Weeks 27 - 31 Project 52, Kindness and Create

Create: This month I worked on 2 creative projects.

#1. The first part of the month I was busy with my bus project that I’ve been working on. For those of you who missed it, back in February I bought a bus and have been slowly converting it into a wheelchair accessible camper. I had a deadline of July 15th to get it done and even though I didn’t finish it completely I did get it done enough that we could take it on its maiden voyage, a camping trip to the Nicolet National Forest. I’ll be posting the video’s that I’ve been making along the way with this conversion on my personal facebook page soon (I just need to get over the “I’m such a dork” thing.) If you are interested in seeing the progress and we are not friends on my personal page feel free to send me a friend request or a message.

#2. The second part of the month I’ve been focused on prairie flower photography. A few weeks ago a friend of mine invited me and another friend out to the prairie for some prairie photography, in the dark, with lights! The picture above is one from that night. It was fun to try something new and step out of my comfort zone. I've been spending the last part of the month in the prairies capturing their beauty with my camera. I'm taking an encaustic class in August and I'm looking forward to using these prairie photos in a mixed medium project with the encaustic wax. Stay tuned to see how that works out :)

Kindness:

· Buy local! -This month I shopped farmers markets and road side stands for my fruits and veggies. Yum!

· Use recycled material for building projects. - I am using mostly recycled materials for the interior construction in the bus. Buying used building material is great for the pocket book and great for the landfill!

· Help a mom out, babysit.

· Round up for charity at the checkout – Whenever I’m asked I always round up, I figure every little bit helps.

· Buying products that are packaged with less plastic.

This month I had an interesting, not so wonderful, lesson learned, experience with my kindness project. When I was shopping for camera lens filter I found a company that does not use any plastic in their packaging and for every filter they sell they plants 5 trees in area’s affected by deforestation. Their prices are very comparable with others so of course I decided to show them some love. The problem came in when I order it through Amazon. This great environmentally friendly product was shipped to my house from Amazon in a big, plastic, bubble wrap bag. I was soooo disappointed! I shop Amazon for the convince and 90% of the time my orders arrive in cardboard boxes (that are 2 times the size of the item shipped, but at least its cardboard and can be reused and recycled). It's so frustrating that the time I make a concerted effort to purposely be environmentally friendly in my spending they decide to ship it to me in plastic. Totally defeated the purpose. Now I am rethinking this whole Amazon thing. I think next month for my project kindness I’ll be shopping local or buying directly from the source.

P.S. The company is GOBE and they are great! https://mygobe.com/our-story/