Bird a Day Challenge Auctions

Bird a Day Challenge Auctions

If you been paying attention you'll know that I've had an exciting month here at Felt Towers, at the beginning of March I set myself a challenge to create a bird a day. The rules were simple, each bird had to be needle felted on to a 3 cm felt bead and take no more than 1 hour to make and I had to make one every day for the whole of March. Having made the birds I then had to make sure to photograph and blog each one in turn.

As you can see, I made it through all 31 days! It was a challenge but I didn't miss a day and in the end I had 31 beautiful birds and had learned a lot. You can read about my experience in my Final Thoughts post.

To end the challenge I have decided to auction the birds (except for one which I made for my mum for Mother's Day!) with 5% of the proceeds going to the RSPB to help then continue with the great work they do to preserve Britain's countryside to make a better home for nature and protect our birds and wildlife.

The auction goes live at 7pm on Sunday 10th March (UK time) and will run for 7 days (lots of time to pick your favourites and bid!) you can find all the listings here . Each bird shall be accompanied by it's own individual Certificate of Authenticity, signed by the artist (me) and numbered with the day it was made on.

I'll be around to answer any questions you might have (even the silly ones like if you were a cupcake what would you be? The answer's salted caramel and choc chip BTW) and you can email or facebook me if you have any queries.

Thanks for reading, I hope to see you at the auction

xx
mel

 

Bird a Day Mini Exhibition

 I had thought I had collected all the birds together for a group pic but Mr Felt has hidden the vulture and I misplaced the Floofy bird! Oops!

Bird a Day - Final Thoughts

So the Bird a Day Challenge is over... here are a few questions I've been asked over the last week.

How do you feel now?

It's finally over... it's a strange feeling to be at the end of something, I do feel a sense of achievement at having done what I set out to do and I am tempted to make it a regular thing in my crafting as it forces me to be creative.

Doing something creative everyday has had a positive impact upon my well being and peace of mind too. I feel a lot better than I did at the beginning of the year, when I felt burnt out. People find it strange when I talk about not feeling creative considering the job I do but sometimes even a creative job starts to feel like a bit of a slog. I do feel more invigorated... things are starting to feel normal again.

What were your favourite birds to make?
My favourites surprised me! They were the ones that were most challenging initially but turned out the best. I'm very fond of the Spoonbill, Pelican, Dodo and the seagull... but my favourite is the Tree Creeper, because I saw one in the park and he caught the feeling of him perfectly!

Was it hard to make a bird in an hour?
The felting part is the easy bit! Making them tiny and starting with the bead cuts the time down... It's the photographing and blogging that really takes up time! I didn't take that into account when I set out to do this so it ended up taking up 2 hours of my day rather than just 1... next time I think I will find a better way to just snap a quick picture. 

Did you miss any days?
I didn't miss out a day of making but sometimes there just wasn't time to photograph things or I was too tired. That just meant a couple of days when there were double posts. 

Are you sick of looking at tiny bird feet?
Never!

Wait next time? You're going to do this again?
Yes... but maybe not for a while... or on a weekly basis rather than daily.

When will the birds be up for sale?
I'm hoping to get them up for sale by monday... I will keep you posted.

What Advice would you give to anyone taking on a challenge like this?
Go for it! Even if you think you might fail... you should go for it. Find something that works for you and make sure you find a way to share it as being held accountable by others is great motivation. II have to admit... I tried something like this once before and didn't share it and I failed, sharing was the best thing, it's hard to work in a vacuum. You'll be amazed how supportive people can be! 

Also... make the time to do it, it could be anything, make a bird a day, a drawing a day, write something, bake something... it's worth it, you'll feel like a different person at the end an you will want to keep being creative!

xx
mel