up a creek.

Published on by Quandie

Remember the oars that I found at the MacGrove garage sales?

Well, if you read the comments on my blog posts, you may have noticed that a neighbor of mine mentioned that she’d be willing to trade me some toolboxes for the oars.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with all of those oars.  I just couldn’t pass them up at only $2 each and I figured I’d come up with something.

But would I rather have some toolboxes?  Yes I would!

So I loaded up the oars and headed over to Karen’s house (not nnK, my neighbor across the street, another Karen, I may have to start calling her onK, or ‘other neighbor Karen’).

Turns out, this was an excellent decision.  As it happens, Karen is a bit of an oar (or paddle) artist.

The one shown above is still in progress, but isn’t that a cool design?

Karen does some very precise work, and she starts by drawing out her pattern on paper.

Then she even tries out her color selections on paper before painting the actual paddle.

Such a great way to make sure your colors are going to work together.

I really like the abstract fish design that she’s adding to this one …

As you can see in the upper right of that photo, Karen uses regular ol’ latex paint.  She gets the sample size jars and has them mixed up in whatever colors she wants to use.  It’s pretty cost effective, and she doesn’t need much of each color of paint.

Here’s another design that she has just started working on.

I don’t believe she ever does the same design more than once.

She created the Canadian flag version below for her husband who is originally from Canada.

Karen displays a number of her paddles around the perimeter of her sun room (which happens to have really cool wood clad walls and a corrugated metal ceiling).

I think it’s fair to say that Karen will never be up a creek without a paddle!

I’m so glad that the oars went to someone who is going to do something like this with them.  I would never have come up with anything as special for them.

Unfortunately, Karen doesn’t have any sort of social media presence so I can’t send you anywhere to look at her work.  But I’m sure she’ll be reading this blog post so be sure to leave a comment and let her know what you think of her gorgeous paddles and oars!

23 thoughts on “up a creek.”

  10. Wow, the paddles are great! Karen does amazing work! And what a deal, the paddles for tool boxes – looks like you are both winners in this deal!

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  18. Karen, I love all of your very creative paddles. I live on the water in Washington state. I have several oars and paddles I love them. You are very talented. 😊

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  19. Again? You found oars / paddles for $2 each? I spent all of last summer trying to find oars, the prices I found were crazy, like $75 for a set! Beat up, used and abused oars. I ended up finding one ore on MP and paid $20 and by the end of summer I found a pair for $30. So to say I’m a bit jealous of your great deals is an understatement! Keep up the hunt for excellence finds.

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