It was a pretty good gig: three female comedians and a band, with an accompanying exhibition, The Museum of A Hundred Days. Event organiser Josie Long was pretty funny, although she was heckled by a nine-year old who got more laughs. Isy Suttie's witty and biting songs were great, but unfortunately I found Sara Pascoe's piece felt interminably long and not very funny, so I was glad when The Pictish Trail came on and regaled us with his 30-second songs. He was pretty funny, too, although most of his songs felt like the beginnings of better things. Hopefully he'll develop some of them into longer songs, as they were all pretty good (even the Birds one that he was so disparaging about), and it was nice to see Adem pop in for some percussive support (he can make anything into an instrument; it's awesome. I've never forgotten the time I saw him play a xylophone with two violin bows).

For various reasons, I sort of dropped the ball on my own #100days project (to make something creative every day), at least as far as doing it on a daily basis for the set time period, or for posting about them under the #100days umbrella, so I didn't actively participate to be included in the exhibition. As it turns out, I was included in the exhibition after all and here's a bad photo to prove it (the room was dimly lit, making good photos difficult).

I don't feel like a failure for not having done what I said I would do on a daily basis, though, because I think I made the right decision not to do so. I signed up because I thought it would be fun and make me feel better, especially during the dark days of winter, but the days when I lacked a creative impulse made me feel guilty, and that didn't make me feel like a better person at all. Sometimes it's better to know when to quit something, because it gives you the space to start something else, which is what I did.

Despite what I said last year about new year's resolutions, this year I decided to give the Uberlist another go, and I've been doing pretty well with it. I got the idea from Kelly Sue years ago, but hadn't made one for a few years. This year's list is a combination of Important Things I Need To Get Done, lots places I've been meaning to visit for ages, and random ideas that struck me as a good idea at the time. It's a long list.

Usually an uberlist is 100 items plus an extra one for each year (so next year's will be 111), but in a moment of enthusiasm my list has 210 Things To Do In 2010. This isn't as wildly optimistic as it sounds, because I've sort of cheated on the numbers (for example, instead of one item that says "go to the cinema once a month" I've got an individual item for each month), especially as some of the items were really simple things that were hanging over from my basic to-do list at the end of last year.

Since it's such a long list, though, I'm not going to post the whole thing here (unless anyone really wants me to) but I might post progress reports as the year goes by. Which is kind of where we came in. I may not have completed a project to Make Me A Better Person under the #100days umbrella, but I've been Getting Things Done on my uberlist (over 10% done already), and it's more-or-less taken place in the same time frame, so I feel like I've earned the certificate they gave me at last week's gig. And there's a space on the certificate for me to write in, so maybe that's what I will write.

The exhibition was pretty good, too. Seeing all the work other people had done was quite inspiring, and I managed to come away with some swag, apart from my certificate: two of Daniel Weir's lego creations, a badge from Edward Ross, a story from Gemma Seltzer, and a trangam from Chrissy Williams, who gets the final word in this post:

"Small things accumulate into big things. This means that small things matter. What do you want to do today? Can you make time to do something small, or will you do nothing?"

Day #11: nothing. I'm sure I meant to make something, but I couldn't find anything in the mess of my table, so it looks like I didn't. Oops.

Day #12: card design
Here are various colourways of a card I designed, which was based off this photo but cleaned up and practically redrawn in Photoshop, which took quite a while.

I did print one off but forgot to resize it and it was too big even for A4. I didn't print any more off because I didn't have the cardstock I wanted (also need to replace printer inks, because the teeny samples they give you when you buy a new printer don't last very long). I'm not sure which colourways I like best, either.

Day #13: nothing again. Oh dear.

Day #14: First version of this year's Christmas card. It's based off this photo of agave trees in Hastings.

There are also blue and pink versions, because I originally planned to print the cards on coloured paper and paste them to white cards, but that seemed too fiddly in the end, so I scrapped that idea.

Day #15: Version 2 of this year's Christmas card. This is the version that I gave to people.

Everyone liked it, hurrah!

Day #16: Mini photo zine using photos of found faces. This is one of the early versions. The title comes from the Hello Little Fella group. These pics show it unfolded.

Day #17: Really teensy version of the Hello Little Fella photozine, made for the lads at BERG. The top pic shows it properly folded.

I squeezed four copies to one sheet of A4. Each side was duotoned in green and red colourways for Christmas, but for some reason the red version, which should have been pinkish, came out purple.

Day #18: And nothing, again. Some catching up to do…!

Day #19: Prototype mini photo album made using recycled paper and card, two holes punched, and bound with a plastic straw.

It was supposed to be a stocking-filler gift, but I'll have to make a proper one after Christmas, and give it late. I had to prototype it because a) I hadn't decided how to bind the book, b) the ink in my printer was running out c) I didn't have the photo paper I wanted (these photos are just printed on regular paper), and d) I've discovered I'm crap at cutting straight lines and should get a guillotine to do it properly. Also, I want to give it a better cover, so the plastic straw is hidden.

Day #20: Handprinted wrapping paper. This was made by covering a cardboard triangle with gouache and pressing the shapes onto a sheet of wallpaper liner paper. You can't really tell from the photo, but it's a huge present and printing the paper took quite a while. I think it looks pretty good, though (it actually looks better in real life than it does in the photo).

DAY #1: gift tag notebook (prototype)

Take two gift tags and some strips of remnant wallpaper. Punch holes in the paper and thread with gift tag string.

Easy-peasy. Good for shopping lists and teeny sketches. I'll probably make more, given how easy they are to do.

DAY #2: mince pie dish xmas decoration (prototype)

Take an old mince pie dish, a scrap of card and a picture from a magazine. Cut the base off the pie dish, and cut a hole in the middle. Fold it around the card (as a base — see top picture) and the magazine picture. Fashion a loop from the rim of the pie dish, and attach it to the main part. Hang from Christmas tree.

I might do more of these. This one's a bit messy, but I could be neater now I know what I'm doing.

DAY #3: foam-covered notebook (prototype)

Craft foam, paper strips, staple.

Easy-peasy, again. But not particularly useful, as the foam cover doesn't lie flat (as you can see from the photo). Bit annoying, that.

DAY #4: photo album (prototype)
No pics of this because I took it apart and reused some of the card and paper for other things. I'm going to try it again when I get more card, though.

DAY #5: box (prototype)
Cardboard and paper. I traced the pattern from a box I already had, but should have measured properly because it was a mess and so I abandoned it. Will try again when I get some proper card for it. (bad pics are in my 100 days photoset for completion's sake)

DAY #6: woven paper pocket

Two strips of paper, folded, cut, woven. Bit fiddly, this. Here is my second attempt (the first was a mess)

DAY #7: woven paper pocket

Much neater on the fourth attempt; I feel I can actually use this for something/someone nice. And I will definitely make more now I've got the knack.

DAY #8: decorate the Christmas tree.

Yes, I'm totally counting this as something creative, because it required me to thing about colour/shape and balance. No pics yet, though.

DAY #9: paper ball (prototype)

Cut circles of paper/card, stick one half-circle to the next and repeat

Easy enough. A little bit messy but I can clean it up and stick nice things on the pages.

DAY #10: booze ball book

Same as day 9 but with a theme, taken from magazine pictures.

Again, a bit messy, but fun to look at!

Now I have to think about stuff for the next ten days. Hopefully less prototype and more quality…

You can read everyone's pledges here. There are some great ideas there already. Let me know if you're taking part as well!