What I've learnt from doing The 100 Day Project

Third time's a charm!

Jun 07, 2025

Hello makers,

Day 101 and I feel a bit lost, a bit like a bird who can’t find their nest. Where am I? What am I supposed to be doing today? I sorta want to keep doing what I’ve been doing for the last 100 days!

Yep, that’s how I felt the day after finally completing The 100 Day Project.

Not what I expected I have to say.

But that’s not really what I wanted to write about today. I wanted to do a little recap, a bit of a reflection on how I actually got to Day 100 (third time around). I want to share where my inspiration came from, what worked and what didn’t work, and how giving myself just a little bit of grace kept me going.

Previous Attempts at The 100 Day Project.

Attempt #1 - April 2020.

The first time I attempted The 100 Day Project it was early April 2020. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we had just had our first COVID-19 case and the borders had just been closed. That little bit of news, closing our countries borders, was pretty bonkers and something I never imagined could happen. But there we were, in lockdown and I had just decided to do 100 days of leaf art. In a post on social media I said…

“…with all that is going on in the world right now, I couldn’t decide if this is something I should be focusing on right now. But taking a few minutes to switch off from social media and the kids and the cooking and cleaning and feelings of desperation actually seems like the BEST thing to do right now.”

So I dove into cutting up and stitching on Camellia leaves each day with a rough theme each week. I shared a few of these in this post wrapping up a month of exploring Eco-art.

With a 12-month-old who was waking 4-5 times a night and a 5-year-old who was supposed to be starting school, it all got a bit much to be locked down today and trying to do The 100 Day Project.

Attempt #2 - February 2024.

I had recently made some paper and cut it into little squares with the idea of doing a small cross stitch design each day. I pre-poked the holes, had a theme for each day and a plan. There was no pandemic, no lockdown, so what could possibly go wrong?! Once again, I only managed about 25 days or so.

The problem being that each little square took quite a while to actually stitch. Some days were about the temperature and so I had to look that up and pick the right colours, other days were about inspiring people which also took time to plan. All in all, this project was too big to complete each day.

Attempt #3 - February 2025.

My plan - do one little design in a notebook each day using pencils, watercolours, felts, anything. The idea behind each design is that it could be turned into a textile wall hanging one day.

Textile Art Ideas for my 100 Day Project

Success! This worked in terms of being achievable for me right now. So I thought it might be helpful to breakdown why I think it worked.

My materials were easy to grab and use; coloured pencils, watercolours, felts etc. I started out using watercolour paints but waiting for them to dry was not for me.
I let myself off if I missed a day and only ever missed two days in a row (they happened to be the two days before my son’s birthday, said child also had hand, foot and mouth at the time so things were rough). That little bit of grace, combined with how easy it was to pick back up again, helped a lot.
I tried to incorporate my project with my kids. We usually come home from school and have afternoon tea at the table. Most of the time, the colouring jars would come out and we would all be a little creative. Both of my kids even started their own 20 day projects with notebooks they made themselves! My 10-year-old son started drawing his name in a different way each day and my daughter started drawing shadows and colouring them in. Win-win-win!
I didn’t share to social media each day and that was a huge weight off for me.
I did each design in a little handmade notebook which meant it was portable. I could take it when I watched my daughter in swim class, I could do it in front of the tele on a Saturday night, I could take it on holiday.
I found inspiration in all sorts of places. Sometimes it was one of my kids telling what I should do: “Do circles! Make one big one, one medium one, and one small one”, “Make a swirly one!”. Some days I would look at what was around me, it might be the soap dish, or the shape of a random toy, or a sticker on my husbands laptop. Usually I would find shapes, and for some reason, once my daughter mentioned circles I was hooked on those, so I’d trace around any circular shaped thing I could find.

All-in-all, this project felt good, it felt easy. It didn’t feel like a burden and it got my creative juices flowing so that was a massive success in my mind!

I’ll definitely be doing it again. I hope you’ll join me!