June 2012 – Page 2 – Karla's Cottage

Beads, Baubles, and peas

Food and Drink, give away, jewelry, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / June 10, 2012

This is the last of the four Tiffanys projects that I made in Cali. It was in my pal, Lonnie's class.

I brought quite a few of my own supplies, including the blue enamelled flower along with me, but she provided high quality, pretty things to work with too.

As a matter of fact, between what she gave us in the kits and what I brought, I was able to make two necklaces in her class. I didn't really master the techniques she was teaching, I kind of went off on my own, but she was a good teacher and had a great way of doing her examples that made it easy to follow.

One of the necklaces that I made will be for me to keep, and the other is a birthday gift for a dear freind.

This post was written before I went to Raleigh and Nags Head, and as I am writing it, I am snacking on the latest dish from my Summer of Salads.

Its a pea salad, that you can make with fresh, farmer's mkt peas, or frozen ones right from the bag.

about a 1/2 bag of peas
1/2 a sweet red pepper, chopped
about 1/2 cup of chopped purple cabbage
1/2 a sweet Vidalia onion, chopped
1/2 cup of fat free feta cheese crumbles
6 boiled eggs, chopped (mine were straight from the hen house!)
sea salt, garlic powder, and pepper to taste
olive oil based mayo, enough to moisten (I don't like a lot of dressing, so added mine a couple spoonfuls at a time till it looked right)

Another salad for the week was a simple fruity one.

one honey dew, cubed
one quart of strawberries, halved
juice of one lime
drizzle of agave syrup
a splash of pomegranate juice
two sprigs of mint leaves

My latest obsession is mint sprigs. Especially in this concoction-

one can of lime selzter water
a 1/4 packet of drink powder
pour over a pretty glass filled with ice
add a pink straw
top with mint leaves

I sure don't miss Diet Coke when I have one of these in my hands. I used to think that those drink powder packets were silly. Why not just buy a drink already made up? They are meant for bottled waters, and I really thought it was ridiculous to buy a drink twice. The water, then the powder.

But, I got a sample of them, and took some along on my last trip and they are nice to have around and taste pretty good. Especially if you use club soda with them, and only a tiny part of the packet at a time, I usually get four drinks from one. And since I usually mix my soda with juice anyway, it doesn't feel extravagant to mix this in like it would if I used it in a bottle of water.

Please remember to leave a comment if you want to be entered into the drawing for a collage giveaway.

And if you know of any good junking areas around Raleigh or Nags Head please email me with some shopping ideas!

karlanathan@sbcglobal.net

Discoveries

give away, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 9, 2012

Since Sugarwings and I will be spending a lot of the summer together, I needed to find some things for us to do that didn't involve baking and eating cookies.

Although lately, "cookie" is her favorite word and she yells it out when she is happy, instead of "yay" or "wow" or "yippee". (does anyone use the word, yippee, any more, anyway?)

So last week, we set out to discover the Discovery Zone in Topeka.

There are lots of hands on (and noses on), sciencey things to do there.

As well as full rooms set up as different professions, and all the toys and tools needed to pretend to work there.

Kind of like a trade school for preschoolers.

There was even an exam room where Dr. Sugarwings could take my blood pressure, then cram a big plastic thermometer into my ear.

But our favorite part was this big acrylic room where you paint right onto the walls.

The whole place was really something, and only a 20 minute drive away. I can see us spending a lot of time there this summer on days too hot or too wet to play outside. And its only 6 bucks to get in.

The place had a lot to offer, she was able to make friends and play with other kids. There were a lot of activities that needed an assistant (like the grain elevator) and that encouraged cooperation. I sat aside and let her play with other kids while I read a book on my magic phone when I wasn't required to be a patient or place an order in the bakery. We both had a great time!

I am away right now, tagging along on a business trip with my husband to Raleigh and Nags Head. But please do leave a comment, all comments are entered to win one of the collages that I made from Beth's Birdsong class.

And if you know of any good junking areas around Raleigh or Nags Head please email me with some shopping ideas!

karlanathan@sbcglobal.net

Hooked on books

give away, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / June 7, 2012

This book is the project we made in Jeanne Oliver's class at Tiffanys. It began with a vintage paper collage, and was painted and textured, then we used inks, paints and who knows what all over the top of that! It was a never ending layering process. I really enjoyed doing the textures. Years ago, when I was a muralist and faux finish artist, I used joint compound all the time. Its been a while since I worked with that kind of textural material and I realized that I missed it while working on this.

My book is different than the others, I went with a (surprise!) Fairy theme and hand painted a fairy, flowers, and butterfly on the cover. I was going for more lacy and romantic than funky and cute.

The technique was so addicitve, that when I got home, i was looking around for stuff to blob modelling paste or joint compound onto.

This collage is the one I am having a giveaway for. (leave a comment if you are interested, all comments on all posts are entered in the drawing)

Beth was teaching a 3-d style collage at Birdsong, and we did a practice class the week before, to make up a few of these. (no two alike, she had a GREAT stash of supplise to work with)

It was pretty before, but I like it even more now that I added the textures, then inked over the edges of those a little too.

Here is the other one I did with her. This one does not have the added paint or modelling paste over it.

Good class, huh? She has agreed to teach another one with me too. We hope to do something in my studio for fall, along the lines of our Romantic Gothic Ghosts online workshop. But in person, not online. Maybe a Sat. in late September. Or early Oct?

Back to the Journal from Jeanne's class.

I took the book with me to Beth's for a craft day and really had no plans. But decided to start covering the pages with old papers as a start. Beth had carved out a little niche for me to sit in among the piles of fantastic ephemera she has collected adn told me to help myself.

So, I challenged myself to randomly pick up pages and odds and ends from what I could reach without leaving my chair and covered quite a few pages before realizing the book was going to be really thick. So then, I began removing every other page to make it less bulky, and covered the remaining pages.

When I got home, I started adding family photos, and other tidbits I'd saved, like this card my Sissy made.

And this bit of lace that was given to me last year by someone in my swap (by the way, I do have another swap plan in the works, details soon)

Sometimes the background pages I'd randomly used really fit the pictures.

Like this calandar page where I circled Sugarwing's birthday.

Other times, the papers were just background. I tried to take the theme from the color or tone of the pages to coordinate my photos to.

But mostly, it was gorilla scrap booking. I was slapping them in as fast as I could.

Sometimes it worked out well. I didn't realize this old magazine page was from a December issue till I'd glued a holiday photo down, to what I thought was just a neutral background. Lucky mistake!

If you are wonderfing why there is such an over abundance of Sugarwings in this book, its because I was way, way behind on doing a scrapbook, and these are mostly older photos I'd been stockpiling.

The Dewdrop photos are mostly tiny baby pictures. I have another stash of more recent photos that need to go in the next book I do.

Some of these photos are three years old, before Dewdrop was even around!

On this one, I added a flower plucked from the hat that my fairy baby is wearing in the picture.

I'll leave you with a few more pages. I think I've rambled on enough for now.

(this paper was not in Beth's stash, it is a painting Sugarwings did for me for Grandparent's Day!)

Cooking up some paintings

Food and Drink, give away, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 5, 2012

Sugarwings and I decided to make our own paint. I'd heard you could make it with food coloring, cornstarch and water, but had no instructions.

But how hard could it be? So we gave it a try.

Each batch turned out a little different since we aren't the measuring types.

Our colors might have been a bit more festive if the head chef wasn't so thrilled with squirting out the food coloring. She practically emptied each color in to the first batch, which produced a deep black.

Using more cornstarch made a pastey paint that you could kind of mold, and was fun to squeeze. Less made a more paintable liquid.

Mix water, cornstarch, and food coloring in a saucepan, cook till thick. I used about a cup of water each time, maybe a 1/4 cup of the cornstarch, but it varied.

We used paper cups leftover from our Halloween party to pour the paint into, then set it in the freezer to cool off fast so we could get to work playing with it.

While it cooked, we thought it looked a lot like pudding. Of course, as soon as we were finished, we just had to make some pudding too! We decided to make the pudding into a fudgesicle ice cream cake while waiting for the paint cooled off.

We mixed the fresh made, chocolate pudding with a cup of vanilla ice cream. Half of that went into a glass bowl, over a layer of granola.

Next, a layer of vanilla icecream, then more granola. And a drizzle of Trader Joe's carmel sauce, then the rest of the pudding.

We slipped it into the freezer, then after dinner, sat the bowl into a pan of hot water for a moment to loosen the treat, and flipped it over onto a cake plate. It was as pretty as it was tasty!

I'll let you know if the paint comes out of the side walk next time it rains…. It did dry lighter than it was than wet, so I have a feeling that there will be a gradual fading away.

I kind of hope it doesn't. I like her little green hand prints all over the driveway. Of course, she has already left her prints all over my heart.

PS- a new friend, is planning a shopping/crafty class weekend in Sept. Its in St Joe, and you know, that city is filled with great junkers and wonderful stuff for sale. I'm always up for any reason to visit there. More details later…

What once was lost and a giveaway

antiques/junking, Books, give away, I do tend to run on, don't I?, vintage paper/collage art, wallpaper

By Karla Nathan / June 3, 2012

While cleaning up the studio for a mini redo, I came across some art journals I'd made a LONG time ago and forgotten about.

It started by cleaning the garage and coming across this buffet I'd forgotten about. After our kitchen remodel, I'd stashed it out there and it was buried under a pile of stuff my son was storing. I don't know why I didn't move it into the studio in the first place instead of leaving it to the spiders and dust in the garage for 9 months, its perfect in my work space.

The hutch had been sitting on a table previously. I switched the two out, then returned the hutch and all the stuff in it. The table is now in the garage with the spiders and I have an empty cabinet waiting to be filled up with more crap from garage sales treasures.(so I can lose them in the chaos too, like the art journals and the buffet. Who loses a buffet anyway? Does that mean I have waaaayyy too much junk?)

Back to the journals… I found a couple of them, and they are now listed in the Boutique.

One is filled with ephemera pages, and the other is a heavy canvas art paper, that I bought at an estate sale, kinda vintagey, not real old. But just perfect for a journal.

Um, I hate to admit it, but I found some other stuff packed away and forgotten too. Stacks of extra covers from the Birdsong tag book swap last year.

Plus a few extra tags I'd made while I was on a roll with the theme.

So I made up a couple of tag books and listed those too. And listed those in the Boutique under the Altered Books category, which had been empty for quite a while.

This art journal is in there now too, its a recent creation and was made from Beth's stash of goods, not mine.

I was at her house for craft day and was at a loss for a project.

She handed me a chipboard book and a box of paper and I did the basic pages for this, then embellished it when I got home.

(I have another project to show you from her stash too. I'll post it later this week. It was done with just what I could reach from my chair and not have to get up. I have to say, I could have gone on for years with this and not made a dent in the supply!)

She has great old papers piling up in her studio. This was in her box of odds and ends. I love the cracks from age.

When I listed this last book, I included a bagful of OLD goodies from my stash to finish it with, and am selling it as a kit.

Slowly but surely, I'll be filling the Boutique back up, and maybe, just maybe, I'll tend to the poor little neglected Etsy shop too.

But maybe not, I'm going out of town again this week.

Hopefully, I'll get more in the shop before I go. All purchases after Tuesday will be mailed when I get back.

I'll have fresh blog posts up for all week while I'm gone. And a chance to win this college I made when Beth and I practiced her class for Birdsong.

Leave a comment on any (or all posts) and I'll draw a name after I get back, probably on Sat. the 16th.

Kick starting the summer fun season

Dew Drop, family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 2, 2012

Sugarwings is now a proud graduate of Pre K.

She was so excited to get her diploma that she flew through the air to show it to her mommy.

The celebration was at the playground of her school, and Dewdrop enjoyed playing on the big kid's toys. Her Daddy liked it too.

There were carnival games, cotton candy, and lots of laughs.

We've been having plenty of fun lately, we made a trip to the KC Zoo too.

Personally, its not my favorite zoo. The Topeka one is ideal for small kids, and the Omaha fantasy world zoo is amazingly fun and entertaining with what feels like adventures, not cages.

But the one in KC offers lots of things to ride.

We bought the arm bands that give everyone unlimited access to the merry-go-round, boat, sky chair, train, and tram. But the place is so big that we didn't get to ride all of them even once, let alone over and over.

Mostly, the two little grand fairies wanted to be carried everywhere. Their pal, Sara, was their favorite ride. She was happy to have one or the other little girl in her arms all day.

Daddy did his share of carrying them too.

Doesn't my son look handsome with his newly shaven face? Its been so long since I'd seen him without a beard, I'd forgotten what he looked like freshly "mowed" as Sugarwings called it.

The monkeys were extra friendly and would put their hands up to the glass like they wanted to touch the humans visiting them.

It looks like its going to be a wonderful summer! My favorite time of year.