April 2014 – Karla's Cottage

Packing for Vendor night

By Karla Nathan / April 30, 2014

Maybe I should have planned ahead for vendor night at a Downton Affaire…. I waited till the week before the event to think about what to take. I knew I had some things in mind, and didn't worry too much. Till I saw how little the pile of stuff I'd been setting aside was! I had to whip up some items, and then I had too much for my suitcases.

A better plan might have been to get things ready early, and ship them ahead, huh?

(this is written and pre-posted before my trip)

I'm flying Southwest, so get two free 50 pound bags plus two carryons. So, I figured that my goods would all fit in the bags, but that was before I made up a stack of art journals with ephemera kits for embellishments, and cut a TON of vintage wallpaper.

I've been shuffling things back and forth between my roller bag, and two large suitcases, weighing, removing, thinking, and reweighing them all day.

The heaviest things, like the box of Frozen Charlotte dolls, will have to go into my carryon, along with the journals and maybe about a half ton of that wallpaper.

I also had to rethink my displays. I can't just pile it all on a table, it has to be easy to shop through and be attractive enough to make people want to come to look at the goodies in them. I found that cardboard, covered in vintage wallpaper was the way to go.

This quickie display screen is part of a priority mail box (those are the lightest boxes) folded in half and covered. It is ideal for hanging things on and weighs 3.2 ounces. Yes, I weighed everything on a postal scale, before putting it in the suitcase.

Periodically, I weighed the suitcase with a digital luggage scale and was shocked at how fast the weight added up.

Of course, my millinery packs are very light weight, and easy to throw in the bag. I wish everything was that simple.

The vintage dolly fairies don't weigh much either.

But even with the heavy books, Charlottes, and wallpaper being in carried instead of checked bags, all those little lightweight things add up!

Yikes! I'd better get back to it. I've got a lot more weighing and shifting to do. Plus, all the last minute things that I need to do before the flight.

This is what our backyard looks like right now. I've been getting bids for a new patio, and finally have it set to get done, but need to run to the zoning office to get a permit before I go out of town. I'm worried about getting the courtyard whipped into shape before Birdsong.

I'll leave you with some photos of what I'm trying to cram into my suitcases. I hope I have room for some clothes…. At least those lacy tops and dresses that will fit the Downton theme aren't heavy!! Hopefully, I'll have space for my clothing too, I haven't even got that far yet.

EDIT- Silly me! I had my hand held digital scale for luggage set for metric not pounds!! Once I figured that out, I had plenty of space in my bags. So, the bags are filled, nothing is left behind and I am on my way. See you when I get back!

Painted Butterflies

Dew Drop, paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 28, 2014

I've been in a painting mood lately. Years ago, I painted almost every day, so much that when I awoke, I'd just dress in old paint clothes. Because if I didn't, I'd end up getting paint on whatever I was wearing because I'd sneak in some painting that day even if I hadn't planned on doing it.

I kind of like wearing real clothes now, I guess I didn't even realize what a slob I looked like all the time, in my ratty old clothes. Even worse, I had a bad habit of wiping my brush on myself, and the clothes would get such a heavy build up of paint, they were stiff.

Which is how I discovered that paint is permanent on tee shirts, and I started painting shirts to sell in the 80s. One year, I sold over 1,000 hand painted shirts.

Painting rarely happens around here any more, but when I get in the groove, I go with it. I've had the big, Downton banner to paint for Kim, and since I was decked out in paint clothes, I kept thinking of other things I'd like to set my brushes to.

There were a couple of new babies I wanted to gift with some painted onesies, but I didn't care for the bright white of the shirts, so I hand dyed them first. I liked the mottled color that I got from wadding up the shirts before dipping in the dye. I used Rit, wet the shirts, dipped in one color, rinsed, wadded it up and dipped it in another color. I know this isn't the way you are supposed to dye, but it works for me.

After they dried, I slipped a piece of cardboard inside to stretch them flat to make a good painting surface and to keep the color from soaking through to the back of the shirt.

The onesies were so much fun, I started looking around for another shirt to add a butterfly to, and found a plain, stained one of Sugarwings', and put the butterfly right over the stain.

When my boys were little, I used to paint their tee shirts. Here is a photo of them in their matching ET shirts. I'd have portraits of the kids eating ice cream with Big Bird, or flying with Superman, or just pictures of thier favorite things.

I've painted very few for Sugarwings and Dewdrop, though. Sugarwings liked it so much, I really should do some more.

Nowadays, I tend to paint more with photo editing. Here is a picture I "painted" with Picmonkey, from Easter, the original is in this post.

I've turned the egg Sugarwings found into a magical orb. And I wish my backyard really did look like this fairy land! Of course, the little girl is beautiful in any circumstance.

Little Dewdrop saw the picture of her sis with pink hair and wanted to know where her pink hair was. So, of course, I had to tint another one just for her.

Fresh

cottage

By Karla Nathan / April 24, 2014

After finishing my Downton banner, I wasn't ready to get involved with another big project, so I took a creative break to do some housework.

ugh

Since I had a ladder out for the banner, I decided to climb up it in the kitchen and de-web, de-grease, and overall clean up everything on the shelves and on top of the cabinets.

I always put off doing it, but really, it isn't that bad once I get going. There is something nice about the fresh feeling the room has once the sparkle is returned to the china. I pop most of the pieces into the dishwasher, and go after the walls, cabinet doors, and top of the shelves with a Magic Eraser and a bowl of hot water with vinegar in it.

This time, I even treated the lamps to new shades. Actually, I had no choice, the other ones had seen better days.

While on my perch above the kitchen, I noticed that the chandy was getting fuzzy. That is never a good look, is it? Funny how it sneaks up on you. Those crystals end up dull in no time, but man, they sure are pretty after a wiping down!

The china cabinet got a slight spiffing up, it didn't take much though, glass doors are a blessing.

Believe it or not, crowded as this looks, I edited and futzed the pretties around a bit. There are less things in here now. And on the shelves too. The fresh feeling was even stronger after I'd gotten rid of about a third of the pieces on the shelf.

See, now there is space between the ewers, pitchers, and creamers. That has never happened before.

I kind of like it!

Not so much, that I want to get rid of all of it and not have to go through this again, though. But it is nice to have a little less up there.

Easter at the cottage

family, holiday decor, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 21, 2014

I hope you had a good Easter? Ours was so nice, it was great to have wonderful weather and to be outside enjoying it.

Sugarwings takes after me and doesn't bother with the silly, wire egg dipper. We both end up with dyed fingers, even more colorful than our eggs.

Sugarwings had a friend over to dye and hunt for eggs. Around here, we use dress up clothes instead of aprons for messy work, so the girls dug through the princess dresses to find something festive and to keep the dye off their regular clothes.

I should have put on a royal costume too, because my brand new, pale blue jeans ended up with more than a few smatterings of purple on them.

I love the snow boots with the pink dress! She chose those because they are the boots she was shopping for the day she met her best friend at Famous Footwear. They have been buddies since then.

Lee Lee and La La, forever friends.

After the eggs were dipped, we moved on to decorating cupcakes. Normally, we are very careful to keep food coloring out of Sugarwing's diet, but we figured a few sprinkles on a holiday wasn't going to hurt. I did bake gluten and dairy free cupcakes, otherwise known as bricks, and purchase organic, natural colored jelly beans to fill the plastic eggs.

Oh my god, those were the most expensive jelly beans I've ever seen! I filled a bag at the bulk food aisle, and am still in sticker shock at the price tag. My bagful of beans was over $20. And to think of all of those bags of regular jelly beans going on sale the day after Easter for a quarter, really puts it into perspective.

But when your little one has difficulties, any price or amount of trouble is, of course, worth it to help them.

I would spend my last penny to see this smile.

Sadly, we didn't have a crowd this year for our annual egg hunt. We are doing a bit of out door remodelling and our patio is ripped out, and the yard is a wreck, so we didn't have a big party. Dewdrop was with her other siblings and mom for the day and they weren't able to attend.

We were glad that her friend was able to spend the day with us, and even more special was that this was La La's first ever, egg hunt. She'd never dyed eggs either.

Sugarwings also got to meet up with an old friend at the egg hunt the nursing home her mom works at held on Saturday.

Many of the residents delighted were by the party.

This bunny's face might seem a bit creepy, but I can promise the kids loved her! It was a cute event at the nursing home. I'm all about cute, I possibly enjoyed the day even more than the kids.

I was just kind of wishing I had my own bunny costume. And I'd probably rather have vintage one that was slightly creepy. I love this one.

My $3 a day habits, or maybe I need to try harder to find some blog topics instead of just rambling off the top of my head about things no one cares about

Food and Drink

By Karla Nathan / April 20, 2014

Recently I realized that I'd picked up a few habits. I don't know if I'm getting old and set in my ways, or if I'm just boring, or I just know what I like and go with it.

I've noticed that not a day goes by without these three things.

#1- a can of Mandarin Oranges. I eat fresh fruit too, but I've gotten in the habit of eating a whole can of these at least once a day. Sometimes I splurge and have a two cans day. When they are on sale for 99 cents, I buy a couple dozen cans at once.

#2 Peanut Butter Balance Bars. Oh my, I eat too many of them. My favorite snack, or meal replacement. If I lived alone, I'd probably eat bars and cans of fruit all day and have nothing else in my cabinets. Except maybe popcorn. But, if I lived all alone and didn't have other people to feed, I'll bet I'd go to the movies a couple nights a week and have popcorn for dinner there, so I wouldn't need popcorn in my cabinets.

Luckily, I have a houseful of people who require normal, regular, and balanced meals that don't come in a bar or a can, so I think I'll be okay nutrition-wise. I rarely get a chance to ignore mealtimes and most nights I'm busy chopping fresh veggies and cooking healthy meals.

My worst daily habit is #3- Toasty Toes. Now that Spring is coming, I can slowly wean myself off of these. But since my studio has a cement floor, my toes still get chilly and I have to force myself to stop wearing them even when the temp outside gets above 60.

. They are about a dollar a day for the warmest, happiest feet and worth every penny to me. The heat stays going for at least 6 hours, sometimes 8-9.

I've experimented with new Ugg boots, that I got on clearance at the end of the season, and the wool lining is helping to wean me off of the Toasty Toes a bit. Although I found out that wool socks, with Toasty Toes, down inside Uggs is pure heaven.

There is nothing better than sitting at my desk, with my feet warm and cozy, while snacking on a Peanut Butter Balance bar and a can of oranges.

Wild Kingdom in the Breezeway

dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), kitties

By Karla Nathan / April 17, 2014

Our kitten won't be happy when I finally fill this planter with flowers. She likes to sleep in it.

It's mostly up and out of the reach of dogs. The pupeesh go running full tilt through the breezeway to the studio without even glancing up. But their mom, Twinkle has found the cat's hiding place and often stops for a visit.

But she is wary of those tiny claws and is always ready for a quick retreat!

Easter tree

holiday decor, kitties, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 14, 2014

We dyed eggs last week, a bit early for Easter, but we'll do more closer to the holiday.

And while we had the dye out, we had a great idea to dye lace too.

After Easter last year, I bought a few boxes of Paas for 10 cents each, figuring that stuff is fine to save till the next year. Well, it's not. We had to grind the tablets up, we couldn't get them to disolve. And the colors never really took off, they stayed pastel. Which is fine for me, but Sugarwings like a blast of color in everything she does.

We'll buy some fresher dye for more eggs later on, but this batch was excellent for making ribbons to hang plastic eggs from.

And Joy Joy Angel Joy Nathan thinks that makes the best cat toys she has ever seen.

I wonder how many will still be hung from the tree by the time Easter arrives?

Chances are they will be all over the farm. Dew drop has already plucked the few within her reach.

But there is no way that Dewdrop and Joy Joy can reach them all. We have some pretty high up there.

Experiments

family

By Karla Nathan / April 12, 2014

We are getting our first greens from the Family Food Forest and it tastes like Spring! We're also receiving about 14 eggs a day from the ladies. Our original plan was to get a farmer's market booth to sell some of our excess, but honestly, till after Birdsong, I'm swamped.

So, my son is looking for locals who want weekly eggs, and produce as it comes along. In the meantime, we are all enjoying the goodness ourselves! We had a big family dinner the other night, and the salad was the highlight of the meal for me.

While dinner was cooking, the fairy grand girls and I tried an experiment. I'd heard that tonic water glowed under a black light.

And someone who drinks vodka tonics left a few bottles of the stuff here a year ago. I hate to waste things and didn't throw it out even though I knew none of us would ever drink it.

When I heard that tonic glows, I was glad I was a hoarder and I had a bottle tucked away. I filled a bucket with tonic water, and set it in the tub. Our bathroom hasn't got any windows, so with the door shut, it was perfect for the experiment. We got our black light (it's actually called the "Pee Finder" and is a flashlight to hunt down dog pee with, so is battery operated, not plugged in), and hung it from the faucet above the bucket of tonic.

Dewdrop didn't really care, but Sugarwings loved seeing which toys would glow and throwing them in the tonic. Next time, I think I'll have a few glo sticks handy to toss in.

Birdsong Peeps

bird song art event, sewing?

By Karla Nathan / April 9, 2014

The other day, I was invited to craft day at Tami's house. I was a BAD blogger and took almost no photos.

I started peeking around at her over abundant spring decor and got one little picture of this detail, then lunch was mentioned and the food was sooooo good, I could only think about that.

(you can see some of her spring pretties here)

Selfish of me, yes. To put dining above getting some pictures. Oh, and more selfishness, I did snap a couple of my own project. Tami provided a table top of fun items to play with. I love these shaggy acorn tops and made mine into a nest for this egg.

I had just happened to have a picture of a squirrel on the top of my pile of ephemera that I'd brought to work with, and thought with a tail-ectomy it could pass for an Easter bunny, so I cut open the paper mache egg and glued the de-tailed squirrel inside.

Here is the one and only photo I took of any of the friends. And is it a laughing, happy moment like the whole day was? Nope, but at least it shows some of the wonders of Tami's great studio and collections.

I sat next to Beth so she could teach me how to embroider. We are going to Kim's Downton Affaire and one of the projects is stitching. I knew it would be beyond me, so I asked Beth for a little jump on it, thinking that would help me keep up with the class better when the time came.

But I soon got very sick of filling the piece with stitches and started sewing things to the fabric instead of just doing embroidery.

I was very proud of myself for not resorting to glue, even tho I am a very poor sewer and it was rather torturous.

Even though I'll never be a relaxed and happy stitcher, I still had the most wonderful day hanging out with a group of my Birdsong Peeps. What nice ladies they are and I'm so glad we met! And how generous of Tami to have us all over. I need to take a turn and have a craft day myself.

But it will have to be after June. Between doing the banner for Downton Affaire, some major garden remodels, and getting ready for Birdsong, I'm a bit stretched to the limit. Like a piece of bubble gum that has been chewed up and spit out.

I'm very much looking forward to going to Downton in May (then on to Disneyland with Sugarwings for my birthday) and to seeing all the lovely Birdsong Ladies in June. Visions of fun with friends keeps me going.

The gifts from Sponsors are starting to come in. Suzanne Wingfield sent these vintagey egg cartons to give to everyone. Last year, she gave me a set to use and I filled them with a kit. This year, I'm not sure how I will use them, but thought they'd be fun to have.

She also included this silver mesh, which I think will be fun for fairy wings and other embellishments. And these vintage doily placemats. Sponsor gifts don't always have to be something for the drawing or the Tweet Bags, it was nice of her to think outside of the box (or carton?) and provide some things that will be helpful to have during classes. It's always good to be able to change out placemats after a gluey project, huh?

There was also this cuteness included. Her note to me was in this chick, along with some chocolates that the fairy grand girls and I devoured immediately.

If you'd like to be a sponsor, please email me at:

Karlanathan@sbcglobal.net

I'll add your name to the sponsor list on my side bar with your link and it will be there till the next Birdsong. If your gift arrives in time before June 1st, I'll take pictures to post on my blog. (after that I'll be rushed to fill bags before company comes to open them)

And you'll make our peeps smile when they see your gift!

A new view

sewing?, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 7, 2014

Before I put away my sewing machine after making hundreds of feet of ruffled, dyed crepe paper, I stitched up some curtains for the studio. I'm not much of a sewer, and don't enjoy doing it. I don't like to pin things, or iron them like you should before sewing. I don't measure. I just wing it. And this was such a simple project, winging it was just fine.

Although, from looking at my table, you'll have to wonder how I ever had space to sew these.

Basically, it is a table topper almost as wide as the window, a square shape that has cut up doilies patched onto it. The bottom is two ends cut off a runner and sewed to the bottom of the table topper, and a few other doilies were chopped up to add on.

I thought it would be much more elaborate, but when I got to this point, I kind of liked it and stopped. There was a big pile of doilies on the table waiting to be added, but I'll save those for something else. I'd thought I'd have more of a patchwork, all over design, but I'm happy with just a few small added bits over one big piece.

The curtain was too short, so I hung the rod lower, making the bottom of the curtain hit the sill. The panel wasn't wide enough, so I hung a vintage, white cotton, ruffle curtain on each side.

Above it, hangs a tea cup lamp made by Shanna Wagner, two hearts and a kite by Andrea Singarella and Lori Oles. and a pink dotted swiss ruffle valance.

But I don't want you to think I did this all alone. I had a helper.

Sugarwings came by to visit and offered to cut up and stitch doilies together. She likes hand sewing, unlike me. I don't do it unless forced. But she is pretty happy sewing together anything on her desk. When given some embroidered pieces to work with, she really had a blast.

Especially since it was her first day with her new glasses. These are reading glasses, the same type of drugstore magnifying lenses that I use.

She has constantly tried to sneak my glasses away from me when she is in the studio. I honestly thought it was just part of her 'artist costume'. Because for this kid, it's all about the costume for what ever you are doing.

I'd always told her that wearing other people's glasses could give you a headache and she had to take them off. Who knew that these were exactly what she needed and she wasn't just play acting when she wore mine?