A recap of our 2015 Creative Challenge: 12 months of projects to get you in touch with your artistic side!
I kicked off the year by sharing some goals and dreams for 2015. One of the most important of these was to get back in touch with my artistic roots, which I quickly decided would be much more fun to do with friends. And so began the Creative Challenge— a way for creatives from around the world, to come together online and tackle one artistic project per month.
It’s crazy to think that an entire year has passed since we started the 2015 Creative Challenge. I had an incredibly fun 12 months revisiting some of my favorite artistic mediums and also learning some new crafts. This super packed blog post will feature a peek at my first 11 projects, the results of Challenge #12, and an announcement about Creative Challenge 2016. Let’s get started!
{ Creative Challenge #1: Knitting, Sewing and Crocheting }
To kick off the first project of the year, I learned how to crochet, which is something I had wanted to learn for so long. It was a slow start, but in the end I pulled it off! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #2: Watercolor }
In our most popular challenge of the year, I broke out my watercolor set and painted a photo of my parents home in Cape Cod. I was so happy with how it came out that I gifted it to them as a Christmas gift! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #3: Paper Flowers }
I had always been inspired by the beautiful paper flowers created by one of my favorite bloggers, Lia Griffith. I created my less sophisticated, but still cute variety from cupcake wrappers! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #4: Drawing }
Since I had an embarrassing amount of photos of my cats on my phone, I decided to take one and create a hand drawn kitty portrait! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #5: Floral Arrangement }
I turned that black thumb of mine into a green one and learned not only how to arrange flowers, but keep them alive. Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #6: Calligraphy }
With a little help from Melissa from I Still Love Calligraphy, I took the hand letting craze by storm in learning the basics of calligraphy. Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #7: Oil and Acrylic Painting }
I finally made good on a long standing promise to my hubby and sister in law to break out my oil paints and create something pretty! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #8: Pottery + Sculpture }
My knock-off Anthropologie dishes didn’t come out half bad, considering they were created somebody who hates getting their hands dirty! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #9: Mixed Media }
Took my watercolors, combined them with a little hand lettering, and had a lot of fun! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #10: Photography }
My Instagrams and stock photography for my blog got a little facelift, thanks to taking the time to learn some new techniques! Read the full recap here.
{ Creative Challenge #11: Jewelry Making }
I may have cheated on this one. Read the full recap here.
And lastly, for Creative Challenge #12: Dessert Decorating, I put no pressure on myself to create any sort of masterpiece, and just got together with my sisters over the holidays to make and decorate cookies. My kitty-niece, Emma helped too.
I was so happy that there were a few members of the Creative Challenge Community who joined me in the final challenge of the year. You can see their fantastically talented handiwork below:
And finally, I am so thrilled to announce the details of Creative Challenge 2016! This past year was a blessed one for me. Through this challenge, I was given the opportunity to connect with over 1,000 people from around the world who shared in my passion to be more creative. In typical creative fashion, running the challenge was just one of many commitments I made, and it never quite got the full attention it deserved. While I knew that I wouldn’t want to shut down the Creative Challenge, I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to make the commitment to run it again in 2016. So I did the next best thing, which was to ask the sweet and lov(ilee) Karen from Lovilee.co to take over the challenge. I’m so happy she said yes! You are going to be so excited to see what she has planned for you this year!
Lovilee is an award winning lifestyle, wedding and home decor blog run from South Africa by Karen Kelly. KaRi loves to share inspiration, DIY and more on her blog and took part in the 2015 challenge as well.
“I am so excited to be taking over the #CreativeChallenge this year and hope to be continuing the dream that Michelle had for the group.”
Pop on over to ( http://www.lovilee.co.za/2016/creative-challenge-2016/) to view the outline for this year’s challenge.
Thank you, thank you to every one of you who joined me in this quest. Stay creative!