Creative Every Day Challenge

Welcome to the Creative Every Day info page!

The Basics:

I started Creative Every Day Challenge in 2008 to help infuse my life and lives of others with daily creativity.

Creativity is meant in the broadest sense, so it doesn't have to be something art related. Your creative acts could be in cooking, taking pictures, knitting, doodling, writing, dancing, decorating, singing, playing with your kids, brainstorming ideas, gardening, or making art in the form of collage, paint, or clay…or whatever!

You do not have to post every day! I know for myself that having to post every day for a year would be too much. You can post about your creativity in whatever form you like, whether that be once a day, a few times a week, once a week, or once a month. Do what works for you!

This is a low pressure challenge, with the idea of bringing more creativity into our lives. I will not be the creativity police. I hope that we can all find ways, simple and grand to express our creative selves. Have fun with it!

If you'd like to join in, sign up on the participant page. If you find this challenge after the 1st of January, you can still join in!

Keep reading for more information on how to sign up, the monthly themes, how to participate, and how to post the CED button to your blog.

Sign up!

To sign up for the 2021 Challenge, go to the Sign-Up post. 

Themes 

The (totally optional) monthly themes are purely for inspirational purposes and to give some focus to anyone who needs it.The themes can help spur you on, or you can ignore them. It's entirely up to you! I post the next month's theme at the end of the previous month.

Here are my totally optional themes for 2021. 

January: Horizon

February: Inside

March: Dirt

April: Cycles

May: Green

June: Moon

July: Play

August: Dreams

September: New

October: Mystery

November: Art Every Day Month

December: Giving

2020 (totally optional) themes: 

January: Goals

February: Love

March: Music

April: Risk

May: Joy

June: Heat

July: Water

August: Animal

September: Beginning

October: Disguise

November: Art Every Day Month

December: Giving

2019 (totally optional) themes:

January: Goals

February: Texture

March: Transition

April: Open

May: Happiness

June: Color

July: Risk

August: Waves

September: Figure

October: Empty/Full

November: Art Every Day Month

December: Giving

2018 (totally optional) themes: 

January: Be the Light

February: Heart

March: Adventure

April: Warm

May: Persistance

June: The Stars

July: Water

August: Green

September: Beginnings

October: History

November: Gratitude and/or Art Every Day Month

December: Present

2016 (totally optional!) Themes

• January 2016: Healing
• February 2016: Love
• March 2016: Leap
• April 2016: Rainbow
• May: Empty/Full
• June 2016: Floral

2015 (totally optional!) Themes

• January's theme is Lost & Found
• February's theme is Love
• March's theme is Books
• April's theme is Poetry
• May's theme is Pink
• June's theme is Boundaries
• July's theme is Slow
• August's theme is The Sea
• September's theme is School
  
• October's theme is Magic
• November's theme as always is Art Every Day Month
• December's theme is Cherish

2014 Themes

• January's (totally optional) theme is: Past, Present, & Future
• February's (totally optional) theme is Heart
• March's (totally optional) theme is: Transition
• April's (totally optional) theme is: Spring
• May's (totally optional) theme is: Decorate
• June's (totally optional) theme is Green
• July's (totally optional) theme is Fireworks
• August's (totally optional) theme is The Unknown
• September's (totally optional) theme is School. 
• October's (totally optional) theme is Flight
• November's theme is Art Every Day Month
• December's theme is Festive.

2013 Themes

• January's (totally optional) theme is: Dark
• February's (totally optional) theme is: Light
• March's (totally optional) theme is Black & White
• April's (totally optional) theme is Color
• May's (totally optional) theme is Flowers
• June's (totally optional) theme is Childhood
• July's (totally optional) theme is: Summertime
• August's (totally optional) theme is Cycles
• September's (totally optional) theme is Rhythm
• October's (totally optional) theme is Healing
• November's (totally optional) theme is Art Every Day Month
• December's (totally optional) theme is Celebrate

2012 Themes:

• January's (totally optional) theme is: New
• February's (totally optional) theme is: Night
• March's (totally optional) theme is: Mixed-Media
• April's (totally optional) theme is: Language
• May's (totally optional) theme is: One
• June's (totally optional) theme is: Opposites
• July's (totally optional) theme is: Round
• August's (totally optional) theme is Shadow
• September's (totally optional) theme is Time
• October's (totally optional) theme is: Trees
• November's (totally optional) theme is: Art Every Day Month
• December's (totally optional) theme is: Celebrate

2011 Themes:

• January's (totally optional) theme is: Cosmos
• February's (totally optional) theme is: Passion
• March's (totally optional) theme is: Nest
• April's (totally optional) theme is: Small
• May's (totally optional) theme is: Big
• June's (totally optional) theme is: Metamorphosis
• July's (totally optional) theme is Blue
• August's (totally optional) theme is Red
• September's (totally optional) theme is History
• October's (totally optional) theme is Autumn
• November, there isn't a theme because it's Art Every Day Month. Whether you participate in AEDM or not, feel free to choose your own theme if you'd like!
• December's (totally optional) theme is: Winter

2010 Themes:

• January's (totally optional) theme is: Body
• February's (totally optional) theme is: Home
• March's (totally optional) theme is: Stories
• April's (totally optional) theme is: The Five Senses
• May's (totally optional) theme is: Intuition
• June's (totally optional) theme is: Bliss
• July's (totally optional) theme is: Life
• August's (totally optional) theme is: Fire
• September's (totally optional) theme is: Water
• October's (totally optional) theme is: Earth
• November's (totally optional) theme is: Art Every Day Month (or if you aren't participating in AEDM, you can choose your own theme or focus on the idea of daily practice.)
• December's (totally optional) theme is: Air

2009 Themes:

In 2009, I started doing a monthly theme. You can check out the 2009 themes below.

• January's (totally optional) theme is: Play!
• February's (totally optional) theme is: Words
• March's (totally optional) theme is: Dreams
• April's (totally optional) theme is: Color
• May's (totally optional) theme is: Nature
• June's (totally optional) theme is: Sound
• July's (totally optional) theme is: Self
• August's (totally optional)theme is Move
• September's (totally optional) theme is Inspiration
• October's (totally optional) theme is Connect
• November's (totally optional) theme is Art Every Day Month
• December's (totally optional) theme is Recycle
• I will post about the next month's theme about a week before the month starts on the Creative Every Day blog.

How to Participate:

There are a variety of ways to participate. These options are here for you to enjoy, not to pressure you, so use any or all of them as you see fit. The simplest way to join in, would be to sign up to state your commitment to a year of creativity and leave it at that. That said, I think it's helpful, fun, and motivating to share what you're up to with a supportive community, so I've also provided optional ways to get involved below.

Participate on the blog: by leaving a comment or sharing a link or links in the monthly check-in posts. 

Participate on Facebook: Facebook group here. 

Participate with Twitter and Instagram: If you're on Twitter, use the hashtag #CED2018

 

Want to receive my blog posts in your email box? Simply enter your email address into the box under the "Subscribe" heading in the right sidebar and you'll get an email whenever I've posted something new.

 

 

In case you're interested, here's the background on the challenge:

I started the Creative Every Day Challenge in 2008 and I welcome anyone who is interested, to join in!

Every November, I loved the way the Art Every Day Month challenge (AEDM) created a great sense of community, brought people with different styles and backgrounds together, and gave me a kick in the butt to keep on creating when I might otherwise have done nothing. I'd been wanting to find a way to extend the process, but as much as I admired those who created and posted a piece of art every day of the year, I knew that would burn me out. Besides, it was not really my goal to create a piece of art every day. But I did want to be creative every day.

Originally, I was going to call my blog, "Everyday Creative" which to me means a person who is creative in their day-to-day life whether that be through making a piece of artwork or doodling on a receipt or cooking something or taking a walk to gain inspiration in the colors of nature or re-decorating a room or knitting or whatever! That domain name was taken, so I went with CreativeEveryDay.com and included Everyday Creative in the tag line. One of the things I aspire to, is to be creative every day and also to inspire creativity in others, whether that be through my blog, my art, through leading groups like AEDM, teaching workshops or (hopefully someday) writing a book. I know that challenging myself in specific ways helps to keep me productive, so I'm hoping this challenge will serve as a daily reminder of what I want for myself.

I loved doing CED in 2008 and 2009. I met some wonderful people and having the challenge, helped keep creativity as a focus in my daily life. I believe that what we focus on expands and that was certainly the case for me and many other participants. So I decided to continue in 2010!

The idea behind the Challenge will be to encourage myself and others to find creativity in every day and in the everyday things of life. I won't post daily because I think that would be a bit too much of a burden for me, but I will post about every day's creativity in some form or another. And I'll encourage others to do the same, whether that be every day, every few days, once a week or once a month. Throughout the year, I'll also be posting creativity tips that help me and hopefully will provide some inspiration to anyone looking to infuse their life with more creative goodness or who might need a little push to get out of a stuck place.

Thanks and happy creating!

Posting the CED button:

In order to use the Creative Every Day Challenge button, located in the sidebar (and below), simply right-click on the image (ctrl-click for mac users) and save it to your computer. Different blogging applications have different ways of adding images to your blog, but all have help sections which should be able to direct you to instructions on how to do it.

                    

If you use typepad, I wrote a quickie tutorial for posting blog buttons for a different group here,  Here's a tutorial from a blogger user on adding a picture to your sidebar, and here's a page on how to add an image to a wordpress.com blog.