Karla Nathan – Page 15 – Karla's Cottage

An order for 8 bracelets turned into me making 60, that’s just how it goes around here

By Karla Nathan / August 5, 2024

I had an order for a few bracelets, so while I had my enticing tubs of beads out to play with, I whipped up a few extra for myself and for my display at Good Juju. This soon became a pile of over sixty completed pieces.

Seriously, have you ever made one? You cannot stop at one!

I’m like an addict as I tell myself, okay, this is plenty…well maybe just a couple more then I’ll quit. Hours later I’m still repeating that to myself as the dogs are crying for their dinner, my back is cramped up from sitting at my desk, and my vision is blurry from the close work.

The sales of beaded bracelets at my booth are spotty, but over time I notice the stacks dwindling down, so I guess the few here and there that shoppers get do add up.

As much as I love crafting them, I wish the gradual diminished inventory would go more quickly,

But that is also why I have so many varying items for sale. A little bit of that, a little bit of this, you never know what our guests will be looking for and I certainly enjoy making many different things.

I am blessed to have found a venue where I can sell my hodge podge of arts, crafts, vintage bits, and jewelry.

And any day that I have an excuse to rifle through my gemstone bead collection is an extra wonderful day.

When I first got the order of 8, I was going to gather them from the ones still at the mall. But I soon realized there was no fun in that, and used it as a good reason to get my pretties out to work with.

After creating a few I thought that I would be nice to fill the order, I started thinking about the group they were being gifted to. These were meant for some gals who got together every week and called themselves the Thirsty Thursday bunch.

The perfection inspiration to make beverage toned bracelets! I hope they all get a kick out of these like I did.

Autumn looks for my booth at Good Juju

Good JuJu

By Karla Nathan / August 2, 2024

Knowing that I’d be bringing in lots of fall colors, and plenty of brown, I wanted to make sure my space still had a romantic feel to it despite the more traditional, antiquey look I was going to have on display. So I over loaded on the wispy florals.

I’d been saving up old bowls all year for my stepping into fall theme in August.

Each of these pieces could’ve been incorporated here and there in any month and mingled easily with my typical look.

But when brought in all at once, and set out on natural wood furniture, it does make for a whole new style for me.

See what I mean?

Plus I have my western/farm/equestrian corner too.

For September, I am working on a selection of embellished jean jackets and flannel shirts. I thought I’d bring one in early, this is dipped in bleach, then over dyed, and has vintage lace added to it.

There is also a bunch of fall toned mushrooms.

And of course, lots and lots of sparklies.

Vintage in one area, new or handmade on the other side of the aisle. I used to commingle them, but realized, it’s often two different shoppers. So I divided up the shelves, that way there was more space for customers to take their time looking at the jewelry without feeling crowded.

Well, wish me luck, it’s a different look for me this season.

Fall Fairies and other creations

fairies, Good JuJu

By Karla Nathan / July 30, 2024

It may be 90 degrees outside, but in the studio, autumn has arrived. I’ve whipped up witches, crafted batches of brooms, stockpiled witchy hats, and have made a few fall fairies.

This girl’s scouting days were behind her, so I repurposed the uniform into a woodland outfit.

Complete with posy toes.

And this delicate(?) little sprite might not be as pretty as her sibling, but she deserved a lovely, whimsical gown just as much.

They have joined the rest of the flock at Juju for the next First Friday weekend (this week!).

I bring in fairies each month. They aren’t an item that sells out, but I do have some shoppers who enjoy them, so typically 1-4 sell each time.

That is basically my formula there. Bring in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, make a few different pieces, then choose a theme for the month and decorate with old stuff to complete that chosen idea. I fill in around the vintage pieces with hand made items and a display or two of jewelry.

My little paintings are one of the many additions that mingle with the antiques. Here, I have sorta broken my “keep to the monthly theme” rule. This narrow wall is filled with springtime decor in the center of a booth filled with autumn.

Maybe my rule is more of a guideline.

Some other creations for this month are tiny wooden books covered in old paper. Plus a few more crowns that I made extra blingy.

This formula works out okay for me. I like making a variety of things, but don’t want to rely on just one craft. If I had a booth full of say, just crowns, my sales would most likely be pretty dismal. This way I can sell a few of each set of crafty items, and that adds up to supplement my overall sales.

Next post, I’ll show you the rest of my booth. The non created pieces.

New doos for the doodles

dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers)

By Karla Nathan / July 27, 2024

About half the time, we cut the dogs’ hair ourselves. Rich and I set up a table in the yard, get out the clippers and shave away.

Sugar treats this as a spa day and luxuriates in the attention she gets while relaxed and splayed out on the table. Her eyes start to droop, and she dozes off in bliss as we work on her.

Molly doesn’t agree with the whole bliss thing.

But she is cooperative and mostly patient, so it’s not bad. The trouble isn’t them, it’s me. I can do the grooming myself and they don’t look hideous after.

Still, I hate doing it. Even though the table makes for easy access to the dog, and we work outside so clean up isn’t extremely awful, I just don’t like doing the job. I feel like I end up with more fur on me than is on the pups.

Most of that fur, is in my nostrils.

To keep down the costs on grooming, I do it anyway. Our dogs run in the woods, dig in the mud, tangle up in burrs. And doodle fur is made of Velcro. Every twig they walk by sticks in it. If you don’t keep their coats nice, they will mat.

So 2 to 3 tines a year, we shave it all off. I compromise on the expense by sometimes doing the job. But when I can, splurging on having a pro groom them means more to me than most of my favorite treats or purchases.

Little Dorothy is an easy job, I shouldn’t complain too much about her 9lb body’s little bit of hair. But I still would rather not shave her either. So this week, off they all went to get prettied up.

Honestly, the girls look soooooo much better when I’m not the one holding the razor. See how lovely Molly is after visiting the beauty shop?

Honey doesn’t go, golden retrievers just need a bath in the garden hose every once in a while. And her hair doesn’t tangle or mat, or catch sticks and burns like the others do.

Also, I get plenty of her fur up my nose on a daily basis. The trade off on not needing groomed is the daily shedding.

It’s a good thing they are all so dang lovable.

My Mosaic Group Friends and a New Adventure for Seashell Fairies

friends, sea shell fairies, Travel

By Karla Nathan / July 24, 2024

My buddy, Shanna, has hosted a mosaic group in her home studio for years. Its always nice to bring a project and visit with friends.

Not too long ago, she switched it up and rented a studio with our pal, Mary. The group continues in this new location and we have the same members plus a few others joining in.

As artists, we are often working alone. So, an opportunity to hang out with friends while creating, catch up on each others lives, chat about books, restaurants, travel, hear some funny stores, or commiserate over problems, well, that is something I feel lucky to have.

Seeing what’s up with others’ work is inspiring too.

Even though I’m not a mosaic artist, I love the medium. Every once in a while I take on a glass project, but typically, I bring some other, small portable job I’m in the middle of.

This summer it’s been a lot of mushrooms, or beading. I really wish I could attend the group more weeks, but I am pretty sporadic about attending. It’s on a Friday, and that seems to be a hard one for me. Not just First Fridays each month at Juju, but other weekends for travel, or who knows what. Fridays just are a busy day for me.

So, when I get a shot at being there, I make my best effort to pack up a tub of supplies (typically only forgetting a few things I’ll need for the afternoon) and skeedaddling across town to see what everyone is working on and hear about what’s up with who.

Technically, I guess this is a mosaic craft. I decided to make some sea shell fairies that aren’t washed away by the waves, so I took a basket of shells to work on last week. (Oops, after taking the photo, I realized the right wing wasn’t right, so I flipped it around while thinset was still goopy).

These little sprites are something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. On one of my sister trips with Bobbie and Sissy, when I was feeling really bad due to a concussion, along with the anniversary of Ryan’s death, we explored Passe Grille Beach after a walk through the Don Caesar Pink Palace.

The beach we were staying at was low on shells. When I visit Indian Rocks, I always scrounge to find enough to make just one little fairy to leave on the sand.

But this spot? Holy Moly!

Now, the shells I found aren’t what most beach goers are looking for. I like odd shapes and broken pieces, and this place was ankle deep in those. I filled bags with heads, wings, arms, I was in a fairy makers dream location. The terrain was rocky and the beach itself wasn’t as inviting, the parking was awful, but it wasn't crowded and the views were spectacular. My sisters patiently hung out while I climbed around boulders and searched for just the right bits and pieces.

So here I am, a few years later with these baggies full of memories of a special day when my family went out of the way to big sister me, using one of our limited vacation afternoons to take me someplace to gather art supplies. Sis had brought her post cataract surgery sunglasses to help with my concussion headache and Bobbie, who had some mobility issues, hung out with me while we walked this rocky shoreline that wasn’t easy to get around on.

I’m still experimenting with the right technique to transform my fairies into a permanent piece of art. And thanks to my sissies, I have plenty of shells to work with. Each one I create will hold special feelings from our day on the beach.

Indigo

friends

By Karla Nathan / July 21, 2024

My friend, Diane, offered to teach a group of us how to do indigo dyeing.

It’s a complicated process that is far removed from regular tie dye.

The vat requires ongoing care, that reminds me of feeding sourdough bread starter.

Diane brought all sorts of doodads and clips and taught us about different techniques. We used more than rubber bands, there were clips, zip ties, pvc pipes as resists.

One cool trick is using wax thread to pull gathers into the fabric to make designs.

After the resists are added, you dunk the fabric in the vat. It comes out a murky green but air starts to turn the dye blue.

The pieces need to hang for about 15 minutes, then get double rinsed The water finishes the color transformation and the murky green is gone, leaving the traditional indigo tones.

For deeper colors, you repeat the process. I kept redoing the bottom of this shirt for an ombré effect.

And I love the way it turned out!

Thanks for the fun morning, Diane!

The spoiling continues, and I felt pretty spoiled too

family

By Karla Nathan / July 18, 2024

After our scary movie night for Summerween, we took a trip up to Lincoln, NE to stay with Rich where he has taken a “I’m retired, but I will do a few jobs here and there” gig. And he loves it, it’s a gorgeous club, with a hard working staff, delicious food, and ambitions to be even better than it is now.

Poor guy. Rich is working his butt off at this out of town job, but for us, it was a fantastic vacation.

His job is at a country club, but for us it was a resort getaway.

He took us on a golf cart ride to see the sights. Pretty, isn’t it?

Pretty inside too. Just like this little Grandfairy.

Best part? Not just soakin up the sunshine and the luxurious atmosphere, but watching these teens play like kids again.

The dogs were glad to have Dewdrop back too, and happy to be vacationing with us while poor Rich worked late hours.

When not at the pool, we did some shopping for back to school stuff at Scheels, made use of the photo ops, and rode the Ferris wheel. We we saw the new Despicable Me movie, went to the dog park, and crafted.

I’m experimenting with new gills that are extra ruffly for my mushies. While the kiddos hit the pool, I made a couple dozen of them.

Dewdrop made a few too, I love having a crafting buddy.

It couldn’t have been a better vacation spot to visit.

Summerween

family, holiday decor, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / July 15, 2024

Dewdrop came to visit! And Sugarwings is back from North Carolina, so I hung up a welcome back garland and planned a Surprise Summerween Party.

We made zombie finger cookies to snack on.

And carved watermelon Jack-o-lanterns,

I unpacked a tub of Halloween decor to set up when they got here after their 14 hour drive, and we relaxed by the glow of the pumpkins while watching a scary movie.

Our movie was Abigail, about a vampire ballerina, an excellent choice.

We left the decorations up for the week, so the party goes on.
I hate to think of it coming to an end. My plan is to soak up every minute of this visit and spoil these sweet, lil punkins, I mean, melons, as much as I can while we are all together.

100 mushies, but more to go

drawing, mushrooms

By Karla Nathan / July 11, 2024

I might have made a couple mushrooms. And the best part was playing with them afterward and arranging them on the shelves.

My goal was to have at least 100 completed, and there were already about 20 set up at my booth in Good Juju.

It took a few weeks of off and on crafting, because I felt like I wasn’t getting very many full days in the studio.

My friends meet weekly for an afternoon mosaic group, which is an ideal time to chat with buddies and work on small projects like these.

I often have other commitments on the Fridays the group gathers, so I got maybe 3 play dates to bring schroomies to there.

Then I was able to scoop out a few days of studio time.

Once I can set aside big chunks of a day, a lot can happen, quickly!

Zap, 80 little mushrooms in a variety of colors, done and ready to go.

I even had time to play around with some new techniques for the gills.

At this point, this style takes a bit longer for me, so I didn’t create many this way. I needed to get my goal met for a couple of orders. Once I have done a few of these honey comb gills, I think I’ll get quicker at it and can make more this way.

I will be sitting down to craft another 25-30 or so, because out of the collection I have finished, quite a few sold already and I’m saving the Poison Toadstools (black or orange, some purple or acid green) for my own Halloween display. Apparently, I did not set my goal high enough, but the order of 60 isn’t due til September, so I can look forward to more fun mushie days in the studio.

Thank you for the good, Good Juju weekend

Good JuJu

By Karla Nathan / July 8, 2024

Holidays and summertime both can be iffy in retail. So I wanted to shout out a big thanks to all the shoppers who visited us in the Old West Bottoms of KC to shop in Good Juju over the 4th of July weekend.

Great weather, great people, great weekend!

Big thank yous,

Author name: Karla Nathan