... something for kate

perspective & attitude for 2010...

its always this time of year where i get very excited about my new diary for the new year. i want to abandon my current year diary altogether and get cracking on filling in all the personal info in my new diary. well during this year ['09], for the first time in many many many years, i abandoned my diary and went all electronic! my iPhone is an extension of me and completely synced with my Mac so i have my complete diary & appointment system with me 24/7. SO fabulous darling!

but i did also buy a nice diary for 2010 anyway. i think i will use it partly for visual diary scribbles and partly for daily to do lists/goals. all appointments etc will be stored in iCAL on Mac & iPhone.

so anyway as i was saying, its this time of year i get all excited about what i want to achieve in the new year. fresh new perspective and attitude, brand new goals...

if you think you might be looking to adjust your perspective & attitude for 2010 and maybe don't know how to pull yourself out of the doldrums, i recommend reading this.

click here.

i think if she can get herself up every morning with all she has to deal with, and achieve amazing things, then most of us could do it too. i know its hard. i know its really hard to get motivated but once you get going with something new, its infectious!

anyway, i have found this amazing woman to be such an inspiration. - to keep going, to keep living life to the full. to use my alone time while kids are sleeping to do things that recharge my batteries, which in turn make me feel good about myself and gives me the energy to be a good mum during the kids waking hours.

i'm trying to be kind to myself [because i am so imperfect in so many ways] about all the stuff that i do achieve.  i know i am good at organising this home and we have set up pretty good systems so most things just run like clockwork because we have trained ourselves [and are now sharing those skills with the kids] so our house runs a particular way. maybe its all the years of business experience i had actually being useful in our domestic world. best practice, continuous improvement, economies of scale....  buzz buzz. but really in many ways, the systems we have here really have helped us to all know what page we are on and how things work.  

there's also the improvements i work on personally that make a difference in some way, to how much i get done:

i am proud that I don't say, "i'm too busy" when in the evenings one sits on the couch watching tv - i very rarely do this, such a time waster! if i do take time out on a saturday night to watch a movie with my husband, i am always doing something - cutting up paper, sticking, gluing, sketching ideas....

i am proud that this year I have been going to gym regularly even though i have 4 kids and a household to run + my part-time evening job + my little art business. for so many years with renal failure i just couldn't bring myself to do anything but hold down my job. i'm better, i owe to myself to get this body moving! and its addictive!!

i am proud that i am trying to get to bed even just a tiny bit earlier to keep up reading, its important. might only be 2 pages, but i do finish books. want to keep learning, keep dreaming, keep my brain alive.

now i really could mop my floors more often, i know that. but at the end of my life i'd rather have painted one more painting per week than mop my floors. i don't want to be remembered for exceptionally clean floors. nor do i want to be known for amazingly organised linen cupboards or ironed sheets. nup, not for me.

next year i want to add some kind of formal study to my schedule. it'll only be small, whether its photography or graphics subjects. i can't return to uni just yet, kids are the priority right now. but i do want to fit in some kind of short term evening thing. in the interests of lifelong learning....

time is always an issue for everyone but i know from personal experience that i fit in SO much more to my life now that i have 4 kids than before i had any. it's possible to waste many many minutes away procrastinating [and i sure do fit in alot of that STILL] but i also get started, get cracking & do stuff too. i also have slow days and sick kid weeks and nights where i just can't be bothered.  i am far from perfect and i do not have all the answers - of course i don't!

but little improvements to ones life? - it absolutely can be done, adding one interest/hobby at a time, one small life improvement each month.... and that's not to say sometimes you can't throw the whole schedule out and have a complete day off, of course, that kind of spontaneity is good for the soul too!  but so is starting something new & exciting and/or responsible. will definitely make you feel better about yourself!  

since my transplant, adding [on average] one baby each year for the last 4 years, we've had no choice but to improve our house, our lives, our health.  we work hard at it and while we don't do many things perfectly, we always have the best intentions and know we are trying the best we can for our kids whilst trying to get the best out of life for ourselves too. all of that brings about some inner peace i guess. but every year there's some improvement that can be made and in addition to some study i just thought of something else....  

next year i want to spend a little more time in our garden.  i used to have a great herb/veggie patch and i want this again. the girls are showing great interest in the outdoors now and always love picking me daisies.  i want to extend this further and get some edible things growing again.  

wow - so this turned out to be a larger reflection on the past year and the plans for the future than i had intended, but thats ok. good to document.  lets see how i do this time next year!

so what changes are you gonna make next year, or are you living one of those completely 100% mature & responsible + blissful lives? 

tell me, i can keep secrets xo

kate
xo

a bouquet of newly cleaned brushes....

i do my creating once the kids are in bed.  its just not possible to do it while the girls are awake.  i cannot get my hands wrist deep in paint & medium if they are playing about, as either they want to join in too or need me for something else. and anyway, they have their own [supervised] art making to do with their own [more economical] art supplies! 

but i don't get to get making every evening, i have many other responsibilities that i need to squeeze into those few kid free hours in the evening.  

putting away clean clothes [a big job here!].

getting clothes ready for the next day.

trying to do a general once over tidy through the house if me & the kids didn't get to it during the day.

my day [night] job; - graphics.

family paperwork, responding to emails, bits of fundraising things.

scanning artwork, editing family photos, updating blogs, etsy etc. 

packing art sales, sending invoices.

the list goes on.  

anyway...

i get real itchy when i can't get making every few days. i need it, i need it to help relax me. to recharge the batteries. truly food for the soul.

ordinarily i am not so good at cleaning my brushes but once i do, oooohhhhhh-weeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!! just seeing a pot full of freshly cleaned brushes ready to take some paint.  well, zippity-do-da, now that gets me excited!

so there you go, a miscellaneous post written for no other reason than to record some of my art habits and my passion for it.

get making why don't you!

kate

xo

heroes...

when obstacles, or even just the daily grind, seem all too much and too consuming...

there is a bunch of inspiration to be had and strength to be found, by reading this blog.

makes all the little niggles of every day life fade away in comparison.

its one of the very few blogs i read without fail and have done so since the crash.  

absolutely a hero of mine.

in case you are one of the few who hasn't yet found this amazing woman & family, i highly recommend you check it out.

today a big milestone was reached.  tears, oh the tears.....

kate

xo

babushka - ya - ya ...

my love for babushka dolls started when i was quite young and a gorgeous little green & orange doll was given to my younger sister.  funny how these little obsessions/passions often stem from something you have to love from afar, from something you can look at but not touch, or have for your very own self. *sigh*

nevertheless, i am grown now and can totally babushka-fy my whole house and life if i choose. over the last few years, that is what i have set about doing.  

not only that, i have been kokeshi-fying my world too!  my love for cute japanese things stems from childhood too when i collected stickers and erasers and dad often brought back really cute things for us when he returned from business trips. my sister and i still love to giggle over cutesy japanese stationery translations whenever we reminisce about the items we've bought from morning glory over the years or in japan itself! 

so naturally with 4 little girlies of my own, they are beautiful things to collect & create.  i now also have my sister and friends on the case who bought beautiful dolls for amelia & chelsea for their 1st birthdays. and another dear reader friend who delights in the same obsession and has sent me links to various babushka treats... [hello Gab x]

here's the mason collection so far:

of course my girls and i have also been creating babushka's for our art/playroom for a long time so we are totally entrenched in babushka's and now kokeshi's are making an appearance too...

by the way, jeff bought [found by moi of course & said was pointed in the right direction] me this for Christmas... i love it. babushka silver opening pendant and matching earrings by pilgram.  

it replaces this one that i bought from sportsgirl during my pregnancy which needs a new chain.  all my girls loved it, chelsea was particularly attached to it and it gave her immense comfort during her most recent heart surgery.  odd, but she knew it was mine and i wore it ALL the time.  i guess it symbolised 'mum' for her.

so lots of dolls for inspiration, not least of all - MY very own 4 little babushka's!

anyway, i have been wanting to get on and finish all the girls bedrooms.  all the furniture has been sorted, i just have to get stuff on the walls.  georgia has quite a beautiful large print of poppies [georgia poppy of course] in her room already.  its just from ikea but i still love it every time i see it.  charlotte will be getting a piece for her birthday. its ikea's version of klimt's mother & child.  a painting i just adore and it has lots of little daisies [for charlotte daisy...]

so the general plan is to have one large piece and then on another wall, a mixed bag of little pieces, some cross stitch, some framed photos/ art & some little art i have created for them.  but there is limited wall space in the twins room so i can't possibly have two large pieces.  they can't share art either, it will be from us to them.  so this got me thinking of two coordinating art pieces, just a little smaller.  i found these brilliant oblong canvases a while back and decided to collage a large babushka for them each, considering chelsea's attachment for my little wooden babushka necklace.  it would be a collaged babushka like i do with my girls, with a bit more 'me' and less 'them' in the application ;] - using my pp scraps and Mod Podged napkins etc.  not that their babushka's aren't totally beautiful and inspiring!!  

anyway, i had grand intentions of getting them done months ago, a gift for their 1st birthdays but it never eventuated. as it turns out it was a blessing, as in late september, a copy of kelly rae roberts 'taking flight' book landed in my hands.  well reading her book just felt like 'home'.  it just felt like this was the lesson i needed.  my whole life has been about lessons.  and those trials and tribulations in my life so far has taught me to be patient and trusting [amongst other things].  because of the experiences in my life, i am definitely more patient than i used to be. still learning to trust. 

in my journey, i have also learned [and i truly believe] that the world mysteriously conjours up and throws you snippets of 'whatever' which could indeed be the answer/inspiration/confirmation that you need to move forward. to progress forward in life. i cannot count the number of times little things have fallen in my path, or i've turned a page and read words or seen a sign, that has given me the 'piece' to the puzzle i have been trying to piece together.  

in my creative pursuits, it often seems to work like that.  a head buzzing with a gazillion ideas and unable to make them happen because the the world hadn't yet conjoured up the missing ingredient.  i think you get those last few puzzle pieces when you are ready to accept them.  and that requires patience and trusting in the process.  i'm not talking life changing huge things here, just the little stuff, little clicks that make alot of my work have emotional symbolism.  whether its song words i hear when i am struggling to write emotional journaling on a layout or an embellishment i find on my desk that i never noticed before or that never had meaning before, and its EXACTLY what i needed to finish a project. 

so when i started looking through kelly rae's beautiful book, not only all the words spoke to me, but the faces did as well. the faces on the babushka's i had been planning to paint were certainly a grey area.  i am not a great painter.  i probably would have drawn the faces and added highlighting ink afterward or do them digitally, print them out and collage them on. maybe this is why i never really started them?  i hadn't really got the whole project finished in my head yet.  well kelly rae's beautiful girls have the most adorable faces and it got me thinking about my project in the pipeline.  maybe i could paint them on?  

i must say, i was also amazed when i looked through the book's beautiful collection of ladies to see the paper scrap collaged backgrounds!  that's totally my thing!  oh i was in heaven.  my collaged babushka's in my head suddenly had wings.  collaging the canvas background in my beloved pp scraps, Mod Podged napkins & fabric etc, making childlike girly babushka's, well i can do all that but now, the final piece of my little puzzle....  sweet painted faces.  oh how i have dreamt about ideas for millions of babushka designs in my head since..... single ones, pairs, groups, chelsea's babushka holding a mended heart, me and my 4 little babushka dolls... lots of symbolism.  i knew however simple and child like they would be, i would love them all.

yep i was ready to take flight!  

so a few months ago, when i returned from melbourne, i started teaching myself to paint some faces.  unfortunately i am still crap. but that's ok. not going for fine art prize here, just want sweet child like faces. i made a few little canvases [top pic], one for my sister which i gave her for Christmas, one for a special friend [who shares my babushka passion and has two little babushka's of her own] and one for me.  

i have since been making a bunch of other babushka things, not just canvases and have a few commercial ideas in the pipeline along with some collages i have been working on.  some cafe press too & other things etc...  so i feel like i am home and want to creatively throw myself into everything babushka and kokeshi.  

hopefully soon i'll have my girls canvases to show which were the original inspiration for this new journey.  but they are much bigger projects and i wanted to ensure i had lots of 'trials' under my belt before i started them.

you know, another funny thing landed in my lap just the other day.  i have been giving my art/playroom a makeover in the last couple of months [will save pics for another post] and that meant sorting through some 20 years of crap important & inspirational things that will all one day become very useful!  well there's still a huge long way to go before the sorting is finished but the furniture and general layout is meeting our current needs and i have my art supplies where i need them...

anyway, a Christmas card sent to my dads work in the last few years, that i had kept because i loved it, fell onto the floor. i nearly chucked it as it fell wrong side up and thought it was just another bought card that i have keep that didn't need. well it wasn't, it was a mixed media piece by rebecca cool, WA artist.  it was so beautiful.  i decided to research her on the internet and have found a  huge and beautiful portfolio.  finding this card again, now, after all this time, as i about to embark on immersing myself into a girly mixed media journey... well, there's just another one of those little things.  i am ready for it now.  that's why i needed to tidy my art room.  it was itching to be found.

anyway, that's all for today.  my long winded babushka obsession story has brought me to this point.  so off i go...

kate

xo