Karla Nathan – Page 178 – Karla's Cottage

Happy Birthday to my handsome husband

By Karla Nathan / June 14, 2012

For my husband's birthday, I had some help whipping up homemade blueberry pies.

It was pretty exciting. But anytime Sugarwings does some baking, its a joy-fest.

I tried something a little different with the pies. We filled a shell with fresh berries, then topped it with a mixture of butter, organic brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour. We drizzled a little water over it, added a heart cut out of pie dough, and baked it. The berries' juices mixed with the topping as it melted into the pie, and it was really yummy. It left a slight, crispy top, but not the same as a crumble, because I used very little flour in it.

Along with the pies, I made fried chicken,(catfish for the vegetarians too) mashed potatoes, gravy, corn (fresh from the cob) green beans, coleslaw and rolls. Plus a strawberry cheesecake.

whew.

4 and a half hours in the kitchen, I made it all the old fashioned way, like my grandma and mom used to. What a lot of work. How on earth did they cook like that on a regular bsis???

It was a good party, and the kids gave Pop Pop a book to read to his littlest grand fairy, plus he got plenty of hugs and cuddles, so he had a happy birthday.

They made him some flower pots, and he got a mint plant and lime tree to grow his own garnishes for cocktail hour.

He's one hot grandpa, isn't he?

ps- you can still enter the drawing to win this collage by leaving a comment

Special friends and a special day

Books, celebrations, dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), parties, vintage paper/collage art, wallpaper, We're having a party, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / June 12, 2012

Before I left for my North Carolina adventure, I had a little party for some special friends. Kecia, who I met at Tiffanys in CA is on quite an adventure herself. A two month plus trek across the country, hop scotching from one friend, family member, junk shop, to another. She stopped to see me here at the cottage on her way across I70.

And my beautiful friend, Angie, was having a birthday. Two reasons to celebrate!

You know me, it doesn't take much to convince me its time for a party. I love any excuse to set the table and invite friends over.

And with two special occasions, I was raring to go.

I stole my buddy, Carol's tip about using vintage wallpaper as a table runner. And I just happened to have a few rolls to choose from…

Angie had another very important celebration, she is a first time grammie as of a few days ago! So, I broke out the extra special, hoarded, fairytale wall paper from the 20s and made a frame for her to put a baby picture in.

Instead of just having a dinner party, I invited everyone to come for the afternoon and have craft day too, and friends dropped by here and there for whatever time they could make it. Some just for craft day, some just for dinner.

My favorite way to spend a day. Good friends, good conversation and stuff to make!!

I'm still hooked on slopping modelling paste on my collages. So, I made some books with covers all textured up. (this one is in the Boutique)

On this one, I collaged the back too, but instead of texture, I dry brushed paint over the collage, then inked it a bit.

This book needs a slight re-do. I've filled it with pages and pages of old papers, and they are too delicate to turn with ribbon ties. I have to add some rings instead.

Here is the back of this one.

IIt will be a while before I burn out on this technique, I'm super into smooshing the modelling paste around over pretty papers!

Dew Drop's mommy, our Gypsy, made a journal this way too, Beth worked on some stiitching, the other Karla was doing needlepoint, Shanna had some painting to do in an enamelling project, and Angie was foofing up vintage bottles with messages and trinkets.

The great thing about craft day, is that everyone works at their own pace on whatever they feel like, and the conversation flows here, there, and everywhere.

Kecia arrived later in the day, and said she had not had a chance to create while on her trip, so I set her up with supplies to make a book too. I love the layers she put on her cover.

After dinner, when the other guests had gone, she and I went back out to the studio and worked till after midnight finishing our books.

Twinkle bonded with her, and we will both miss her, the visit was much too short!

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.

The Summer of Salads, and Garage Sale Goodies!

antiques/junking, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), Sugarwings, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / May 31, 2012

Its the most beautiful time of the year. Garage sale season has begun! I went to a couple estate sales with Beth and the other Karla.

One was a gold mine of crafty, vintagey goodness! My favorite find was this box full of old starched lace Easter eggs for $2.75. The eggs are smashy, but the flowers are wonderful and so are the velvety trims on some of them. I've already harvested the best parts and have them set aside for future creations.

At another sale, I picked up this satin gown for my grand fairy for $2.

Her favorite thing about it, is the big skirt that poofs out like a cloud when she sits on the register in the floor.

On the way to Beth's, I stopped at a garage sale, and found an under the bed, Rubbermaid container full of dress up clothes for the kids for only 50 cents. Which I thought was a pretty swell deal for the carton alone, not to mention the piles of fun clothes inside.

After going through the costumes (M&Ms, clowns, fairies, hula dancers, flappers- it was full!) I found this fairy garland and thought it was kind of nice. On closer inspection, I realized that they were very old pansies pulled off a vintage hat! Yippee!

Those are going to MY dress up pile, not to the kid's. Twinkle was kind enough to model them for me.

This retro chic stove was at one of the estate sales we went to. I'm still in a Tiffany blue mood after my trip to CA, so I was really attracted to it.

There were lots of old bottles, some floral hats, for $3 a piece (yippee again!), not a bad haul.

I especially like this old rat poison bottle, it will be used in my Halloween decor this fall. Doesn't it look like the poison was so compelling that the rats tried to chew their way into the bottle?

Uhm, if you are wondering why my curtains are in a bowl of water, its because I accidentally squirted blueberry juice onto the delicate lace. I hurriedly grabbed a bowl of hot water with vinegar and dish soap in it, and tucked the stained bit into the bowl to soak. It seemed quicker than trying to take them down and wash them.

And I think its done a good job of getting the stain out. I've replaced the soapy water with clean water a couple times to rinse them, I was trying to treat the old lace as gently as I could.

And why was I squirting blueberry juice? Because last week I officially declared this the "Summer of Salads" and started off with a juicy fruit salad.

My goal is to have at least 2 to 3 fresh made salads in the fridge at all times. I chopped fruit, spritzed it with lime juice, and added a sprinkling of Trader Joe's cinnamon sugar, the kind that comes in a grinder.

I also made a carrot salad, using a bag of shredded carrots, a half cup of broken pecans, 3/4 cup big golden raisins, a cup of chopped celery, a pinch of sea salt, and enough dressing to moisten it all. The dressing I chose was a strawberry vinaigrette from Kroger's.

Simple to throw together with the prechopped carrots and bottled dressing, and great to snack on when I have a sweet tooth.

The third salad was a standard one we always have on hand. Equal parts of chopped cucumbers ( I like those baby sized ones), celery, and tomatoes with sea salt,cracked pepper and some balsamic vinegar with olive oil. This will be even better to make when our garden takes off and we have our own veggies to chop!

No, I'm not making a big bowl of yarn salad. This was something pretty that I saw at Beth's home.

This too.

Even prettier, this is some of the stuff I bought from her! She had piles of things ready to go to her booth at the mall. I of course, dove right in. She has the BEST stuff.

I'll leave you with some photos of what's new in the Boutique.

(yep, I actually got some work done! Its only a handful of stuff, but its a start.)

My own thoughts on blogging and Making a project my own

Dew Drop, Sugarwings, vintage paper/collage art, We're having a party, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / May 29, 2012

Thanks again for all your comprehensive and thoughtful comments on blogs and the changing blogworld. My theory is that our nitch of blog friends is going to keep on enjoying the blogs and pals they have come to know, as well as exploring new ones they meet through links and mentions on their present faves.

Maybe blogging is not as big as it was, but it did grow with a BOOM when it took off!

And maybe Its not growing like it was, people tire of writing, lose purpose or move onto bigger and better things.

Also, younger groups of tech savy net surfers might not have the patience to visit and read blogs. Maybe for their group, tweeitng and pinning gives them the quick fix they need.

But it looks to me like my peeps, the ladies who "get" each other and have found each other online are not looking to lose contact. I think that there is still plenty of blog love to be shared between us.

Maybe we don't always stop to comment, like we did when we first became involved with blogging, but when there is a sad incident, or a reason to congratulate, or a subject that will make you think, our blog buddies are there to share it and do step in to leave their thoughts. I might have 2,000 plus hits on my blog in one day (not including the people who read it through facebook, google reader, etc.) and still only get 3 or 4 comments. But, when my dog died, and I was heartbroken (still am) so many of you came by to ease my pain.

I have NO plans on leaving. Like I mentioned in my post about this subject, I made time to sit and write my posts, even when I was not back in the swing of real work after so much time away. Blogging isn't work to me, its become a big part of my life. A daily journal almost.

I'll be posting away long after all the readers are gone. My pal Laurie and I were saying that when we are in nursing homes, we'll be writing about making necklaces out of leftover macaroni from lunch, and how to dye things with our chocolate pudding.

Our classes at the event in CA were useful and pretty. I've already got mine in use. Kecia gave us a lamp shade frame and some goodies to foof it up, then turned us loose. I brought some extras from home to add to mine, since I had a spot in mind for it in my living room and wanted a certain look.

And my pal, Lori was ready to share too. She gave me this teensy crocheted basket to tie onto the lace. I glued a button with an "N" on it for Nathan, and filled it with crystal beads.

The fun of the design is adding all the little tidbits here and there to the trailing lace. I brought chandy crystals and backed them with floral wallpaper, and a few other things, like this tiny wooden egg.

And of course, I needed a fairy.

Kecia had a series of shades she had done herself as examples, I wish I'd taken some photos of hers. She is one of the most talented artists I've met in a while and I really enjoyed her booth on Vendor night.

She is also an adventurer and is taking a few weeks to travel from her NJ home to CA and back for Tiffany's. Looks like she'll be able to stop and visit Kansas on her return trip, and I look forward to having her here.

Another class from the event got a slight alteration from me too. I tend to rework the classes with all of my own supplies, and this one was a big change. I had the watercolor sketch for the banner backdrop with me and wanted it to be featured instead of a picture of Audrey on the scrapbook we made, so I turned the book horizontal to make it fit, and changed the color scheme up a bit.

Knowing that we were making a scrapbook, I packed photos of my loved ones, and lots of vintage papers.

The scrap book papers were all black and cream, I covered some of them in my own colors, but still using the shapes and sizes provided, and tying in some of the blacks when I could.

The flowers behind Dewdrop were part of the kit.

And I really liked the shape of this paper. I used the provided piece, and covered the left side of it, added the photo and flowers, then let the rest of the original paper peek out on the right.

There were two other projects over the weekend, I'll show those later. For now, I'll leave you with more scrappy pages from this class.

I was diligent about getting my book done, I knew that I wouldn't get back to it once I got home and it had been way too long since I'd made a grandchild photo album. And yes, it was finished before the weekend ended! While swap night was going on, I sat at my table spot to cut and glue away the evening.

Author name: Karla Nathan