WooT WOoT!! What a blast we all had preparing and celebrating our Homecoming 2010. Every year Washburn has a celebration called Brownstone Days, and every five years it’s a mass homecoming for all alumni. This year proved to be a big hit, from the activities on the main drag, the parade, the parties and live music to the Sunday fun at West End Park. Our gang here at the gallery celebrated in true Karlyn’s Gallery style, you betcha! We were busy mid-week painting our signs for our parade float, making them spectacular. I think we all learned that glitter is a mess in a bottle, but sure looks purty on the signs!

Preparing to create our parade float signs

The paint and glitter extravaganza.

We were super busy in the gallery on Friday, lots and lots of people coming into town and everyone wanted a Karlyn Homecoming print and a Leslie Homecoming Mug. By the time work was over on Friday we were rearing to go. Skyler set up his lemonade stand and made some good money, too! Thanks to the help of Aaron, they made enough to go spend at the vendor’s across the street.

Skyler and Aaron

Saturday morning we got started early with the final touches to our parade float. We used Brad’s sail boat and decorated it up with balloons and streamers. Once we had everything we needed, we headed off to the parade.

Making the signs for the boat on parade day.

Whitney, Sandy and Lydia.

Kristen getting the streamers attached to the boat.

Lydia, Kristen and Beth on our way to the parade line-up.

Whitney and Aaron.

Our Gallery Gang, in this case we're "Karlyn's Krew." Whitney, Brad, Kristen, Beth and Aaron, Becky, Lydia and Karlyn.

The rest of the weekend was so much fun I had to put away my camera. Our team “Rockstars” took 3rd place at the water barrel fights on Sunday, thanks to Brad, Lydia, Andrew (Lydia’s brother), Me, Ron and Tyler (ringers). It’s almost sad that we only get to do this every five years…but then again, Washburn sure knows how to do it right!

For all of you out there who are interested in the staff here at Karlyn’s Gallery, we have news! Lydia is leaving for college! Her new replacement is Whitney, and boy are we happy to have her on board. For those of you who might remember, Whitney worked here during 2006-2008. Now that she’s got her degrees from Northland College, we begged her to come back. Bon Voyage, Lydia! Welcome Back, Whitney!

We are akin to Christmas elves, running around at all hours fulfilling your orders. The new book, Watercolor Without Boundaries has been printed and delivered to our gallery store where Lydia is stuffing, labeling, weighing and preparing your orders to ship. I have been busy wrapping up the DVD and getting all these goodies onto the website. It is pure pandamonium around here, and we’re showing our true colors helping each other pull through. Whether it’s stepping in and answering phone calls or hauling the many boxes of books to Garage Mahal, the staff at Karlyn’s Gallery never miss a beat. That is, if we have a healthy supply of beer to see us through! So don’t fret, you eager beavers, your orders are being processed, packaged, labeled and weighed…and before long, you will be fingering your own copy of Karlyn’s latest and greatest, complete with her signature of authenticity!

The boxes are delivered and quickly triffled through.

The hallways are strewn with padded envelopes full of books.

Hey folks, we were at it again. Although we might look scary, or scared, everything was under control. Post Halloween pumpkins have presented our wily gang with an opportunity to shoot guns. Bradley brought out his bang sticks and we had ourselves a party!

Brad and the rifle, shooting at our cars.

This look is priceless. After having pulled the trigger a few times with Irmiter's help, Lydia is now ready to try without training wheels.

Kristen and Becky, not at all concerned that Lydia has a pistol.

BANG! We gave her the fake gun. Silly management!

Bradley looks menacing while Lydia clings to Kristen for support. At this point, I am very glad it's only a customer service seminar.

After our Public Relations Manager coached us. Brad just isn't getting it.

Becky and the tactical shot gun. A happy couple...maybe a little TOO happy.

Brad's shotgun, the Bruiser. Those pumpkins never stood a chance.

The pumpkin carnage. I love how the flaming spray paint cans blew up when we shot them, causing purple paint to splatter all over the crime scene.

We love to get together outside of working for the greatest business in Washburn, WI. How we spend our time together spans wine makng, beer drinking, conversation on all topcs, movie watching, feasting and our Tuesday night “Art Night”. Art Night brings us together in a creative spirit as we bring to the tables projects such as knitting, metal working, island building and many other crazy projects mingled in. It’s our excuse to have some “Points” and relax amongst friends. Here are the drawings we made of each other for our warm up on Tuesday February 3rd, 2009. If you’re in town, stop in the gallery and release some creative energies with us!

I am very much into technology, I work in an environment where I can learn and grow. I have become a big fan of iPod Apps. These are little “applications” or programs that run on iPod phones and iPod Touch (I have the touch). From games to social networking to just plain strange, these little apps are so fun! I am writing to say hello to all the stranded beach lovers who may come to see this blog from the messages in a bottle I send out. Hello!! I hope you find us as interesting as we think we are! ha! Please comment if you can!

Well we have only two bottles of our delicious Dandy Lion Wine left over from our summer team project, so we thought it would be time to try our hand at grape wine. Brad was busy this fall harvesting his grape vines and mashed them all up for one batch. We thought we would try out a grape concentrate version with the other batch. Last night Brad, Krisitin and I inverted sugar and got the fermentation started with the help of some wine yeast. Now we watch and wait…

You can’t make wine without staining everything purple!