About the project

A Month of Softies is a group craft project which takes place every month and everyone, all over the place, is welcome to participate.

You don't need to be particularly talented, have a website or even know what you are doing with a needle and thread to join in the fun.

It's so easy! A theme is supplied and it's your task to create some crafty item which uses this theme as inspiration. The themes will be mostly aimed at people who make dolls, toys, monsters and other such items but can easily be applied to any craft project. You could embroider it on something else, print it all over the place or carve it out of something else again. The more varied the media the more interesting this will be. Please resist sending paintings or illustrations - I won't be able to include them as this is a craft project.

Add a button to your website if you wish

But why?

Because it will be fun!

And it will be great to see a whole bunch (hopefully - but even just two or three!) of craft projects that all started from the same seed of an idea and grew according to the individual artist's imagination.

And it might give you a sense of community and kinship with other similar minded crafty types across the internet and around the world.

And also might provide you with the impetus and confidence to start a craft project that you have been putting off doing forever. If everyone is making shabby looking elephants with odd limbs and strange head shapes - then so can you!

And then what?

As of July 2005, if you would like to participate in MOS, it will be necessary to have a Flickr Account - if you don't already have one, please sign up and start one. It's free and easy.

Once you have your account up and running, please upload your photo of your creation to your account and make sure you tag it... For example, the tag you will need to use for July is "MOS July 2005" -- easy! Make sure you include all three words in parenthesis and make sure you spell it all correctly. This will mean when we do a search for July's gallery we will have an instant gallery from the first day someone sends in a contribution!

Also, I have started A Month of Softies group on Flickr which includes a group photo pool and a discussion board so join the group if you are interested.

This button can be used (please copy and keep on your own server) for linking back to the project:

...and voila! Community!

And what will become of it then?

Your beautiful new item is a piece of wonder. Keep it, give it away, donate it to charity or auction it off and donate the proceeds.

So why not get started?