With the tag line, ‘Life is short, so draw a giraffe!’, onemilliongiraffes.com is an attempt to collect a million hand-created giraffes, in the process creating some non-digital, old-fashioned fun!

24-year-old Ola Helland from Norway bet his friend Jorgan that he could collect 1 million giraffes by 2011. The result is a fun collection of giraffes ranging from colourful children’s scrawls to impressive watercolours.

What began as a “silly art project” has grown into something more meaningful, he says. “It’s become a way of spreading joy and to get people to turn off their televisions and create something real.” This minor web phenomenon even has a Facebook and Twitter page.

Besides the pleasure of winning the bet (“I will mention this to Jørgen every single day for the rest of my life”), Ola hopes that his project will do some good. He is trying to attract a corporate sponsor to donate £1 to the World Wildlife Fund for every picture submitted, with the money used to protect giraffes in the wild.

At the time of writing this, he has 842,742 giraffes more to go in just 490 days. The only rule is that you cannot create your giraffe on your PC. Go ahead, give it a try or just browse through the amazing entries.