Beating the Winter Blues

I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time staying up-beat in the winter time. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, which had its good share of snow and wintry weather. When I was a kid, I loved winter! I loved snow days, of course; what kid doesn’t? And I loved playing outside in the snow. We’d bundle up and build snowmen and igloos (sadly, we never achieved igloo nirvana!). We’d build walls out of snow to hide behind then spend hours stockpiling snowballs. Finally, we’d have snow ball fights. We wouldn’t come inside until our noses were bright red and cold and our fingers frozen, and even then, we weren’t ready.

When I was older, driving and working, I learned that snow days are not much fun. I hated having to drive in to work during blustery winter days. When I lived in a small (minuscule, really) city, I could at least ditch my car and trudge through the snowy streets, but I really hated winter. I always vowed that one day I would move south, away from winter, but somehow I ended up moving north to New England. Crazy, right? Winter in Providence is actually pretty mild compared to winters I remember as a child, because of our proximity to the water, but last winter was insane. I was living in northern Rhode Island, and we had snow on the ground from December straight through until April. That’s enough to give anybody a serious case of the winter blues!

So how do I beat the winter blues? I make art, of course!

There’s nothing like snuggling up with some favorite art supplies to warm even the chilliest bones.

I’m looking forward to Weekly Art Date (starting in January, yay!) because it will give me a purpose each week — I’ll have to make something fabulous to share with all of you!  I want to explore lots of techniques and materials, so I’ll be forced out of the box, so to speak. It’s going to be awesome.

Still thinking about signing up? Remember that you can sign up for just one part (10 weeks) to get your feet wet, so to speak. Maybe you’ll find you love it and want to continue all year. Or maybe you’ll decide you just don’t have the time to focus… and that’s okay, too! Here’s all the details about the course.

Do You Journal Daily?

In a word: No. But I sure try!

Some days are impossibly busy. Or I am impossibly tired. Or wicked sick. But, in general, if I can squeeze it in, I try to spend at least a couple of minutes working in my journal every day. For the last week, I’ve been trying Julie Fei-Fan Balzer‘s trick of working in my journal for 10 minutes a day. If you haven’t tried it and you always feel like you don’t have time to journal, I highly recommend giving it a whirl! You’d be surprised at what you can accomplish in just a few minutes a day. (Julie’s class 30 Days in your Journal is awesome!)

Here’s a page I just finished:

Even though I was feeling very sick, I was able to finish this page with just a few minutes a day.

Here’s the one I’m working on now:

For this one, I’m making a spread about the way I indulge myself. I’ll post another picture when it’s finished!

How about that face stamp? I am super proud of it because I carved it myself. Yay!