July 2013 – Page 2 – Karla's Cottage

Complaining, but still thankful

By Karla Nathan / July 9, 2013

Well, I'm still recovering from my hard drive's slow and painful death during my wireless black out. Both at once? Now really, is that fair? It did make solving the issue a little harder, but both are repaired now. Hundreds of dollars and endless hours later, I'm almost sane again. There are files still playing lost and found with me, including all of my email contacts and most of my older photos, among a slew of other things that I'm discovering as days go by, such as an inability to save passwords, each has to be typed in every time I open something.

It might not look like I was gone as long as I really was from my computer, because I had pre-written a few blog posts, and then did a few quickies from my iPad. But it felt like forever to me, even though it was only a little more than a couple weeks.

I'm back now and I did manage to redo all the pass words to my website and find my way back in to finally mail out purchases. And I set up a new 40% off sale HERE if you'd like some Christmas in July savings from my Boutique – and there are lots of: tutorials/trims/flowers/junk/pretties/crapola/doodads/millinery/and other stuff till left. (fair warning- my computer will be going back to Best Buy to do a hunt for lost items, and might be gone a few days again later this week, so shipping could be interrupted a little)

My time off was a mix of illness, issues, stress, and family traumas offset by leisure activities and playing with the grand fairies. So, while it wasn't an ideal situation, it was a good time to take some time off, and it was nice to have the sweet sprites around to cheer me up.

It's good to be back, even if some of my info is lurking in the dark depths of mysterious workings of the new hard drive!

It seems like Birdsong was eons ago, but I still have some pretties to show you from it. The crystal perfume bottle (filled with fairy dust) was a gift from Guncle Randy. And this half doll in blue is the one that I received from the generous boxful of handmade dolls sent by Brier Rose.

Terry gave me this mother of pearl necklace topped with rhinestones. As well as a whirling, twirling, wonderful salad spinner! She saw me washing and patting down lettuce leaves to feed 30 people and decided I should be spinning them dry, not trying to dab the water off each one. She was right, it was a great gift. I've found that storing the lettuce in it after washing, keeps it crisp and fresh much longer too.

Sissy gifted me with this beautiful jewel box topped with brass birds.

Along with a silver bird charm to wear on a chain. I might add it to the knotted necklace that I made for myself.

My sister, Bobbie had filled a decorated bag with lots of fun items, including this pie rooster.

These sweet S&P shakers were just the right touch for the cubby on my new TV cabinet, and were part of Bobbie's bag-o-goodies.

This bounty is just a few examples of the thoughtfulness at Birdsong. I just have to look at a single one of the gifties I got from my family, or from my friends and be reminded that I'm pretty lucky to have such nice people in my life. I was in a foul mood from the gum infection and all the online woes I was having. And even though the computer repair was (and still is) very time consuming and costly, my gums have hurt like heck, and my poor kids are going through a rough time, over all, the good very much out weighs the bad.

I'm lucky that I could afford the computer repairs and time off, and the dental bills that went along with the sore mouth. I'm lucky to have a family that I care about and who I think also care about me. And who I know will be around for each other and make things work, no matter how hard it all seems at the time.

Plus, I had my beautiful Birdsong memories to get me through some unpleasantness.

PS-While I was computerless, I realized that I'd left off Jennifer from our list of sponsors! Sorry, Jennifer. That has been fixed now and here is some info about her upcoming event if you'd like to build some art getaway memories of your own.

A fairy play room

cottage, Dew Drop, fairies, family, Hand painted, paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 7, 2013

Remember the canvas mural I painted for Kim's Enchanted Affaire? Instead of trying to sell it, we cut it up and are using it in the fairy grand daughter's room. I still need to touch up the vent so that it doesn't have that ghostly glow and stand out so much from the painted trees.

Sugarwings had not used her bedroom since we bought her this big girl bed. So, I never bothered to repaint it like I had originally planned. Now that the enchanted forest is part of her room, she has been happy to stay up there, so I'd better get busy and paint something in the ovals of her head and footboards.

Previously, there was a shelf all the way around the top of the room, and a sky painted above the shelf. The rest of the bedroom was left that way, my son only took the shelf down in the space where we added the canvas.

Since we lost a big section of shelf, it was a good excuse to dust and redo the rest of the shelves.

While I was at it, I tidied up the fairies hanging above the windows from sparkly white branches.

There are fairies peeking out from all sorts of vantage points around the room.

And of course, real live fairies running around the room too.

Little girls seem to like a newly redone room as much as big girls do. As soon as I finished getting it all put back together in it's new configuration, they set to tearing into every corner and exploring toys they'd over looked or forgotten about.

The canvas is stapled all the way around, but hangs a little loose. If I ever have more time….(yeah, right) I hope to tighten it up a bit, or at least steam out some wrinkles if they don't straighten out with time. I'd like to add some fairies too. Maybe portraits of the girls as fairies?

I'm not so sure I still like the closet doors painted as a fairy garden any more since it doesn't match the new scene. I'll have to do something about it.

On the other hand, the kids like it as is and it is their room. So that probably means more than my sense of continuity.

At least the ceiling was ideal for the new look, it blended in perfectly!

Of course, the room is not this tidy any more. Instead of two little fairies flitting about, it looks like it had a couple of ogres tramping through it. For dainty little cuties, they sure can trash a place. It is now knee deep in dress up clothes and who knows what else.

(the magic mirror on the wall is one that I made for Sugarwings. Here are the directions if you are interested)

Here are some pictures of the room in it's various looks over the last few years.

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!

I just discovered that all my older photos are GONE. I'd thought I'd found most of everything from before my hard drive died, but just now realized that I don't have any photos from before 2009.

Thank goodness my life is on my blog. I can retrieve all my favorites from there. I only started taking digital photos in '07, when I began my blog, so I'm missing two years of pictures. All of my previous pictures are in print. And I'm sure that most of my faves from the missing years are printed and in albums. But still, it's disconcerting to look for a file to reuse a pic and not find it. At least I know that it's only the file that is gone, I have the photos in albums or on my blog.

durn

But look at how fast I found a couple from my blog archives.

I'll seach out some more later, after I talk to the Best Buy Geek Squad and see if they can find any other old files. This whole hard drive/wireless debacle has taken it's toll on me. Stress, stress, stress.

While my computer was down, shoppers waited so kindly and patiently for me to mail their 30% sale packages from the Boutique, that I gave them another 10% off when I finally got things mailed.

I've decided to extend the 40% off sale before I start to restock the shop. Since I haven't really kept up the poor little store since the holidays, months ago, I thought a Christmas in July Sale was fitting.

Use this link for an automatic 40% off at check out:
http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=sale

And please note that I do refunds of shipping overages after I box up the package and figure the actual cost to mail it. Sometimes, buying lots of little things make the shipping price go sky high according to the way the website calculates it, so I adjust and refund as needed.

A Fairy Tea Breakfast

celebrations, Dew Drop, fairies, family, Food and Drink, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 5, 2013

When someone wanders down the stairs first thing in the morning wearing a vintage nightgown and wings, there is only one thing you can do.

Have a breakfast tea party!

Happy 4th

Uncategorized

By Karla Nathan / July 4, 2013

Hope you are having a festive day!

An enforced break

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By Karla Nathan / July 2, 2013

It has been so long since I’ve actually “worked”, that I’m getting used to a life of leisure. After Birdsong, I had house guests to play with, then a gum surgery that became infected twice and kept me laid low. (Which wasn’t a highlight of my time off) Then, I took a few days off to hang with the grand fairy.

I was itchin and ready to get back to work. So, I announced a 30% off sale in my boutique to do a little clearing out before I started adding new items. But then….

My wireless went wonky.

AT&T was out here with four new modems in one week. (Which meant hours on the phone, and more hours of waiting around for that 12-4 or 6-8 window where they might show up to bring another non working modem.

Which wasn’t the problem, the issue was a port in the main box blocks from our house.

So once that was fixed, the hard drive on my pc died.

Every day, the Best Buy Geek Squad almost has it ready to pick up in a couple of hours. Key word there is almost.

Anyway, even though they are now saying it will be ready in a couple if hours, I decided to do a quickie blog post from my iPad instead of waiting to get it back. But NOT to go back to “work” yet. I’m off to the garden to search for buried treasure with a mermaid. It’s where we have been most of the morning and I kind of like it out there.

I’ll go back to work in a couple hours or so. In the mean time, I’m enjoying this new life of doing whatever, whenever as a lady of leisure and pirate captain.