karenika

Weekly Art Journal – Weeklong for May 16

This weeklong page was inspired by an etsy artist I love. Here’s her actual piece.

Mine didn’t turn out as well. Here it is empty:

I kept this page mostly two-tone and since there was book text in the background, it was obscured. But that was ok with me.

here’s the left page:

And the right side:

And here’s the filled page:

This one wasn’t my favorite but I still enjoyed it. Can’t win them all, right?

Weekly Art Journal is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here. And you can find out more about the weeklong daily journaling here.

Daily Diary – June 13 2011

It was a short but productive day today. I don’t remember much of it. I was tired in the morning but I am feeling considerably better now. After we picked up David today our neighbor called to see if we’d like to go to the playground. On the way home, David was super cranky but then we ran into Daddy and here’s Nathaniel running to give a hug.

And the hug.

And more hug. They love their daddy.

And finally I got a smile out of the big boy.

off to a meeting now more tomorrow I promise.

Here’s to a very fantastic week for all of us!

Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that I got more art supplies. I will stop, I swear.
2. I am grateful that I have some quiet time tonight so I can zoom through my todo list.
3. I am grateful that even though this is a rough-ish week I am trying to work on my attitude and mood and get through it with grace.

Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. I am grateful school is almost over. {* his pick for the journal}
2. I am grateful that we had field day at school.
3. I am grateful that I have lego camp next week.

i am still awed and amazed at how much you can melt me with a look

Journaling Reads:
I look at these photos and I think of how much my heart jumps when I see you. It can be ten, twenty, even fifty times a day. I still don’t feel like i’ve had enough . My heart swells each time and I am filled with so much love for you. I am so very grateful that you are my boys.

This layout was for Maya Road mid-season releases. The brand new canvas minibook is what I used as a background here.
Details:

Daily Diary – June 12 2011

So this morning I woke up and exercised and as I was setting up the family shot, I got this gem. Little boy is torturing the big boy often lately. And the poor boy cannot really do anything about it since Nathaniel doesn’t get what he’s doing wrong at all.

Then it was time for all of us. Little boy in charge still, of course.

Here’s David asking for the remote and Nathaniel totally ignoring him.

And finally tickle time.

Then David went out to play with his watercolors.

Little one watched him the whole time.

But I did catch one sneak.

Then he went down for his nap, David got a tiny amount of Wii time and I worked on my sketching and art journal. By the time I was done, little one woke up and we all headed for Muir Woods, one of my top three favorite places on earth. Nathaniel absolutely adored it too. Here he is smiling for the camera.

David loves the forest, too and walked around, enjoying nature.

Some kind person snapped a photo of all of us. Even though it’s blurry, I love it.

Nathaniel held my hand most of the time but towards the end, he didn’t want to anymore but the ground was pretty uneven so I was worried about him walking alone, he decided he wanted to hold his brother’s hand and they walked around hand in hand and it made both Jake and me tear up. We felt so deeply grateful for our little boys.

After Muir Woods we stopped by Jake’s friend Geoff’s house and the kids played with their son and we all chatted and it was wonderful. By the time we got home it was two hours past bedtime so both kids went down right away and I am going to bed myself really soon. Fresh air does that to you. It also fixes your grouchy mood apparently!

Here’s to a very fantastic week for all of us!

Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful for Muir Woods. That is my peaceful place. There are two spots I found in the United States where just being there makes me feel full of gratitude and peace. One is Torrey Pines State Reserve in San Diego and the other is Muir Woods. I am blessed and grateful to live relatively close to both.
2. I am grateful that while I feel exhausted, it’s the good kind of tired you feel after a day of sunshine, laughter, family and friends.
3. I am grateful that I am still doing art, sketching, and reading. These things truly make me happy and I am lucky to be able to make the time to do them daily.

Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that we went to Muir Woods. {* his pick for the journal}
2. I am grateful that I got to play with Nico.
3. I am grateful that I played Wii for a little bit.

Reading with David – Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic

David says:
I gave this story five stars because it was cool that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle could cure everything.

My favorite story was the Waddle-I-Doers because they find a treasure in that one and I liked that they found six of them because it meant Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle could have money for a long time. I also thought the Never-Want-To-Go-To-Schooler story was funny because Jody got dumber and started speaking funny. I also thought it was funny that he couldn’t count higher than three. The bad-table-manners cure story was silly because the pig sat with the boy. I thought the Thought-You-Saiders Cure was the silliest of them all because the kids thought of funny responses and I liked them all.

I thought the whole book was really silly because all the cures Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle had were over the top. There wasn’t a story I didn’t like.

Reading a book a week with my six-year-old son David is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

Daily Diary – June 11 2011

Our weekends don’t seem much different than the weekdays here (with the exception of work, of course.) I still wake up at 6am and exercise. But on the weekends, we get to take family photos. Here’s me snapping a few while I set up.

And then one more.

Nathaniel was in charge again.

And he was really happy about it.

Really happy.

then it was tickle time.

I just love every single tickle time photo. All of them.

I can never seem to get enough of them.

I then did some art, journaling, sketching, and the kids played. I snapped a few photos of David whose eyes are finally less red.

He kept laughing as I took photos.

Nathaniel totally ignored me and wouldn’t let me take a photo.

And yelled a few times, of course.

And would NOT stop eating as I snapped.

But then I looked at him and remember how very very grateful I am for my little boy.

Rough week here for all of us. I feel spent and tired and overwhelmed and a bit broken. I need time to heal and rest. I hope to do some of both tonight. I hope your weekend is glorious.

Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful for medicine today. I need some Advil to take the jaw pain away.
2. I am grateful that I did some more art today. I find it healing and relaxing to add all the color and play with the mediums.
3. I am grateful that despite my recent moodiness, life is really good to me and I have so so so much to be thankful for and I am sitting in that pool of gratitude right now and letting it wash over me so I can remember it better.

Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that I feel better. {* his pick for the journal}
2. I am grateful that I played on the computer for a bit.
3. I am grateful that I worked on my new workbook which is so fun.

Us Right Now – June 11

jake
Jake had a relatively uneventful week this week. Just a bunch of paperwork, meetings, and checking off todo list items. He’s been working a lot and setting up appointments. He’s also been around to help with the kids a lot and they are so happy to have him around. It’s a highlight for me to see all the joy in their faces.

karen
This week is officially art journaling week for me. I have started and I cannot stop. I don’t know what’s going on but I am loving and cherishing making all the pages I’ve been working on this week. Maybe it was because I got some wonderful supplies to play with or it was just that something finally clicked. I am not sure but it’s definitely been the focus of my week. Other than that there’s been a lot of being tired and back pain, so we’ll focus on the art since it’s much more fun.

david
David is almost done with school. He had a breakfast in class this week where they sang to all the parents and each of the kids got their Kindergarten graduation documents and their memory book. It has photos of David in the classroom from the whole year and a lot of his work month by month. I am so proud of all that he’s learned this year and I cannot believe he’s going to be in first grade soon. He also managed to get pink eye on Thursday, which was considerably less fun.

nathaniel
Nathaniel also had a sick week. He scratched his cornea earlier this week and then got a never-ending runny nose which has caused many scabs in his nostrils. Most of these have also made him quite cranky this week. He hasn’t had his veggies once and he’s been super-whiny when it’s nap time or bedtime. He has been loving watching TV (especially Sprout) and makes sure to turn it on as soon as he wakes up. I tolerate it just for now because he’s so sick but we will have to go back to being stricter next week.

Us Right Now is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

Daily Diary – June 10 2011

So David stayed home from school today but it’s pretty clear to me that he doesn’t have pinkeye. He did, however, have a slight fever last night so he would have stayed home either way. His eye is still super-bloodshot but I have no idea what it is. The nurse said it might be allergies so tonight we put some allergy drops in his eye. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Little boy has been in a better mood (though still not eating his veggies.) He’s smiling at me here cause he knows I am taking his photo.

I love watching him play. Pretty much all the time.

Here’s David. If you look carefully, you can see his eye is really bloodshot.

And here’s the little boy having fun while David and I are busy doing things.

He’s quite good at entertaining himself.

I was grouchy most of today so when Jake came home, he took the kids upstairs and they danced and played while I waited on the phone with David’s doctor. Then we all went to the art store (because you know I had to buy just a few more supplies. yes, I appear to have a problem.) And we had a delicious dinner, bought David’s eye drop and came back home. Jake put the kids down and I settled in to make a layout which took most of the rest of the night. Now I am exhausted and the day’s over. But, I feel considerably less grouchy. So, yey!

Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful for more art supplies. I bought a few more ink!s and some pastel sticks and a large watercolor journal. I also bought a watercolor set for David and some watercolor tubes for me.
2. I am grateful that we went out to dinner. It was so nice to sit as a family and eat and laugh.
3. I am grateful that I made a layout. I’ll admit I wasn’t in the mood but as soon as I started I loved the process and I loved how it turned out.

Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that I was home today. {* his pick for the journal}
2. I am grateful that we went out to dinner.
3. I am grateful that I got some candy.

Art Journaling – Moleskine Sketch – Week 1

Three weeks ago, I started taking Christy’s She had Three Hearts workshop. In the first week, Christy had 29 videos. Most of them showed different products and how they can be used for art journaling. While I had several of the products, there were a few I’d heard of but never tried and I ended up buying a few of them after watching the videos.

I’m a firm believer that talented people can work with whatever they have at hand. You do not need expensive art supplies to create great art. However, I’ve also come to believe that some mediums work better for some people. For example, I don’t like working with acrylic paint most of the time because I am impatient and don’t like to wait for it to dry and it never comes out the way I like. But I love watercolor (on watercolor paper). So I decided that I wanted to experiment some and find my favorite mediums. Christy’s videos not only prompted me to buy some new supplies but they also were the catalyst for me to sit and do some art journaling.

The first thing to do was pick a book. I didn’t want to buy something new and I’m already using the A4 watercolor moleskine for my weeklong pages so I had a few large Sketchbook Moleskines I’d bought earlier this year (for the portrait drawings) and I decided to repurpose one of those.

My goal was to just play so I can find my way of creating art journaling. I also decided my colors are happy colors. I like bright, strong colors on my scrapbooking so I thought I might like the same in art journaling. I slapped a bunch of color on my background using the watersoluble crayons and then I drew some hearts and just went from there. I ended up with this:

The amazing quote stamp is from cat’s life press and the doily one is from My Mind’s Eye. Everything else is just sequin waste and random texture.

I was pretty happy with this page. Didn’t adore it but felt much better than my previous pages. Two days later, I received my Graphtint pencils and wanted to try them out, so the background here is created by those pencils. I then added some handwriting, some lace, flowers, etc and a lot of journaling. I ended up with something like this.

I stared and stared at the page, worked on it for a long time and just did not like how it turned out. I really really disliked my handwriting especially. So, the next day, I covered it up with book paper, recreated some more background, added some more flowers, layers, etc and ended up with this.

which is still not great but i like it so much more. So much.

The next day, my long awaited panpastels arrived and I was in heaven. I had waited so long to get these and I was suddenly so so glad to have them. I love and adore this medium. It’s like it was invented for me. I created this simple page right away. Back to my happy, bright colors.

I used my cricut to cut a bunch of shapes so I could use them as templates and it worked like a charm.

I loved this medium so much that I did two more pages that same night. One of them is now saved for another project but here is the other:

This page also uses the Crafter’s Workshop template I bought. See those bright penpastels? I love them!

And then I used another new medium I adore, the Liquitex Acrylic Ink! to create this page. I had also resisted buying these but I adore them. Even though I don’t usually like acrylic, these are wonderful in that they are very pigmented and very vivid and they dry right away. I love them.

And that’s it for now. More pages coming next week. I haven’t stopped making pages since I received all these products and I am so happy. I love these happy pages. I love creating and I am just enjoying the process for now. Thank you for letting me share.

Healthy For Life – Week 23

As much as I know the Wii is unreliable and can be off anywhere from 0 to 5 lbs, it’s annoying to see that I’ve gained all the weight I lost and more. I tried to weigh myself several times this week and the numbers just stayed like that. Oh well. I am still working and eating better and taking at least 10,000 steps every day. That’s the best I can do for now. I have faith that things will turn around. In the meantime, I walk down my path and stay focused.

I’m still eating my salads and chicken and trying to do a better job. With the exception of the last 48 hours, I’ve also done better on the graham crackers. I’ve been only eating them with breakfast and eating more nutritious food for the other meals. The coffee is still on three times a day but it’s going to stay that way for a while. It’s too ingrained in some of my other rituals so I am not willing to walk away from it yet.

When I look back upon the last eight months, I cannot believe I’ve been exercising for that long. I cannot believe it’s a part of my life now. It’s a priority and something I consistently put first. I am quite proud of that regardless of what the Wii says.

and here’s this week’s card:

Healthy for Life is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

Daily Diary – June 9 2011

This morning David had a breakfast/show thing at school so I got up at 6 and did my exercise first thing so that we could all go to school together. The classroom was really beautiful and all the kids were wearing PJs (it was also pajama day) and they sang to us and got their kindergarten certificates and memory books. It was wonderful to watch. Then we came back home and Jake went to work and I got to work too. A few hours later David’s school called (which always scares me) and told me he had pinkeye and I had to come get him.

So I did. You can see it a bit here but I’m still not 100% sure it’s pinkeye. Nonetheless, it looks really red. (though he says it doesn’t itch or hurt at all.)

Little boy is still a bit cranky and his nose is still dripping like crazy. Here’s the I-m-watching-tv smile again.

And a few more.

Just for me.

I love him so.

I am still feeling worn out and a bit rough on the edges. Maybe it’s hormonal. No idea. Just wish it would go away. Also still art journaling like crazy. I’ve done 12 pages in less than two weeks. Truly enjoying the process. No plans for tonight. None of the todo list items are getting done cause I am too tired and don’t feel inspired to do anything (except art journal apparently.)

Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. I am grateful for my sister’s wedding anniversary. 17 years! That’s a long time to be married! I love you both so much.
2. I am grateful that I work at home. I was thinking about that as I drove to school to get David today and how flexible my schedule is that I could drop everything and go get him right away. I am deeply grateful.
3. I am grateful for my husband and my kids who always ground me and who are constant reminders of what I have to be grateful for in my life and that my life is so very full.

Three Things David’s Grateful For:
1. I am grateful that it was pajama day. {* his pick for the journal}
2. I am grateful that daddy will spend some time with me.
3. I am grateful that it’s one more day to my wii day.

Daily Sketching – Week 9

Here are the sketches from this week. In my opinion, this week’s sketches leave much to be desired. I was just not in my element this week. Oh well, at least I still did it daily.

On Wendesday, I started with a quick girl.