30 Days of Lists and Coloring Challenges

The prompt for Day 2 of the 30 Days of Lists challenge was “resolutions that never stood a chance.” Resolutions? Really? Does anyone still make resolutions? I made a few goals for 2015. I forget now what they were. None stood a chance. Not one.

The prompt for Day 3 was “my jams.” I had to look that one up. Should I post photos of my pajamas? In the winter, I usually sleep in sweats. Boring! Does that mean all the ways I’ve messed up? All the trouble I am in? Do I even want to publicize that? So I Googled the term. Apparently in the under-40 crowd, “my jams” means “the songs that get me singing along.” Or something like that. So I listed a few of the songs that always get me chair dancing or singing along when they come on the radio.

The prompt for Day 4 was “favorite online communities you are a part of.” Rather self-explanatory.

The prompt for Day 5 was “cures for the winter blues.” The 30 Days of Lists and Coloring challenges sure help.

Collages for Days 2 & 3 were made with PicCollage and Days 4 & 5 were made with Photo Grid. All were made on my phone.

The 30 Day Coloring Challenge has no prompts (that I know of). For Day 2, I colored another page in the coloring book. While I used Crayola crayons for Day 1, I used General’s pencils for Day 2.

Made with PicCollage 

Made with PicCollage 

Made with Photo Grid 

Made with Photo Grid

The colored pencils I used to color on Day 2

Colored with General's colored pencils

30 Day Coloring Challenge

Sometimes I get tired of being a responsible adult. It’s so overrated. That’s why I’m joining The Daily Marker and her 30 Day Coloring Challenge. I may not be able to keep this up for 30 consecutive days, but I plan to participate for 30 days.

It’s a good time for this challenge, because in my part of the world, winter is never going to end. Or at least it feels that way, with 6 weekends in a row with a snowstorm and another storm last night. (But today, the temps are supposed to reach into the 40s!)

My favorite color! I just LOVE the name! 

I just bought a coloring book! I'll use it for some of the challenge days. Some days, it's too much of a challenge to come up with something to color. 

My first contribution to the challenge. I call it...um...Cow with Pitchfork.

30 Days of Lists - March 2015

I sort of failed at 30 Days of Lists in December. Once the excitement of the project wore off, real life set in. December is a crazy busy month. I still have the prompts for December and can pick it back up any time I want.

For now, though, I am concentrating on their new project: 30 Days of Lists in March. Anyone is welcome to join and follow along. When you join, you gain access to a private blog and private Facebook group page.

Today is day one. So far, I have made a cover and my list for Day 1. (Actually, I have made lists through Day 3, but the one cardinal rule of the project is not to post a day’s list before the day’s prompt is released. While the full list is available ahead of time, some people like to be surprised with each list on the day it is meant to be posted. I happen to like to be able to plan ahead, if I have time, or to "wing it" if I don't have a lot of time. It's a good project to work on while I'm streaming comedies on Netflix or Hulu Plus. Currently, I'm watching Bruce Almighty. And while I plan to make my lists daily, I plan to blog them about once or twice a week.

One beautiful thing about this project is it can be done on actual paper or digitally. I'm doing it on my cellphone, using various apps. These were done with Pic-Collage on an Android-operated phone, and this is currently my go-to scrapbooking app.

The cover for my project is not meant to represent any lists to come. It is meant to represent the end of winter and the beginning of spring. And I am so ready for spring, since this is the sixth weekend in a row that we've had a snowstorm. As the cover says, I am so done with this endless winter.

The prompt for Day 1 was "why I make lists." I have always made lists, mainly to-do lists and lists of things I want to remember to say in meetings and during phone calls. I need to make myself scripts of sorts to avoid becoming tongue-tied. This project raises list making to an art form. Some lists are just plain fun.

30 Days of Lists 4-7

I have been making lists daily, which is pretty good for me. It's a bit tedious making a blog post for each individual list, though, and it seems to be a bit of overkill. Therefore, I am lumping a bunch of lists together.

I made my lists for Days 4, 5, & 6 with Pic Collage and for Day 7 with Photo Grid. I was able to find more stickers to use with Photo Grid. Photo Grid allows for right flush text, and I like that for my lists. Pic Collage allows only for centered text at this time (at least the Android app doesn't have other justification options; the iPhone version I used did). I had avoided using Photo Grid for a few days, because it forced me to choose at least one photo before making my scrapbook page, and I don't always know what I want for a photo when I start making a list and every list even calls for a photo. But I found a way around this by choosing one photo, then deleting it after I have added something else to the page.

Day 4's prompt was, "Friends and family I get to see this month." I'm optimistic I'll get to see my parents - my job is fickle and time off, especially in December, is hard to come by. Since my brother lives nearby, that one is more doable. And the bandmates to whom I refer are fellow members of a community band. When I wrote the list, I was anticipating a concert on December 6, which was successfully carried out yesterday afternoon.

Day 5's prompt was, "Changes I made in 2014." I didn't make changes so much as acquire new stuff, most of it by necessity (or at least perceived necessity - I could probably live without most of the new stuff I have acquired). My car was totaled back in March, when it was rear-ended by another motorist. I had to purchase a new car. My iPhone was stolen in early November (or maybe I lost it, with the result being the same - no phone), so I had to upgrade to a new phone. My laptop was dying very early this year, so I purchased a tablet in February "just because." I found I missed the laptop experience, though, and purchased a laptop in October. I think I should be set for electronic toys for quite some time.

Day 6's prompt was, "Favorite words to write." All I could think of was "diarrhea," "fuchsia," and "hemorrhoid," all of which are fun to spell and write. The meanings of the words do not factor in, as one might find diarrhea and hemorrhoid odd choices of favorite words.

Day 7's prompt was, "Things I think about in the shower." Horror movies have forever ruined me, so the number one thing I think about in the shower is that someone will break in and I won't hear him with the water running and he will murder me. This means someone out there must be watching and listening very carefully to my every move in order to time his entry to coincide with my taking a shower. No one said thoughts are always rational.

30 Lists Day 3

The prompt for Day 3 of 30 Days of Lists was "Photos to take this month." Really, what don't I take? I'll take photos of pretty much anything. The ones that turn out well and don't contain confidential information or people I can't show off publicly get posted on Instagram and/or Flickr and/or Eye Em (though I tend to forget about Eye Em).

While my pages for Days 1 & 2 were made using PicCollage on my phone, Day 3 was made using Photo Grid, a new-to-me app on my phone (follow the link to find the correct Photo Grid - there are several apps named "Photo Grid" in the Google Play Store). Both apps are similar in that they allow for multiple photos to be laid out onto a page and arranged "artfully," instead of in a grid (though grids also have their place!). Both allow for a choice of background colors (though Photo Grid seems to have more color options), text in an array of fonts and colors, and stickers (PicCollage has many more sticker options; I'm hoping I just haven't found the rest of Photo Grid's sticker options, because there aren't many that are readily available).

30 Lists Days 1 & 2

The prompt for Day 1 of 30 Days of Lists was "It's ___ Season." It's December. 'Tis the season for cold and snow and ho-ho-ho and holiday concerts...of course, not all that can fit onto a small Pic Collage page.

The prompt for Day 2 was "It's too early for...." It's too early for a lot of things. I think it's too early for snow, but that's an unrealistic expectation, since I live in New England. It could be worse. I could live in Buffalo New York.

30 Days of Lists Begins Tomorrow

I’m doing this new daily thing: listing. I am not new to listing.  I make lists all the time. And I lose lists all the time. 30 Days of Lists is a new(ish) concept which raises list making to an art form. You join for a month (30 days) and are given daily prompts of what to list about. You can use those prompts or change them. Pretty much their only rule is not to post a list until the prompt has been announced in an email. You can download the entire list ahead of time so you can plan ahead, but some participants like the surprise of finding out what the prompt is each day. I’m one of the planners. Some participants are good about listing every day, some post several lists at once.

I made a cover in order to get ready. Many of us have started by making some sort of cover or by preparing our notebooks or scrapbooks. I have opted to cut down on clutter (meaning I wouldn't be able to keep track of a real, paper notebook for 30 days) by making a digital scrapbook. I did 30 Lists for the first time in September, and I used Pic Collage on my iPhone for the whole project. This time, I have an Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and I am still planning to use Pic Collage for at least some of the December lists (I may try out other apps as appropriate). One of these days, I may actually get around to printing each list out and adding them to a scrapbook or notebook. I envision each cover page as more of a chapter heading, as most scrapbooks should be able to hold more than 30 pages.

Many post on Instagram and Twitter, and you can follow along with the hashtag #30Lists.