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May Challenge – Tame the Chaos

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VanGogh_sunflowersFor anyone involved in school in any way (student, parent, teacher, etc.) May is a month of chaos. Between end-of-year testing, end-of-year picnics, end-of-year teacher gifts, end-of-year goodbyes, and making summer plans, there’s not much time for sitting still. For your challenge this month, spend 10 minutes sitting still, breathing, letting your mind float. Call it meditation, call it focused breathing, call it putting yourself in time out. Whatever you call it, go do it. While you’re there, whatever your mind goes to that doesn’t involve being busy, use that as the basis for a creation.

This could be anything — your cat purring, a neighbor closing a car door, the hum of the air conditioning, a bird song. Anything that your mind lands on while you’re sitting still, let that be the inspiration for this month’s creation.

And as always, share your creations with us on Instagram (tag with #stepawayfromthescreen), Facebook, or link to it in the comments below.

#THE100DAYPROJECT

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#THE100DAYPROJECT is a free and open project for anyone who is hungry to jump-start their creative practice, who is curious about being a part of a supportive, nurturing community that celebrates the process, and those who are busy busy busy (🙋🏻) and searching for a bite-sized way to nurture their creativity! Is this you? If so, you’re in the right spot!

✔️ Choose your action (an action you will repeat for 100 days)

✔️ Find a unique hashtag for your project, like #100daysof… (This is very important. Choose your own so that you can have all of your work under one hashtag)

✔️ Announce your project on Instagram with your hashtag and #THE100DAYPROJECT hashtag

🏁 Begin Tuesday, April 19th!

What will you do with 💯 days of making? We can’t wait to see! Please share this post! 🐢

A photo posted by elle luna (@elleluna) on

Monthly Challenge: September

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autumn

Welcome to a new monthly challenge, friends! Kids are back to school, work is back in full swing, apples are being picked.

September’s first cool mornings are so sudden. Seemingly overnight, the radiating heat of summer gives way to crisp and brisk. Immediately, there’s a shift in our perception of the colors that surround us. Summer is all burning yellows, cyans, and glowing oranges — heat personified. Autumn is decidedly different.

Personally, I find autumn to be the most reflective month. While spring is full of hope and promise, summer is all about action, and winter is about nestling in, fall is the time to cast a critical eye on how the year has gone. Have I accomplished all that was hoped for in spring? Did I take advantage of all of summer’s opportunities? Have I earned a winter hibernation?

Autumn is quieter, more muted, but not silent. Autumn is thoughtful.

Your challenge this month is to create something out of autumn’s different colors. What are they? Who are they? What do they make you think of? What do they communicate? What do they inspire you to do?

Pull out your favorite comfy sweatshirt, put your screens away, take a deep breath of that new, cool air, and go create something! Share your work with us on Facebook, or post a photo on instagram with the hashtag #stepawayfromthescreen. We’re excited to see what you make!

Monthly Challenge: August

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cartwheels

Someone said to me recently, “Screens keep me from being able to do the things that make me happy.” Do you find that statement to be painfully true? I know I did.

So here we are in August. Summer’s last chapter is upon us — school has even already started for some people — which means it’s time to make the most of the days we have left. Here’s your monthly challenge: put your screen down RIGHT NOW and go do something that makes you happy. It can be anything, not just making something. Play 18 holes of golf; drive to the mountains for the weekend; call a friend and take a walk together; read a book you’ve been meaning to get to; send a real birthday card to someone; get an adult coloring book and color page one.

Whatever it is, just go do something that makes you happy. Then share it with us on Facebook, or Instagram using #stepawayfromthescreen.

monthly challenge - freedom

Monthly Challenge: July

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monthly challenge - freedom

Photo from flickr by The unnamed.

Welcome to July, friends! It’s the month of independence. Canada Day, Independence Day, Bastille Day (France), and Fiestas Patrias (Peru) are all celebrated this month. And we’re always up for a celebration, right? Heck right!

But here in the USA, over the past few weeks, rights, privileges, and liberties are being discussed in complex and serious ways. The Supreme Court decided same-sex marriage was legal just one week after a gunman killed nine people in a predominantly black church in South Carolina. And both of those events, along with their ripple effects, have consumed us, regardless of which side of the story your beliefs land on. And that is the reason that I have chosen FREEDOM as our monthly challenge for July.

What does freedom mean to you? Have you been impacted — directly or indirectly — by the recent events I mention above? Are there other issues of freedom that are dominating your attention right now? Are you just looking forward to watermelon, bbq, and fireworks on 4th of July? Or is it some complex, human combination of all of those?

Regardless, spend some time thinking about freedom and what it is for you, and use those thoughts to inspire you to step away from the screen and make something this month.

Then share it with us on Instagram by tagging it #SAFTSchallenge, or by posting it in our Facebook group.

Can’t wait to see what you create!

Having trouble coming up with ideas?
As the month goes on, if you’re having trouble coming up with something to make for your monthly challenge, visit our MOTIVATE page where we’ll be providing prompts to get your creativity flowing. And don’t worry. Once you start flexing this muscle more often, it will become easier and easier to come up with something to make. I promise 🙂

Monthly Challenge - June

Monthly Challenge: June

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Monthly Challenge - June

School’s out, pools are open, sleeves are short, toes are finding sand. It’s June!! This month is all about freedom and spontaneity. With a whole summer of warm days and late nights yawning out before you, anything can happen! So for our monthly challenge, I say let’s give in to IMPULSE and make the first thing that comes to our mind. Stop right now and think of making something. Are you painting? Molding something with clay? Cutting paper? Writing a story? Printing some photos?

Whatever pops in your head RIGHT NOW, go make it!!!

Then share it with us in our Facebook group.

Having trouble coming up with ideas?
As the month goes on, if you’re having trouble coming up with something to make for your monthly challenge, visit our MOTIVATE page where we’ll be providing prompts to get your creativity flowing. And don’t worry. Once you start flexing this muscle more often, it will become easier and easier to come up with something to make. I promise 🙂