, escalating argument with your significant other over one of those things that is so ridiculous that to try and explain it later makes you red in the face with embarrassment, go over to the stereo, put in the song “I Need A Lover (that won’t drive me crazy)” by John Cougar Mellencamp, turn it up to 11, and dance — shake your head, throw your arms up, kick out your legs, move all around the room, hop up and down on the couch, knock some shit over, point fingers, shout it out at the top of your lungs, stare each other down and dance, dance, dance… with each other.
Jeffrey Yamaguchi
Brooklyn, NY
I’m a scrapbooker (or life artist, if you are into Ali Edwards). At the end of February I wanted to do something to jumpstart my creativity. Since my blog title is "make art every day," I decided to do at least one layout every day for the month of March and post it at twopeasinabucket.com. I also post a daily thread on The Pub message board there and others who are participating link their layouts. Some days it is tough to make the time, but I can honestly say I’ve done my best work in the last month. Somewhere around day 10, my style just came together and everything started clicking. The number of comments I get now is amazing — I love having the feedback. But mostly I love all this new art in my life.
I still have another week to go, and I will keep going. I think there are two options when facing a creative rut: walk away or turn around and run back into it. This time I chose to run.
Marci Lambert
Memphis, TN
make art every day
My 14th wedding anniversary is April 4, 2006. On that day, I will start a diary noting the small or large thing my husband did that day to make me feel good, e.g. rubbed my back to help me fall asleep, cleaned up the plates from dinner, sent me a silly/funny e-mail. On my 15th wedding anniversary on April 4, 2007, I will give him the diary to let him know that I love him immensely, that I appreciate the small things he does for me and to remind myself that even after 15 years he’s still the best guy around.
Susan
Film your oldest family member (grandma, grandpa, you
can improvise here). For me it was G. Gram, baking her
“famous” nut roll (again improvise here). For years
many family members raved about this nutroll. Well,
little did anyone know, I videotaped my G. Gram making
it, and I repeated the entire recipe aloud, so
everyone can now hear it and see the nutroll being
made. I will never bake pre-cut cookies again! To see
her, using a rolling pin, her bare hands to mix it,
and making each step look effortless was amazing.
Women of that time, took NOTHING for granted!
Now for the sentimental piece: she has since had a
stroke, and you can imagine how this video is such an
important part of our family history and of her life.
This year I made several copies and gave it to my
family as gifts for the holiday. Watching it brought
tears to everyone’s eyes. Priceless. We tend to take
those little things for granted. Film it all! Make a
small video of those special people in your life doing
all the daily and traditonal things. It is
invaluable to have once they are not around. Good
Luck! Next is my Grandma’s famous Fruit Roll (with
fresh watermelon rind!)
Danielle Fazio
New Haven, CT
This is a mellow but deep, yet fun and nonthreatening project to do with good friends who you may not usually share what they think about each other.
Give each person the appropriate amount of slips of paper, representing 3 slips each for every other friend besides themselves (for example, if there are 5 friends total, each person gets 12 slips of paper (4 friends x 3 slips).
Everyone then writes the name of each friend on 3 slips of paper (one name gets written on three slips each). On the other side of the slip, write just one adjective that you think describes that person. Remember, you have 3 opportunities to think of three different adjectives for each of your friends. Fold each slip up with the name showing.
Collect and mix it all up in a bowl. You can then do one of two things: 1) Each person can collect the slips with their names, and read the adjectives aloud or 2) Each person collects the slips for another friend; then reads them aloud, and the group tries to guess who it represents. The point is, you will discover facets you may have not noticed, or appreciated, in your friends, and in yourself.
Tamina
Take photos of all the lost and found pet flyers you see in your neighborhood, or beyond. Write stories for each pet. Why they left, how they got lost, where they have been and what they are doing. Make a book out of it. By paying attention to the lost and found pets in your area, you may end up finding a match and you could reunite the family.
Jessica Earley
Bradley Beach, NJ