This year I started a snail mail club where I send out creative prompts and projects each month. Our first project is the Monthly Memories Print. The idea is to fill in 1 square on the print every month inspired by that time in our lives. We'll keep doing this each month until all the boxes are filled in and we have a visual representation of our entire year! It does take some patience but I love slow projects like this and slowly seeing it develop.
It's finally time to fill in January's square!
My square represents my trip to Taiwan (from end of Dec through mid-January) where I was collecting things left and right even though I knew the box was only 1 1/4” lol
I approach each art prompt / project like a (fun) problem or puzzle to solve. The first thing I wanted to figure out was, how can I fit as much stuff on here as possible!? I decided to use an accordion fold on a strip of paper as the base and made a collage on it.
I chose a thin sheet of printer paper as the base so that it was easy to fold and the entire thing wouldn't get too thick after collaging on it.
(The silver square in the pic above is part of the project--it's a template to trace making it easier to cut things to size and fit the square on the print.)
The collage includes stickers from my flight meal and baggage, cutouts from packaging / maps / tickets / brochures / business cards, and my friend Connie's daughter Elly’s writing :) (She gave me a drawing she made in an envelope she also made and wrote our names in Chinese on it. So sweet--the drawing is currently up on my wall!)
As I added the items on, I made sure each section could fold easily. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but it worked!
Then I glued the entire piece onto my print. Here's how the fold out looks on both sides:
My second issue was, how do I keep this flat? I wasn’t sure if it would work but I decided to punch holes and thread embroidery floss through them so I could tie it. Luckily it’s holding it down. I used red since it symbolizes happiness in the Chinese culture.
It was a lot of fun putting this together and remembering all the things I got to do in Taiwan! (I have soo many photos from that trip and really want to make a post about it--hopefully soon!) You can watch a short process video over on Instagram.
For the following months, I don’t plan on doing the exact same thing but I think I want to add some type of pull out / flap / open / close element to it—excited to see how February unfolds! Please stay tuned :)
If this idea resonates with you and you'd like a print of your own to fill out, you can order it here. If you're curious about the Creative Spark Club mail subscription, you can learn more here.