August 2011 – Page 2 – Karla's Cottage

Fantasy Photo Editing tips and short cuts with Picnik

fairies, family, how to's, how-to projects, photography

By Karla Nathan / August 15, 2011

While I was in Indiana, my sisses indulged me and we played Fairy Dress up. Bobbie Sue's husband used my camera to get some photos, and as cute as they were, I thought they could use some added magic. (By the way, my sister lives on a highway and we were in her front yard wearing our fairy gear. Its good to have family that likes to have fun and doesn't get embarrassed when cars drive by and honk when we are being silly)

Here is how I did it, if you are interested. I use only Picnik, which is free. But some of my choices are from the premium selections, so they cost $24 a year. Much cheaper than buying Photo Shop, quick, easy and simple. I can't figure out Photo Shop myself, and Picnik is so self explanatory its easy to learn.

I don't spend much time per photo either, never more than 5 minutes each. I take a lot of pictures, and enjoy editing them, so don't have a lot of time to spend on each, or I'd never get anything else done if I didn't keep it quick.

Click on any photo to see it in a bigger window.

(for the picture of me flying, I tilted it, with Rotate to make it look like I was flying off, the other steps are similar to the ones below)

First, go to "Edit" and auto fix, then slightly sharpen. Next I do auto colors, and then cut the saturation in half.

Go to the "Create" section and in there, find "Touch Up"

I use Wrinkle Remover to get rid of the red car in the background. It took three applications to get enough strength of the blur to cover it. I ran a circle of Wrinkle Remover all around the edges of the photo to make it match too.

I clicked on the gray eye under Eye Color and used that all around where I'd blurred the edges. You can only do one color at a time. Save each and move on to the next.

Eye Color was used again to tint all the magic wands, wings, orbs, and hair embellishments, as well as the wings. After tinting, I faded the colors by sliding the bar till I liked the strength of the color.

Over that, I used Eye Bright, then lightened it a great deal, so the wings and orbs had a bit of a glow.

But that wasn't quite dramatic enough, so I used Eye Bright at full strength on the lightening on the orbs and highlights of the wings one more time.

To make the fairie's skin glow more, I used Dodging, still under the category of Touch Up.

Over the blurred background, I did a faded blue Eye Color, then went to the Featured section and added a solar layer, and faded it down.

Next, I used Ortonish under Editing, and faded it half way. Over that is Bokah Stars from Fourth of July under Seasonal. I like to make the stars tiny, and do two or three layers of them, in different sizes.

To finish, I used Matte under Effects, in blue first, then faded, and over that, pink, faded and smaller.

This picture has nice light coming through over my shoulders, so I decided to accent that.

I made it really colorful, not my typical style, but fun and fairy-ish.

Here are the steps:

Auto Fix
Sharpen
tint orbs pink with Eye Color
lighten and brighten orbs and wings with Eye Bright
Eye Bright full strength on all jewelry and again on the orbs
full Saturation (under Effects), before applying, I erased the Saturation from all skin tones
Lomo-ish (under Effects) to darken the edges and make the center glow
Eye Bright on wings and around the orbs
Dodging to lighten the faces
Drop Shadow in pink

For my next post, I'll show you some softer colors and ideas.

Home from some family fairy fun

antiques/junking, fairies, family, Travel

By Karla Nathan / August 13, 2011

Its soooooo good to be home. But I'm still not caught up. I wish I really was a fairy and could wave my magic wand to make everything get done!

While visiting my sisses in Indy, we had some fairy dress up time together. I probably play dress up with them as much as I do with Sugarwings. There is nothing like having family that never out grows their playfulness!

Although, there is an age range when not everyone finds it as much fun as we do. But the kids indulged us and let their fairy grandma grant them wishes with her wand while I took their picture. A couple of the girls even put on some fairy wings and posed for me too. But look at little Jaythan's face, he is the one sitting in the grass in a white shirt. Poor kid, he must be wondering if Mamaw is going to be taken away and locked up somewhere. He is worried she has snapped!

Yes, I complained about being busy, busy, busy since I got home, but I did take time to edit some of the photos. A person needs to have their priorities straight.

Plus, picnik is a super fast, easy way to edit. While doing a couple of the pictures, I took an extra bit of time to write out the steps on how I did it. I'll be posting a couple of tutorials next week with the step by steps if you are interested.

My trip was just great. Its the first time I drove there by myself in years and I was a bit worried about it, but I had a wonderful time. I was having so much fun talking and singing to myself and planning projects in my mind that I didn't even turn on the audio book that I'd downloaded. Sometimes, 10 hours alone can be quite therapeutic. I think I needed that.

On the way, I shopped a bit, but not much. This has been the year of NO JUNK around here. How sad. I miss my junking trips. We were too busy in Indy to get out much either, we had some Very Important Family stuff to do, so barely shopped, and most of it was not vintage. We did hit one Goodwill, where I found an amazing old, old skirt to take apart for the fabric.

I got home in time for my son and his family to fix us a big anniversary dinner and spend the evening on Tuesday night. Since I knew they were coming, I limited my stops at antique malls on the drive home.

We even got to have Sugarwings stay all night, that was the best welcome home I could get and was worth zipping right on by antique stores along the way to get home in time to see her.

For years, I've been searching for a pretty alarm clock for by my bed. One that didn't need to be wound up. There are plenty of those to be found, but few electric ones. In Columbia, MO I came across this beaut. Also the gorgeous beaded fabric under it. It was originally a dress, but is in shreds, so is great for cutting up to make crap out of.

There were some pretties to add to the Boutique too. And believe it or not, I actually took photos and got them listed. Its has been way too long since I took care of my business. Its not a lot, but its a start.

While I was at it, I grabbed a couple of things that I'd made months ago and never had time to list. There are TWO TUBS of stuff that has piled up, waiting for me to take pictures of and try to sell, and I simply have not gotten to it.

Yesterday, instead of working, we took all 7 of the grand kids and their parents to a water park to celebrate some birthdays, and this weekend, I have Sugarwings. But- I'll be forcing myself to stay on task in the next week, and hope to have more listed between a few other projects I have lined up.

Wish me luck, I plan on spending an hour each day on nothing but the Boutique and Etsy, then making things the rest of the day. Well, except some Sugarwings birthday time. She and I have a date for Smurfs, I think.

When I got back from my trip, Direct TV was out. No TV, no saved DVR programs. I thought about not even getting it fixed until I was caught up on my work, but then I started to shake and experience withdrawal symptoms and had to make the call within minutes of finding out I was TV-less.

Already, I missed out on the finale of Falling Skies and So You Think You Can Dance. But luckily, I saw True Blood at Sissy's house. Ooooh, that is a heartbreak diverted.

Well, instead of complaining about not getting any work done, I'll go do some. Please check in Monday for editing tips if you want to play hooky from work and goof off with picnik like I did!

Oh, and the winner of the dress form online tutorial is:

Sherry

And THANKS so much to all of you who are buying the class! Its just about my only income since I've neglected my store so much. I appreciate your support and I hope you love making the dress forms as much as I do. I'll be adding a Halloween dress form idea to the class, soon (free to those of you who already signed up) as a thanks.

Speaking of Halloween, don't forget, that if you purchased our online tutorial, "Romantic Gothic Ghosts" you can still use that class and all the cool papers we downloaded for you. If you didn't get all of the projects made last year, now is the time to make some for this upcoming spooky season.

Or if you didn't take the classes yet? You can still purchase it. There are tons of patterns, how-tos, ideas, decorating, and goodies for you there. All in a low-color romantic style.

You can see some of it here Just scroll down, the Romantic White Christmas class is at the top, the Halloween one is below.

How to make a magic mirror

dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), how to's, how-to projects

By Karla Nathan / August 11, 2011

Sugarwings has a birthday coming up. And the next day, she starts kindergarten.

Oh my.

How did she get to be 5 so fast? I can't believe she will be in school.

I wanted to get her something special for her 5th birthday, so when my friend gave me a mirror that didn't sell in her garage sale, it inspired me to create this magic mirror for the birthday girl.

Now, the evil queen's mirror really was more glam and golden than what I came up with, it was actually more like the way this mirror started out. But I was going for light and cheery, more Snow White than her stepmama.

So, I took the back off, and removed the mirror, and painted the frame.

I used the spray, bonding primer that I love, and always use. It goes on like a dream (shake it well!)

Over that, I used acrylic craft paint to do a base coat of deep pink on the flowers, then dry brushed some lighter pink over that.

It looks a bit messy, but its all about the layers. This is a quick process, you don't have to be an artist to smoosh some colors onto 3D flowers like these.

And messy is good. You don't need to be precise.

Like I said, its all about the layers. I used dark pink, then light pink, then some yellow in the centers, and purple around the centers. On a couple flowers, I did even more purple.

Over all but the yellow, I brushed another coat of light pink.

Each layer is messy and fast.

Then, I got my brush extra wet, and brushed green onto the scrolls and leaves, wiping off a bit here and there with a paper towel.

I did the same with pink on the inner rim, then made polka dots by dipping the wooden end of the paint brush into the paint and spotting it on.

(if I was doing a mirror like this for myself, not for a child, I would distress the raised areas with sand paper, then glaze over it with a brown color and wipe it off)

After that, I tackled the mirror. A glop of paint remover/stripper went right in the center and I let it sit for about 15 minutes, then scraped at it with a razor blade (while wearing gloves)

Then, I scrubbed at it with the stripper on my steel wool pad.

When done, I sprayed it with the garden hose to clean off the stripper.

Then, I downloaded a picture of Snow White from Google Images and tinted it sepia. She is usually wearing red, yellow and blue, which was too bright for this project and Sugarwing's bedroom.

So, I printed it on matt photo paper, and added a touch of blue to the eyes and dark pink to the lips with markers.

After that, I taped it to the back of the mirror so that it peeks through the clear spot on the glass, and replaced the back on the mirror.

Around the top, I wrote, "Mirror, mirror on the wall- who is the fairest of them all?" and at the bottom, wrote, "You Are"

This was done in a waterbased craft paint meant for glass. Read the labels of the bottles at your craft store if you want to paint on glass or a mirror. You want to make sure that it holds up to cleaning. Regular acrylic paint will wash off.

Once I give this to my fairy baby for her special day, I'll get a photo of her looking into it.

But for now, shhhh! Its a surprise!!

Flawed but lovely

dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), Mayara

By Karla Nathan / August 9, 2011

When I looked through my photos from this day, I almost dumped this one. Its pretty blurred. But there was something about it that I still liked, so I edited it a bit, grayed the image and kept it. It seems to capture little Sparkle's sweetness.

The same with this one. There just wasn't enough light for a non-photographer like me to get a good photo with no flash on. But it was such a sweet picture of the littlest fairy baby.

It makes me think about how many things I love that are flawed, but still beautiful in my eyes. Vintage, pre-loved, chipped, distressed, all are adjectives that make me happy.

Perfection is over rated!

This photo, too, was blurred. I used "soften" and a black and white tint, then a faded white matt on the edges. The photo itself might be blurry, but the faces of my girls are so happy, that I had to save this picture too.

Sometimes, using soften and toning down the colors makes a blurred photo have an "I meant to do that" attitude.

When this posts, I'll still be out of town, and won't be answering emails.

But please do leave a comment, it will enter you in the drawing for either a free online dress form class, or a kit to make the dress form if you've already paid for the $15 class.

Packages will be shipped after I return, but if you order the dress form class, I can send the password to you on my Ipad, from Indiana.

Slowed down for summer

dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / August 7, 2011

Last week, Beth, Mary, and our other Karla came by for craft day. Of course, Button came along with Beth to play with Agnes Rosebud. Here they are in Beth's supply tote.

I hear that at home, Button rules the house. But when he comes to see Grammie, he gets a little shy and hangs out on his mom's lap as much as he can.

Mary worked on her glue book, Beth and Karla did needlework, and I dithered. Seems like I am spinning my wheels lately and not getting much of anywhere.

I hope to knuckle down and get something accomplished after my Indy trip. Is it the heat? Something has sapped the productivity right out of me.

Its much more fun to be playing out in the sunshine with the sprinkler and Sugarwings.

That could be the problem. Or, it is that I have so much I need to do, none of it is taking priority, I am just feeling swamped? Which isn't like me. The heat kinda makes me feel like I'm wading through molasses.

I do always seem to have too much on my plate, but I'm good at mental lists and working my way through things as they need to be getting done.

Hopefully, the trip away from the piles of to-do work will refresh my mind and get me focused.

Isn't that why we take vacations?

Or could it be that I've had so many trips that I can't quite get caught up when I get home any more?

Oh well, it all gets done somehow. And I'm lucky to get to spend a few days with loved ones. See you when I get back!

Please forgive me if I don't answer comments while gone. My sisses and I will be junkin, making stuff, and hanging out, non-stop this week.

But please do leave a comment, it will enter you in the drawing for either a free online dress form class, or a kit to make the dress form if you've already paid for the $15 class.

Packages will be shipped after I return, but if you order the dress form class, I can send the password to you on my Ipad, from Indiana.

A message from Mayara

family, Mayara

By Karla Nathan / August 5, 2011

Grammy Karkie is away this week. I know she'll miss me. We have fun together. I love it when she takes me to a restaurant and gives me the lemon from her ice water while we wait for our food.

What is a lemon, anyway?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, not so bad once you get used to it.

Holding Space Open House

celebrations, family

By Karla Nathan / August 4, 2011

The Holding Space open house last week was a success, despite the heat, and the poor function of the air conditioning there. I think the unit was just overwhelmed by the 112 degrees outside and crowded room inside.

The heat didn't dampen the joy and dancing.

The event is just the beginning of a series of seminars and workshops they hope to hold in the future.

Including one to do a mud/plaster treatment on this wall. My son soundproofed it with old carpet remnants nailed to the drywall, then he attached this bamboo to give the mud something to adhere to. It looks pretty good like this, but he'll be adding the mud/clay/plaster and it will really be something then. Its a green technique, and I'm looking forward to being there to watch and learn how it is done.

They will also be featuring local art, and participating in the Final Fridays Gallery Walk downtown every month.

Before the room filled up, I snapped some pictures of the finished rooms. I've shown you the faux finishes that I did there, but the rooms weren't done yet. I think they've turned out beautifully. And the kids did it all with NO budget.

Everything is second hand, some things were found along the side of the road. I gave them some hand me downs and paid for the paint.

My dear niece in Utah, had earlier shipped them her massage therapy equipment that she no longer used. (thanks again, Alicia!)

The kids were creative with their decor, making the most of what they already had, and using lots of elbow grease to make the rooms look warm and welcoming.

I'm very proud of what they accomplished.

Family and freinds came to play music throughout the day, and vendors were there to share information about what they had to offer for the community.

Some local artists brougth their work, there was chair massage, hand writing analysis (I was told that the point on my T's means that I can be sarcastic and like to tease, but in a friendly way, not mean, and that I am very social and empathetic), tarot card readings, and a lot more.

The evening featured a Kirtan, which is kind of a singing meditation. This one was done by a woman with a really pretty voice, Jerri of Heartsong Pathways.

The best part of the whole day was watching my son in his element. I was glad to see how he had found a place for himself in this world. He had a rough road through the years, to get to this point, and as any mother knows, there are few joys bigger than seeing your grown child find his way and find his heart's desire.

My husband and I wanted to show our support for the open house, so we bought the stuff to make treats, and I baked 6 batches of cookies to set out along with some iced tea.

When I bake, I don't use a recipe. But heck, if you've ever made a cookie, you know the basics and there isn't much more to it. I do the basic- butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla all creamed, add the eggs, add the flour/salt/baking soda then embellish each batch a little different.

One batch was chocolate chips, another peanut butter with Reeses Chips and chocolate chips. When making these, I switched out half the butter for chunky peanut butter and used a little less flour.

The third was a granola cookie. For that, I added cinnamon, flax seeds, dried fruits, oatmeal, almonds, and sunflower seeds, then lessened the amount of flour. To keep those from being too healthy, I threw in chopped up white chocolate chips.

One of my tips for baking, is to chop up the chips. I put a half bag at a time in the blender on chop and grind the chips up before adding them to the dough. You need half as much, (saving a little tiny bit of calories) and every single bite gets a taste of chips in it.

I baked way too many cookies, but they freeze well. The trouble will be how much the bags shrink in the freezer… if you know what I mean. Those bags of cookies saved for a future purpose just never last.

Grandma Downey and Aunt Alma

family, Food and Drink, free images

By Karla Nathan / August 2, 2011

This week, I'm heading to Indiana to see my sisses and their families. While there, I am attending the annual family reunion of my dad's side of the family. We always call it the Downey Dinner (I grew up as Karkie Jo Downey)

My sister, Bobbie Sue, has been collecting recipes all year from cousins and aunts to compile a cook book, and I got to make the cover for it, and named it "Downey Dinners".

She has filled the pages with old family pictures, stories, and illustrations, and I can't wait to see it all together. When I get to Indy, we'll be assembling the books, and then bringing them to the big event to pass out to relatives.

For my cover, I did a small pencil sketch from a photo of my Grandma Downey, as she was holding up a fish she had just caught. I changed the fish to a wooden spoon, added an apron to her dress and set her in front of a table filled with bread dough in progress. She was renowned for her home baked bread. (Bobbie Sue inherited her skills in bread making, I did not)

I had to add a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, because that is how I always remember her.

After I finished the sketch, I scanned it, edited it in sepia, then printed it on mat photo paper.

Next, I used Copic markers to add some color, and white ink to add highlights, then cut out the image.

My cuz, Paula (who was in our tag book swap), sent me a scan of her dad's grade school report card with Grandma's signature on it. I used this as the background for my tinted drawing, and then layered it over some kitchen-ey old wallpaper, inking the edges of each layer for depth.

Then, I scanned it again, and added the words in Picnik.

(feel free to use these images in your own art, if you'd like. I'd be honored to see Grandma Downey in someone's journal or on a tag somewhere!) Just click on the picture to open in a larger window, save to your computer, then print.

My Aunt Alma had sent me a recipe for my very favorite pie and I offered to do an interior page with it. At the time, we were going to divide up the book and cousins were all going to do some of the pages, but Bobbie Sue was brave enough to take on over 130 pages on her own. I did end up still doing this one page, after all. But it was a very last minute project. I was hoping to find a better photo of my aunt, but none was available right then, so I had to use a snip from a group shot. Its a little blurrier than I would have liked.

This page went together really fast, maybe 15 minutes because I was running out of time to get it to the copy shop Saturday afternoon. I used a favorite wallpaper background, the photo of my aunt that I slipped into a mat from an old album, the recipe card she had sent to me, and a clipping from that day's paper that just happened to mention that Sugar Cream pie was the Hoosier state pie. Who knew? And how serendipitous that it happened to be in my local Lawrence, Kansas paper the day I was making the page.

I finished it off with a hand drawn vine and rushed both pages off to the UPS store to be copied. I think they do the best job for the price. I'm always happy with the color and quality there.

Before I head East for my trip, I want to announce the latest winner of the $15 online dress form tutorial.

Debbie of Romancing the Bling

If you'd like a chance to win one, please leave a comment on any post. If I draw your name and you are already taking the class, I'll send you a kit full of vintagey goodness to make the doll from.

Please forgive me if I dont' have time to answer comments. I will keep up with dressform tutorial orders and can send you the passwords from my Ipad. I'll ship all order from the Boutique on Thursday the 11th.