Karla Nathan – Page 255 – Karla's Cottage

Taking the leap

By Karla Nathan / November 8, 2008

Yesterday was "Spoil Sugarwings Day". Since I had to run to Kansas City to find the edible glitter (which is great!! I baked cookies last night and they are shimmering little masterpieces), I decided to stop at Rainforest Cafe to treat the fairy grand baby to a lunch with the monkeys and elephants. She loved it all, her favorite thing there was a light shining on the wall that made rainbow. She held her Dorothy doll up to it, and said "look, Dororthy, a Rainblow!" and of course, started singing to her.

On the way out of the mall, we saw this contraption and it grabbed her attention.

Yes, I let a two year old bounce 15 feet into the air strapped onto this lift. She LOVED it and squealed "YaaaY" at the top of her lungs the whole time.

Dozens of people stopped to see what the yelling was about, some stayed to watch a while. She’s not a quiet kid, she lets loose with some lung power when she is having fun.

Sorry, the photos aren’t very clear, but this fairy was flying up and down pretty fast. I wish I could have captured the joy on her face when she took the first big leap.

You can learn a lot from a two year old. Let go of your fears and make that big leap, jump into all life has to offer and have some fun trying new things!

And keep your eyes open, you never know when you’ll see a rainblow.

A Glittering Gala

antiques/junking, celebrations, Food and Drink, give away, holiday decor, I do tend to run on, don't I?

By Karla Nathan / November 7, 2008

We had a magical night at the Curious Sofa. Or Fofa as Carol and I called it after a funny typo. Well, maybe you had to be there, but it struck my funny bone.

Maybe I found it so funny because at the C. Sofa, every detail is pure perfection.

Deb is extraordinarily talented in the art of display, and there is never a mistake of any kind allowed on her property!

Even things that seem to be imperfect, are NOT. They are either made to look distressed or actually aged to perfection and chosen for that quality like the paneling in this powder room.

Pearl was hard at work greeting everyone at the entrance that was flanked by stacks of firewood. Who knew I was so trendy, I have firewood stacked in my breezeway by the door too! If Deb is doing it, it must be COOL to do!!

We had a fun group, and sat in the rustic cabin display and chatted after exploring the store. Here is Beth, Carol, Gwen and I from left to right. Gwen had recently returned from a buying trip in France and we were drooling as she was telling us all of the details about the trip.

By the way, if you will be at vendor night at Silver Bella, Gwen will have fresh off the boat, French ephemera for sale. Please do me a favor and say "Bon" to Gwen. I promise, she will laugh….

Plus, she has GREAT stuff and you’ll be glad you dropped by to shop! I put in a pre-order for 20 bucks worth of old French postcards. I wanted to be first in line!!

And here is the Queen of Styling, Deb. What a great hat!

This is something I fell in love with! I’m jonesing for that crown.

This big headed girl caught my eye too. I didn’t buy her though, but am kind of wishing I had, now. I got a few trinkets and will show photos of them after I recharge my camera battery.

Notice the books wrapped in old papers? And the fabulous colors of pearls? There is never a jarring note in that store, every inch is coordinated and well thought out.

Deb is an expert at sticking to her palette. She adds hints of color here and there, but it is always faded to a remnant of its original shade.

And there were sparkly things everywhere!

I don’t know what kind of glitter went on these roses to make them look like they were kissed by an early frost, but I want a jar of it. A BIG jar.

Don’t you wish you could pull up a chair to this table for a dinner party? Well, I did, but only because Carol dared me to. I didn’t mess anything up, I just sat and ate my dinner and felt pretty pampered while doing it! All chairs should have angel wings like these do!

And what a dinner it was!!!!! Champagne with Dean and Deluca catered deliciousness.

I tried to not make a pig of myself, (remember I was complaining about the 10 lbs I put on?). But honestly, LOOK at these platters. I had to have some of each.

But this platter is the one that got my heart racing (and not just from high fat treats, but from the beauty of it!). If I only had that Cannon Rebel camera that I wanted so bad, you could see the detail of this. The pink bon bons are covered in glitter. Yes, glitter. The Real Deal. Edible glitter that looks like GLITTER not sugar, because it really really is real glitter!!!!!!!!

Does it show up any better in this picture? I swear, the stuff is magical pixie dust, not just sugar. It is sheer, fine, holographic and as beautiful as the stuff Martha Stewart sells to craft with. Sugarwings and I were on a quest to find the stuff today and Dean and Deluca sent us to this cute little bakery where they sold us some magic pixie dust of our own!

Everything in there looked tasty and rich. Sugarwings was convinced these goodies were snowmen. I tried to tell her that they were tuxedos, but I don’t think she gets the concept of what a tuxedo is.

I am so thrilled to find this pretty glitter, and can’t wait to start sprinkling it around! I have big plans for frosting the rims of the glasses we will serve the Glitter Tinis in at our Glitter Lounge in Omaha! My roomie, Carol and I are having a mini kick off to Silver Bella before the group craft night starts and I think that I will have to sprinkle the magic fairy dust on the Godiva chocolates too.

I will be using this stuff everywhere! Heck, I always have glitter in my hair, on my face, all over my house, grandchild, dog, and husband. I might as well have it in my food too. And on purpose!

Thanks, Deb for such a fun party last night. And for feeding me glitter cakes and starting a whole new obsession for me!

I think that what ever my giveaway for November will be, I will add some pixie dust for the winner to sprinkle onto some of her own holdiay goodies too. Don’t forget, there is a giveaway going on. I know, lets call it a secret surprise goodie bag giveaway! You won’t know what it is until you get it in the mail! But I can guarentee, it will be sparkly.

Over the Rainbow

paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / November 6, 2008

Today is a Sugarwings Day, she and I have been painting rainbows (for her Dorothy doll) and having fairy tea parties. This kid knows all the words to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and will burst into song at any rainbow she sees. Trouble is, you can’t understand much of what she is saying, you just hear the word "rainbow" here and there in the song. I think she sings in Fairy Language.

Wow, thanks for the kind hearted responses to my mean comment! I really appreciate them all. I know that there is a big problem in the world with pet over population, but I think the problem leans more towards puppy mills than people like me who have a few little babies that are adored and coddled!

And by the way, there is already a waiting list for Twinkettes, these puppies will have wonderful homes.

I cleaned my studio last night after Sugarwings went to bed and came across this half done drawing, that must have been started 20 years ago and forgotten. Looks like I had a good start, I wonder why I stopped? Maybe I’ll do something with it now.

After looking through the "Where Women Create" magazine, I felt the need to spiff up a bit! I don’t know when my studio will be photographed, but I wanted to be ready. I think that anyone who reads this first issue of the magazine will feel the same way and want to dig in and redo something in their work areas. The pictures are very inspirational!

The changes I made to my room are the tables. I brought this white table downstairs from the library, where it really wasn’t being used at all, and put away a folding table that I can pull out and set back up when friends come to craft days.

Since this wooden table was shorter than the folding table, I finally had space for this little $3 green table from a garage sale and the chippey pink cabinet from the Sparks and White Cloud flea market.

At first, I was going to paint the table white, but I kind of like it green, since the chair has a green patterned slipcover. What do you think?

Well, I’m off to Curious Sofa’s pre-open house party! Don’t worry, there will be tons of photos!!! I feel pretty lucky to get an invitation to go to this party. Well, actually, I am tagging along with Carol, she is the one invited.

A Modeling Career for Sugarwings and an answer to the MEAN comment

Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), holiday decor, magazine pictures or articles, Silver Bella, Sugarwings, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / November 5, 2008

Wowwee! Have you seen this yet? Somerset has done it again, this magazine is just so, over the top, good! Kudos to Jo Packham, the editor.

The quality of the photos and stories are every bit as good as the book that preceded it. Impressive. Here is a link to Jenny Doh’s blog with her post about this issue.

Now, I am really overwhelmed to think that my studio (!?) will be featured in a future issue of this publication. Heck, my head might not even fit through the doors of the studio after that, this is a cool thing to be in!

I’m extremely proud to be included in this issue, for this little corner on the back page. A photo I took of Sugarwings helping me face paint at a birthday party was used.

She is not wearing a shirt, so I am hoping this won’t be a big career move for her. I’d rather not see her featured topless in any more magazines as an adult.

And yes, I KNOW I should be cleaning and getting ready for company, packing up supplies for my Silver Bella classes, but I ended up making more bottle brush trees, and while cutting apart the strands of old mercury glass beads, I decided to bottle a few of them.

If I don’t end up selling these, I think they’d be cute as a bug in my kitchen replacing the spices on my rack during the holidays!

The teeny blue ribbons and gold and white labels are some that I got in a mini swap with my Dutch pal, Lili. Sbella_booth_256

Sugarwings ended up spending the evening with me, so I stopped gluing goodies to trees and took the advice of my friend, Valita, who said I should sell bottle brush tree decor kits at Silver Bella.

I bagged up some trinkets to add to trees, each bag is different and most are best suited for the taller trees, although I’d say that if you were decorating a bunch of little trees, the stuff could be spread out among a few. The old clip on earrings (that I cut the backs off of) are great to use as ornaments on a bigger tree, but work better as a single tree topper on the tiny trees.

This tree is one of the larger ones, so it could handle a handful of old earrings glued to it.

Tomorrow, Beth, Carol, and I are going to visit Deb and check out the Curious Sofa Holiday Open House. Deb has quite a way with display, this should be fun! Plus, dinner after with my two buds will be a nice way to spend an evening and avoid cleaning my studio.

And I seem to be very fond of dinner lately… I gained TEN POUNDS since I turned 50 six months ago. Is this what being old does to you? A complete shut down of the metabolism?????

By the way, I got my very first MEAN comment yesterday by someone who thinks Twinkle should not be having puppies.

This person left an purposely incorrect email address, so I couldn’t answer her. So, I’ll say it here-

Yes, I know that there are LOTS of dogs and cats without homes in the world, and I have taken in my share of them plus donated time to our local shelter, as well as donating art to fund raising auctions and free murals that I painted on the walls of the building.

Just because I raise pure bred Dorkies doesn’t make me a bad, uncaring person. These babies will go to people who will love them and give them good homes.

I believe in helping the less fortunate dogs, and have been the mastermind behind some adoptions of homeless dogs, numerous times. But I still like my Dorky babies and will always have them around. They bring joy to me and to many others.

Just like I believe in recycling and buying as much as I can second hand to help lower my own carbon foot print, but that doesn’t mean I am not going to buy something brand new and shiny here and there too.

I heat with wood as much as I can, turn off lights, put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat, run as many errands as I can at once so I won’t waste gas. I do what I can to save the planet. But that doesn’t mean I won’t drive across country to take a trip or spend a day driving from garage sale to garage sale.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that I believe in being a responsible inhabitant of our planet, and I do try to do good things. But life is give and take. You cut back here and there, help out when you can, but you have to live it and splurge on the things you enjoy.

Twinkettes??

Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), flowers

By Karla Nathan / November 4, 2008

There is no place like home! It feels good to be back, so good that I have not been working on being ready for Silver Bella (countdown is one week from tomorrow till Natasha and Heather get here!).

Instead, I have played with some of the stuff I bought at the Big Flea in Virginia, and foofed up this bottle brush tree, and went to spend a long morning getting caught up with friends over coffee.

When you hear me whining about not having enough time to get ready, please remind me of the time I wasted spray painting my pumpkins and sticking jewels onto them.

Orange is not my color, and since Silver Bella is around the corner, I thought it would be fun to have silver, crowned and bejeweled pumpkins by the door next week for my dinner party in honor of my Bella guests.

Whats that fuzz ball in the front?

Thats Sparkle, I am making her hang out with me, even though she’s old and would rather be laying on a pillow thinking about what she’ll be eating next. (sounds like what I’d like to be doing, actually)

Twinkle, my normal buddy, who never leaves my side all day, is on a DATE. I left her at her boyfriend, Teddy’s house while I was out of town and I haven’t picked her up yet.

Hopefully, this is what we’ll be seeing soon, Twinkle with a bunch of little Twinkettes following her around!

Of course, only in my dreams are the puppies rhinestoned and pink….

Did you remember to vote today? I am looking forward to watching John Stewart and Stephen Cobert tonight with their top notch election coverage.

Meeting up with blog Friends at the Big Flea

antiques/junking, jewelry, Moving to DC

By Karla Nathan / November 3, 2008

This trip to Virginia sure has been a fun one! Coincidently, Valita, a friend from Silver Bella last year was going to be in the DC area too. We met up with Robin, a friend I’ve hung out with here before (and who makes the best Play Dough ever), and a new pal, Sue. A non-blog friend wrote to us and was nice enough to take some time away from shopping with her sis to meet up with us too.

We met up at the Big Flea in Chantilly, VA, and although it was more high end than I usually shop, it was fun place to meet and we all managed to find some goodies.

I’m used to paying under 50 cents for vintage greeting cards, but I saw a few that were special enough to be worth the price of 3 for $5 to me.

And of course, I always am on the hunt for old jewels. I found a few, not that there weren’t plenty there, but I limit myself to the $1 price range for old jewelry.

Robin and Sue who have shopped the Big Flea before told us that it is normally 2 buildings full instead of just one, and more bargains can be found.

These little candelabras were a great price, only 50 cents each. Can’t you picture them glittered and sparkly?

I was on the hunt for old mercury glass beads to decorate my bottle brush trees with. The price ranges from booth to booth were really something! I was happy to find three strands in colors I liked, as well as some holiday decor in pretty pastels.

If you ever get an opportunity to get together with blog pals, I highly recommend it! Every time I have met someone whose blog I read, I have had a great time, they are usually people that I have a lot in common with and feel like we are already friends before we even see each other.

I’m really looking forward to having Natasha and Heather as house guests soon. And I am hoping to host a dinner party in their honor the night before we head off to Silver Bella.

Speaking of blog friends, I have been trying to update my blog roll (on my side bar, under "Pretty Places"). I haven’t finished, but have been so busy Leaf Looking, meeting Bloggers, going to movies (Zack and Miri- Kevin Smith always goes too far, but still is funny and I think Seth Rogan is a comic genius), out to dinner, antiquing, and of course watching my shows, (there is no way I can’t spend Sunday night without Vampire Bill) that I haven’t had time to do much to the blog roll like planned.

At least I have space to list more people and promise that I will later on when I can get to it! I may be a TV junkie, but I am also an avid blog reader and my blog roll has never reflected who I actually visit, so I am revamping it as I have time.

Tonight I fly home to my fairy grandbaby, so I’d better go try to smoosh all this junk into my carry on.

PS- I have shut my Etsy shop down until after Silver Bella, it was just too neglected and empty for now. I promise a big restocking and lots of pretties added when I return! Thanks for your support of the shop, I really appreciate it, and HATE to have it looking sad and pitiful, so will open it again when it is worth looking at!!

Leaf Looking

antiques/junking, give away, Moving to DC, Silver Bella

By Karla Nathan / November 2, 2008

Virginia is beautiful this time of year! Actually, it always is, I haven’t seen a season yet that wasn’t pretty here.

We have spent some time in Richmond, so I have been away from the apartment and the computer (I’m too cheap to buy a laptop to take along with me), so I haven’t been able to update or announce October winners till now.

For the main drawing, with the little glittered white pumpkin, linens and a pair of crown earrings, the winner is:

Cammile Fano

And the special Bella additional drawing prize goes to:

Maija Lepore

Thanks to everyone for entering, and don’t worry, there is another drawing this month. It will be for something Christmassy and sparkly and all comments count all month, all posts!

The hat whisperer luck was with me in Richmond. This pink posey bonnet was $4 and included the stand (which I think will be useful to have if I decoupage it with old papers)

The journal/mini ledger was $4, and the aqua floral hat was, yep, you guessed it, $4. And what did the the roll of aqua flocked ribbon cost? Yep, $4.

So, guess how much the two packs of glue on stones and rhinestone buttons were? Sorry, NOT $4, only $3. I almost paid the lady an extra dollar so I could keep the $4 streak going, I was feeling lucky with it.

There is more shopping today, I wonder if there will be hats???

I am meeting some blog friends at the Big Flea in Chantilly this morning, and bundled up some little crown tags made from my new favorite flocked wallpaper to take to them.

I might have gone a bit crazy with the crown stamp. Everything I own will soon be sprouting a crown….

While in Richmond, we took a drive to Vineterra. I must be getting old, because a long drive in the car through changing leaves seemed like a vacation itself. Am I now one of those Geezers and Geezettes who travel through the hills in the fall to be a Leaf Looker?

Well, maybe I am not that bad yet, at the end of this trip, there was wine!

And it was served in the most amazing setting! This is a new operation, kind of a resort/upscale club/ neighborhood, all still under construction.

But what is really cool, is that the club houses and the main buildings are all built from salvaged materials.

Yes, we go to a high class, exclusive place and all I care about are the peeling old bricks.

Well, and the reclaimed lumber and old nails too!

The beams are from 1860, the floors from 1910. Every little detail of this place is full of history. Well, history ripped from some other building, but hey, still really old and really cool. And I love the idea of recycling all the building materials.

Club Corp, the company my husband works for is overseeing the building of a golf course there, and we took a cart out to see how it is progressing. Now, I know and care nothing about golf, (well, I do enjoy and care about my husband’s pay checks from it, since as an artist, I barely have one myself) but as a new Leaf Looker, I sure enjoyed the scenery!

So nice we went there twice

fairies, holiday decor, Moving to DC, Silver Bella, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / October 29, 2008

We love the punkin patch so much, we had to go back for another visit. And I was day dreaming about more jars of the local pumpkin butter, I’d used up what I bought on the last trip to make batches of pumpkin bread.

Sugarwings doesn’t get tired of visiting the pumpkin farm either. She is enthralled by every detail, and we are so enthralled with her that we are happy to sit on the hay wagon and ride it round and round as long as our fairy grandbaby wants to.

Thanks for your interest in the tiaras! I did make more and will have some at Silver Bella.

I should be packing for my trip, I leave for DC tomorrow morning, had Sugarwings all day, ran errands all afternoon, then wrote captions for a story coming out in the next Romantic Country tonight.

Did you see that Fifi was back from France??!! With great photos of her trip and of her patio remodel. She is also asking how readers enjoyed the last issue of Romantic Country. If you read the article Carol and I worked on together, I’d really appreciate you mentioning it to Fifi. It never hurts…. Thanks!!

I am no where near ready for a trip and will probably be doing laundry at midnight. But I did get my early voting done today, Sugarwings went with us and got a fistful of stickers that said "I Voted". She was also telling everyone she saw at the grocery store about it afterwards. But she says "mybomma" instead of Obama.

While I am at our Virginia apartment, I’ll draw the winning names for October and will get the gifts in the mail when I return. you can still enter till the 1st.

Hopefully, I’ll have some down time while there and can update my blog roll too… I’ve been meaning to do that.

I also have a play date while out East! A few blog friends and some fella bellas are going to meet me at the Chantilly Big Flea on Sunday morning. We will be shopping in a pack that day, I can’t wait.

Well, I’m off to do laundry and find something to pack. I tend to spend all of my money on wallpaper and hats, and never have anything decent in the closet. I hate packing.

You know you want one- we all want to be a princess!

fairies, jewelry, Silver Bella

By Karla Nathan / October 28, 2008

So much for being done and packed up and ready to go to Silver Bella— I decided to make some tiaras, so had to unpack the basic crowns that were tagged and ready to sell!

But who can resist those midnight whispers, the ones that call you to the studio with and idea that you can’t ingore, no matter how you try?

I never can. I am weak willed when it comes to giving into the muse. If she calls, I answer, no matter what time of the day or night.

So, there I was, in the middle of the night plucking tiny velvet blooms from my garden of old hats and adding them along with sparkling pretties to these previously packed and tagged and ready to sell tiaras.

I have 2 more to foof up, (one lavender, one Aurora Borealis) . I also still have a couple more to sell pre-foofed, for you to embellish yourself or wear as is for a more sedate sparkle.

If you are attending Silver Bella, you know that a crown is just about required attire! If you don’t have one yet, these are for sale, and I can deliver it to you in person there.

If you are a princess or a queen who is without a crown, but not going to Silver Bella, one can be mailed to you. If you are interested in bedazzling your own head with one of my creations, here is the price list:

Fairy Ballerina – $30

Butterfly- $25

Velvet Floral Wreath- $25

(plus postage, if needed)

See, a dancing fairy on your head can make even a middle aged grammy with no make up on and wearing clothes covered in paint look good. Well, maybe not. But I felt pretty good with it on!

While obeying the muse, I decorated a couple of those bottle brush trees I was irritated with. Heck, their tags had already fallen off, I had to do SOMETHING with them!

Let me know if you’d like to buy the crown you deserve to adorn yourself with! (If you are wondering why the price is so low for an embellished one, I got a REALLY good deal on the basic crowns and I would rather pass on the savings than mark them up so high no one can buy one!)

Proud to be a Mid Westerner!

antiques/junking, Etsy Goodies, give away, Silver Bella, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / October 27, 2008

Sbella_booth_230 Today is a packing and pricing day, the last table top of Silver Bella goodies are going into their boxes! Although, all the tags are falling off the stupid bottle brush trees, how irritating is that? I went with sticky tags on the bottoms, not string tags, because I didn’t want the strings to tangle. Now, I have a pile of loose tags at the bottom of the box.

I’ll have to keep that in mind as I tag the rest of the crap, er, I mean lovely inventory.

I HATE pricing. It is one of the chores that seemed to never end back when I used to host mini flea markets in my yard and chicken coop. For this event, I am doing as many signs as possible, instead of individual tags. I packaged things, like wallpaper journals and millinery flowers with the idea of saving tagging time. I did the same with hand painted charms, tags, vintage greeting cards, and china shard pendants too.

Too bad that idea won’t work for the old Christmas ribbon, some spools are nearly full, others aren’t, so the prices can’t be uniform.

And for small things like this, it is easier to do tags, than to take up space with a sign.

And the decorated bottles are all so different, it just doesn’t work well with them either, they will need to be tagged.

I’ll place a small sign on this basket that says "Embossed and Stamped Tags 3 for $1"

I also have a big picnic basket FULL of odds and ends for $1 each. Doilies, trims, cake decorating tid bits, just a hodge podge of goodies. I’ll set it on the floor because my tables are overflowing.

10′ x 10′ sounds like plenty of space, but I could have used twice that amount. Of course, I also could have been a little smarter and not planned to bring so many cheapo priced things….. and made better use of the space I have…

But- this booth really does represent what I have to sell in my Etsy shop or on my blog and that is what I wanted to accomplish. There will be bargains and surprises and good deals all piled together to dig through. I hope that the booth is enjoyed as much as I have enjoyed putting it together!! And if most shoppers are like me, they will appreciate some good deals and have fun digging through it all.

Dont forget that if you want to win something from my booth, I am having TWO giveaways!

A pair of crown earrings goes to a Bella, and another pair, along with black and white rose linens and a white glittered pumpkin will go to another reader. All you do is leave a comment to enter.

Speaking of Silver Bella vendor night, guess who is going to be there selling after all? Deb of Curious Sofa! Now, that will be a beautiful space to shop in!!!!!!

I am going to be glowing with pride to be part of the Kansas City contingent up in Omaha. With my friend, Gwen, who shops only in France for her wares, Carol the Queen of primitive glamor, and Deb with her unique Curious Sofa style all there and all from KC, those three will be showing off the best that the Midwest has to offer!

Makes me wish I’d gone for a better display instead of just piles of stuff… these three ladies will have the kind of spaces that make you stand at the entance and just say WOW.

Author name: Karla Nathan