July 2015 – Page 2 – Karla's Cottage

Birdsong FIVE weekend- vendor night

By Karla Nathan / July 6, 2015

If you are interested, Birdsong kits are available here.

Seriously? It has been a month since Birdsong? Well, I think I, personally, have recovered from the bash and from my whirlwind of a vacation right after, but my studio and garage sure haven't. If you walked into my garage, you'd think that it was a store, not a place to keep a car. I don't know why it takes so much longer to put things back to normal than it does to set it all up.

Well, maybe I do. Getting ready for a big party is exciting. There is the giddy anticipation plus deadlines to meet. But after it is all over? It's just a job, packing up, cleaning up, putting up. I'm fed up with it!!

This is how the garage looked, pre-birdsong as I was getting ready. The room was emptied out, and I rolled out strips of vintage wallpaper and tacked them up to brighten the dingy place, then filled that wall with an assortment of frames painted white.

Here it is after I got them all together. And while quite a few of the frames are gone now, I'm afraid that the wall still looks pretty much the same. You know, it isn't a bad look for a garage, is it? Maybe I can just leave the wallpaper up there…

It was a little hectic on vendor night. Luckily, I have a helpful crew who run the show, I am in the kitchen getting our dinner ready, and swaps are going on at the same time. I was in three of the swaps, but I wasn't able to fully participate, I had to do a run by swapping, I practically tossed my swap to my partner as I speeded by on my way to the kitchen.

And I completely LOST one of my swaps. It wasn't a partnered one, or I'd have kept searching til it was found. It was an exchange where numbers were drawn to chose partners, so I didn't leave anyone in the lurch by not joining in at the last minute.

But I was disappointed to not be a part of it, and irritated with myself for being careless. But if you saw my office and studio during Birdsong, I think you'd understand how anything could be misplaced. There was (and still is) stuff everywhere.

Slowly, but surely, I'm working my way through piles and getting it rearranged and back to normal.

Vendor night is fun, though, even with all the running around I have to do.

My helpers make it all go smoothly, and I hope that the rest of the Peeps enjoy it all too.

While I have to hurry through swaps, I do love peeking out to see all the happy exclamations over the generosity and talent that went into the pieces being traded. And I'm also pretty happy about all of the treats around that night. This year, I made some apple rosette tarts, and they were pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

What I like about them is how deceptively simple they are. Apples, sugar, cinnamon, pastry, and that is it. The trick is to use a very flavorful apple and let that taste shine through.

I also tried to whip up some macarons. Not quite as successful as the tarts, but they tasted better than they looked. And you really can't go wrong with anything filled up with white chocolate ganache, can you?

Karen sweetly brought this box of hand made, bird shaped, chocolates for us.

Terry was a constant help in the kitchen, while Randy ran errands, took out trash, did all the heavy lifting, 'guy' type jobs, and was just plain old, great to have around. As were all the kindly family members who chipped in to make this thing work.

What would I do without my family?

Shelli helped me use cookie cutters to add chicks to the watermelon salad.

Since making it that way, Sugarwings and I have done that same trick every time we cut open a melon. why eat a plain old slice, when you can have a butterfly or a star????

The salad was made like this:

I ran a fork along the sides of a cuke to make pretty ridges, then sliced it up thinly.
We sliced two small melons, into a thickness that coordinated with the cookie cutters and then cut shapes on a cutting board.
A lot of watermelon goes to waste when using cookie cutters, it can't be re-rolled out like sugar cookie dough to use the remnants. So, we had a separate bowl for the ugly pieces. That is why it took two melons to make enough for one big salad.
We mixed the melon and cucumber, drizzled it with lime juice and topped it with fresh mint. (you could also use balsamic dressing instead if you'd rather, I serve it that way sometimes too)
The feta cheese was served on the side, so it didn't get soggy.

I'll leave you with some photos of my house before it all began.

And this is the puff pastry crust I made for the pot pies. And yes, I see now that the R is backwards! ha!

Maybe I should stick to birds? I'm slightly fond of birdies!

PS- I've been adding the to Boutique, if you couldn't make it to Birdsong to shop, you can shop here.

A quick trip to Disney, not quite long enough, but in some ways too long

When we first planned our trip to Florida, Disney wasn't in it. The plan was one full week in a beach house. Then, I ran into trouble finding that, since most houses rent from Saturday thru Saturday and we were arriving on a Tuesday. I arranged to get two condos on Siesta Key, one over the other at a weekly rate.

Next thing I knew, the family was saying, we can't go to Florida and NOT head to see Mickey!!!

So, adjustments were made, rooms were switched, and we lost our weekly rate. But it was worth it, I knew the girls would be thrilled. And since I LOVE Disneyworld, I was all for it.

Then, we decided to invite Miss Tree and her girls, and I was on the phone again, rearranging, cancelling one condo that wasn't big enough, finding another nearby, and shuffling Disney rooms and plans. I put in hours on the phone planning, changing, switching, exploring options, and it wasn't exactly easy, while planning Birdsong, but we loved having those three join us, those girls are wonderful people, and I think that all of our arrangements were ideal once made.

(I do admit to some whining on my part while switching things around so much, and do suggest that you should have firm plans when you decide to book rooms, we ended up losing a rather hefty deposit)

But as I said, I was glad the plans changed, I LOVE Disneyworld! And even better, Ry Guy said he wanted to come to the park too. Now, he has been a bit of a recluse for the last 10-15 years. He doesn't like crowds, and doesn't get out much. He is a big, ole, sweetheart, but has a lot of anxieties. I was worried about him coming on the trip at all, let alone spend time at the park with the hoards of people. I promised him his very own room, so he could retreat if needed.

And you know what? He didn't need to hide. Ryan gets the Happy Camper Award for best vacationer. He was amazing, and I saw a side of him that I didn't know he had. I could tell that at times, it was not easy for him, but he made himself stick it all out, even when he had the option of going back to the hotel to get away from the heat and the people.

He stayed with me, knowing I was tired, and hadn't got much rest, and was there for me all day when I needed him. And when hotel rooms needed to be changed around, he stepped up and offered to share. I was proud of my son, and how he left his comfort zone behind when he joined the family on this vacation.

We arrived on a Sunday afternoon, and had lunch Downtown Disney. Then checked into the Caribbean Beach resort, and had a few shuffles there too with the rooms that connected and some other little issues that delayed check in, but eventually we got settled and hit the pools.

Not everything goes exactly as you might plan it, no matter how hard you try. In hindsight, I'd have changed some things, but that doesn't help now, does it? I think that a day and a half at the resort simply is not enough to really get into and experience it, but I wouldn't trade away a single moment we had on the beach. It was a lot to squeeze into a short time, and I for one was a bit fried and needed a nap.

I'm afraid that I was so tired at the park, I did something I've never done in my life, I fell asleep standing up, waiting for the party to gather up at the gate to leave at the end of the night.

Like a horse.

Like a worn out, old workhorse.

Ready for the glue factory.

Dewdrop tends to turn foul if she misses her nap, and doesn't do very well with uncomfortable situations like extreme heat and lines. But she was a pure delight all day. I told her afterwards that she might have been the only kid in the whole park to not cry once and I was so proud of what a big girl she was.

She said, "I was sooo happy!"

And she was. 4 is an exciting age to see all that magic come alive.

We didn't have reservations for any of the nice, sit down restaurants, but I researched online to find out where to feed vegetarians. I saw that you could request veggie versions of most meals, even if it wasn't on the menu, but then when we got in line at one place, we found that wasn't true.

But we did discover that there was a counter service place with air conditioned seating in Tomorrowland, with live entertainment from this space alien, lounge lizard, that had some pretty good veggie fare, as well as the burgers others were craving.

It was a hot day, which was draining, but we still had a great time, and hopped from shade to shade, plus used umbrellas that we'd brought to create our own shade. Fast Passes are wonderful, you can now plan weeks ahead of time and coordinate your rides. And we found that if you see any adventures with a sign saying 20 minutes or less, you should pop in immediately!

We fit in a ton of rides, including the carrousel, Small World, and Mickey's Philharmagic twice. Dewdrop didn't care if she did something twice and had no idea that we didn't do everything that there was to do. We did the things that were quick or shady and she was thrilled with it all.

I'm afraid that I wasn't at my tip-top best. A bad cough, some stress from travel, and pure, standing up sleeping exhaustion by that time, but I still LOVE Disneyworld.

And so do they.