Karin Winter Arts

I am so excited. Today was the first real, real nice day of spring. I know it has only been spring for a little while but it was so nice. Nice enough for me to put on the old painting clothes and start painting on the drive way. Most people in my neighborhood know me only by me painting something on the driveway! I always have some sort of project that I ‘have’ to paint. Today it was my vegetable box. It has been standing in (the way) in the garage all winter, bugging my husband. I had to get it painted and prepped for my greenhouse. I am getting it ready to grow tomatoes and bell peppers. So that is what I did for part of my day.

The other part of my day I spent making a journal page in my friend Cathys’ journal. I had fun and you can tell I was thinking of spring today. Participating in the Teesha inspired journal turns out to be a lot of fun. Here is the result:

I have been busy on other art, I have finished my 7 purple/blue journal pages, I also did an additional journal page. I have not posted them in the blog, but the images are on my journal pages and I think ‘Odd sizes’ You guys know the drill. So I am now pretty much caught up with all of my art trades at ‘the Art club’. My plan is to lay low for a little while over the spring and summer. I have gotten in over my head the last couple of months. I have been so busy with the boys obviously and then I participated in A lot of swaps. I need to take some time to work on my own things and spent some time in the garden... I have to finish the Teesha swap and I have one more Nature Journal page to finish.

Oh I almost forgot the mention the fun I had working on my fictitious photo album. Or did I do that in my last post? I am not sure, anyways, check out my 'Not-so real 'fictitious Photoalbum. I have used only vintage pics of my actual family members. I had so much fun, I loved them so much I had to keep most of them for myself. I cannot wait to see what returns I get...

In the mean time I have ordered 700+ pictures on Shutterfly to get caught up on my boys’ photo albums. I am about two years behind. Once i get done with this latest order of pictures I will be only 6 months behind. So that is not bad, once I get going scrapbooking I am pretty fast. The boys have been pretty good in helping me with the journalling parts of the pages, it is very cute.

I have my bookclub meeting next week and I am listening to the book right now. Is it cheating when you listen to the book on tape? I feel bad but I had no time left this month to actually read the book. I have to say it is real fun. The book of the month is Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. It is set in 1930’s Great Britain. The lady who is reading it, has a real English accent, she must be English or British. I am normally not attracted to early century readings, I think reading would have been difficult for me, but listening has been real good. I love the book, I feel like I can’t stop listening to it. When I stop the tape, I feel like I am missing out, like the characters are continuing their story ‘behind my back’. I really love listening to a story whilst working on my art or working on photo albums. I am thinking I am going to have to do this more often.

The library has been real good for us. We spent one day a week there, not the actual whole day, but a good couple of hours. The boys love it so. We have been doing it for a couple of months now and we do the same thing every week. Skyler goes to the computer and wants to do a search on the computer to find some books. Every week he  types the same word: ‘Karate’ and ‘Ninja’ and ‘China’. And every week the same list of books pops up, books we have rented over and over again! I told Skyler, that we have seen all these books before and he needed to change his search for a change, so he choose 'Panda's' this week! :-) Still Asian I guess...

Yes he is all into Ninja’s right now. He wants to join a Karate Club over the summer. Whenever Skyler loves something, all the other boys love it too, Semmie our 3 year old, is a real: ‘Inja-dude’ as he calls it, yes: a ‘Inja-dude” So whenever we show up anywhere they are always dressed up as black ninja’s and we have to say: “Here are the Inja dudes!” It is pretty cute. We only have two ninja costumes, so whomever is last to get dressed will have to wear a black pirate pants and an inside out black t-shirt (so the print won’t show). So I think the boys are definitely creative and i couldn’t be more proud of them!

Have a great spring everybody, I am enjoying it while it lasts, cause you know, it is not spring unless we have a couple or 3 or 4 or 5 snowstorms in the Rockies!

I know I know it has been a while since I posted last. I have been busy with my kids, but I have not sat still on the art front. I have done loads of things. Did I mention in the past blogs that I made a teesha journal? I might have. Anyway, I spent days making my little journal. I was so proud of it. I mailed it certified-mail to the next person in line and IT GOT LOST!!!! My little journal. I sent and receive so much art through the mail, and this was the one thing I really did not want to get lost (except for those 6 double sided 8by10's, remember those?) Anyway, so I spent another weekend last weekend remaking my little teesha journal. I will post some of those pictures soon.

I also joined a chunky journal swap, where we are making 4 by 4 chunky pages, we make about 6 a month and then resend them out. The theme of these will be colors, the first set was black and white. I choose to make the pages out of fabric and backed them with paper. They turned out quite nice, if I may say so myself.

I am trying to take it easy for the next couple of months. I am trying not to sign up for so many swaps as it is becoming spring and I have to get the garden ready for growing season again. I am trying to have a real plan this year and grow things I would actually eat, instead of last year where I was growing things just for the sake of growing them. This year I am planning a lot of strawberries, lettuce, spinach (hopefully I can keep thos leafminers at bay this year!) and maybe some watermelon, carrots, potatoes. I have to sit down and write down my plan of attack. I have a new greenhouse and planning on filling that with a permanent collection of cactus and succulents. I will also put my tomatoes and peppers in there. As well as trying to grow some flowers for cutting from seed. So it wlll be a fun summer, but also very busy. I cannot wait for spring to arrive. I have been able to smell it in the air, however I know not to be fooled by those nice early days of spring. In the Rockies we cannot count on nice days to stay untill after the halfway point of may.

I went to see the movie Shutter Island the other night and that was AWESOME, for sure that one is going on my 'best movie list' I love any Martin Scorsese movie, and this one did not disappoint! I would say "Two thumbs up for that one".

I will leave you with some of my black and white chunkies and feel free to check out my journal page for the new images of the journals I have made and more of the chunkies!

Till next time

These are some of my birdies.

The Old (lost) journal cover and .............................The New (not yet lost) journal cover!

I have been so busy with all sorts of things, that I had some mail art to return to some of my artist friends. So today i dedicated to getting up to speed on all of them. Well I think I still have two more to do. I did get 6 envelopes done today and I had a good time. Had some help from my kids along the way. I am pretty tired right now, so i am just going to leave you with the images for now. More blogginf to follow tomorrow!

Sorry, I haven't posted in a little while. I have been doing art, I just have not had the time to post it here in my blog. I have been training for my triathlon, and that is also taking up a lot of time! That and taking care and raising four boys! The boys have a half day school today and i promised to start a new 'tradition'; we are going to the local library for the first time this afternoon. Which reminds me I still have to find out where it is... I figured I can do one more thing with the boys and use friday afternoon as library day. Yes the boys have a small library at school, but there is not too much choice. I love books as you all know, I can spend days in a bookstore and not emerge!

Ok so the newest project of my 'art club' is a Teesha Moore - like- journal. We have all watched Teesha's tutorial video's on her blog, and we are taking what we are learning and having a journal swap. In this case we got to make our own bound journal, designed the covers and other pages, and we will be sending ours out one by one, to eachother, and other members will choose a page to cover. So this is great, I had so much fun, because i actually got to do some art that I get to keep for a change. All the art I have done over the years and I have only pictures. I think i have 3 originals at my house, that's it. So this journal got me really inspired to actually start my own art journal. I will talk more about that later. For now i will leave you with some pics of my little 4 by 5 journal!

 Front cover                                              Back Cover

The sign in page for the other artists.

The inside back cover

And some inside pages...

FUN, Eh?!

Well hello there Followers,

I know I know I told you I would see ya'll again this weekend, but I had some time to work on a Nature Journal page for VBR. This is not a 8 by 10, but a 4 by 5, so tiny tiny compared to the big boys I have been doing.

The 3 boys are watching their movie from Blockbuster: The Three Ninja's! So they have been pretty quiet, which gave me a minute to work on some art. Oh, did I mention that the three boys now actually think that they are ninja's? It is too funny!

Well I am off to watch all my favorite tv shows, dateline, 20/20 and 48 hours mystery. All the awesome shows on at a friday night!

Here are the pages I made tonight. They are made entirely of fabric, I used some acrylic markers on them after I was done sewing...

So after I fixed my day a couple of days ago I made a couple more journal pages. I have been SO busy with life! I have spent a good amount of time at the gym training. I feel good, and making great progress, but I am also very tired! As it turns out my friend Corrie, who I made The Crazy Day journal page for, did like the Caged Bird page. After I explained, my day really was crazy, so crazy I made the wrong journal page, while I still had a ton of other stuff to do, she said she would like to have that page! I feel totally happy about that. Today I finished the other side for her page, which turned out to be a very personal page:

It actually went really well with the flipside, my caged bird page. So I am happy with that result. A couple of days ago I finished the other side to the Royal Women Journal page, it turned out good:      

Go to my 'Journal page' on this website, to view the pages next to eachother. My son Skyler, he is 7 years old, really enjoys art as much as I do. I have to say he is quit good. The other day I had made that grasshopper page remember. Well he saw me working on it in my wokspace, went upstairs and started working on his own page. I want to show you a side by side view of our pages!

Now isn't that AWESOME? He made that page totally from only looking at my page! I was really impressed. He told me: "Here you go mom, maybe the friends in your art club would like to have this page!" That was so great! His page says: "Were are woor bogs?" (translation "where are your bugs?")

Well I think that is it for my art time today. I have a laundry machine to unload, a dishwasher to unload, a laundry machine to re-load and a dryer to load. Then there is all the clothes that need to be folded and put away. A trip to school to pick up Skyler. A trip to blockbuster to have the kids pick their 'weekend' movies.....and what else? Oh I am sure I can think of plenty of more things I want to get accomplished today! Oh did I forget dinner? Yes we have to eat right?

I was going to say something else and now you made me forget... Oh yes yes, I was at my bookclub meeting the other day. And I was talking to Tracey -the host "Hi Tracey!"- about her books, and asked: "Are these all your books here?" And she said: "No, most of my books are in my study." And I thought that sounded so awesome, a study! I wish I had a study! Well I guess I kind of have study, but it is also my workroom for art as well, I should start calling it my 'Studio'. Which is what I shall do! So: from My Artist Studio, I wish you guys a great Friday! Talk to you again later on this weekend!

So after the bad start of my day. The part where I made a wrong journal page, I was in a bad mood. So I vowed not to do any more art that day. But I had too. I knew that if I would make something I was supposed to, it would lift my mood. So i did it! I made another page which is themed: Royal Women. That was a hard one for me, because I couldn't think of anything, and had never done something like that before. So a challenge is always good, and I think my page did turn out pretty good. I am happy with it. Today i will work on the other side of it. And then I only have two more pages to do. Well hopefully 1 1/2 if any of the other members will take my 'Caged Bird' page.

Last night was our monthly bookclub meeting and we had a great time. We were out till 10:30, which is pretty late for us bookclub girls. I never finished my book, but we had a great discussion anyways. It is so much fun to meet, if you could be a fly on the wall! We talk about, well just about everything, and it is real fun to hear how we change conversations. We talk about this and that and then this again. It is crazy!

This last book was: I capture the Castle by Dodie Smidt, and next months book is The Art of Racing in the Rain. I am excited about that one  and WILL finish that one in time. I have a month to read it, so i should be good this time.

So without further ado, here is my Royalty page. Now I have to use my time wisely and get started on another page, before I have to bring my son to school!

Yes i have lost it. I have been working so hard on my journal pages. I finished another one today. One problem: I used a theme that I was not supposed to use! So now I can't use it afterall. SHOOT~!!!!!! So now back to the drawing board. I have to make pages for the following themes: 'Crazy Day', 'Zetti', and 'Royal Women'. ARGGGHHH this makes me so mad. Now I am all done for the day, don't feel like starting any other pages today....

So here it is, this is the all-for-nothing-page I made for no reason. Guess I am going to have to keep it!

Well I had a good day. I did a little bit of everything I was supposed to do today! We got up early around 6am. Which was good. We all had breakfast, waffles with chocolate spread on them, yammy. Then I was off to the gym, I did my uphill spinclass and a little run afterwards. So that was good. Then I spend some time in my favorite spot at the gym: "the reading corner". I am now 1/4 into the book, that I am supposed to have finished by tomorrow night. Pfew, Let's see if I can make it. Anyone taking any bets on that?

Then we had fun at the pool, the boys and me, 2 hours swimming and hot tubbing. Oh oh, and I did do some laudry this morning too, so that was good. Allthough all this laundry doing is making my pile of things to fold, bigger and bigger!

So me and the boys had a nice lunch. Oh we went to Blockbuster first and they picked some movies off the 99 cents rack.

So lunch and then my JOURNAL pages. Yeah, I finished another side. So now I am at 3 done, three more to go. If I had only signed up for one group, I would be done right now. I still have till Feb 14. But I really wanted to have them done by the end of this month. Because I still have some wooden clothespin to paint and decorate. And I signed up for another swap today, which is 4 by 4 if I remember correctly. It will be a monthly thing, where we do 4 pages, or was it 3, and the theme each month is a color. This month it is Black and white; Are those colors? Hum?

Any how, so now we are approaching 6pm. The kids are quietly watching their movie. I am done with my art work for today. Have some laundry to fold and a book to read. But I look forward to 2 days of from my gym training schedule! And a husband who will be home for 4 days, so we will enjoy the next four days! Tomorrow is my bookclub meeting, so I wll update you guys (my 6 followers) on how that went on Tuesday!

See you all, and have a good Sunday Night.

Here is my next journal page, with very 'uplifting' poem I FOUND on a grasshopper's life!

Well today was a gym day, if i'm looking at my schedule that my hunky husband made for me. I was actually doing good with my third journal page, so i was going to skip the gym. I guess that is the artist in me, not the athlete. My mistake: i already told my boys they could go to the 'club' today. So they just came down here, all dressed up: "Mom we got dressed to go to the gym!" Great so now i have to go. So off to the gym i go, go for a run and a swim.

I would like to show you the journal page I made today. The theme was found poetry. I had never heard of 'found poetry' before. but i do like it! I am trying to not get into any other form of artistic expression right now. i think I have enough going on.

This is the poem that I found:

Every pebble was once part

of a big mass of rock

It was broken off

the big mass of rock

Perhaps a plant

grew in a crack

and broke it off

Perhaps water

froze in a crack

There are many kinds of pebbles

because there are

so many different rocks.

Here is the page: