Books – Page 17 – Karla's Cottage

grumpy

Books, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), Etsy Goodies, fairies, paintings

By Karla Nathan / August 11, 2008

My birthday book for Sugarwings is not going well today. Very little got finished this afternoon.

The tea party page is done as well as the text page to go next to it.

I painted a light background, scanned it, and then printed it with the words on it.

I’m sure that if I knew how to do digital scrapbook techniques, or just plain old, how to add text to a picture, this part would be easier!

The plan is to scan each page, then print and glue and embellish and sparkle them all up after I make them into a book. That way I can make multiple copies, with no two exactly alike.

But on this page she looks way too grown up. It’s not good enough to use. Luckily, not much time went into this picture, that also might explain why it isn’t very good??

Since painting wasn’t going well today, I took a break to add some things to my Etsy shop.

I seem to have piles and piles of crap, I mean finished art, around the studio that needs to be moved out of here!

So, I listed a few, but never seem to get many listings done.

I wondered if it was because I take so long with the photos, but from the looks of this one, that can’t be it, I didn’t even bother to comb this poor fairy baby’s hair before I took her picture!

Two fairies got listed and are ready to go to new homes.

And I dithered on whether or not I wanted to sell this wallpaper journal. It seemed like it should be a keeper, it is made with such pretty, old papers. But, I can make more if I need one later on.

It could be a scrapbook, or a journal, it is all vintage pages (9" x 11") ready to be filled with whatever the new owner feels like doing. It also comes with a scrap pack of coordinating wallpapers to use for further embellishments.

And lastly, this 8" x 4" tag.

Five items, is that all I listed today???? Geez, I am really not getting much done. I have a goal of 100 items, but have trouble keeping it at 50. And even though sales are not bad (thank you very much!!) they are not the reason I can’t keep up.

It is because it would take me a solid week to list another 50 items to get it up to that point! And I get bored doing it.

Its so much more fun to make things than to try to sell things.

Leelee_book_010 Sorry about the whining. Too much time off coupled with not enough time to finish a project that isn’t going well can do that to a person.

And maybe I miss my buddies who were here all week? It is sad to see them fly back to Florida and California. We’ve been friends since we were 11. Here is a picture of Sandy and I in our 20s, looks like we were hanging out in a bar…. probably were.

Plus, today is my 23rd wedding anniversary, and even though we had a wonderful celebration early, I felt a little lonely today, with Rich out East and me here.

Here we are with the kids that day, and my, we look like kids ourselves!

Doesn’t Sugarwings look like her daddy, my youngest son?

Thanks for listening to me be down a bit. Blogging friends are good to have. I’ll cheer myself up by blog hopping around and seeing all the beautiful eye candy out there on my favorite sites!

Before I go, here are a couple things I added to the August giveaway. A pair of pink vintage earrings and a Victorian calling card to go along with the brooch with the blue stone.

More goodies to come, you deserve it after putting up with my wallowing in self pity tonight!

ps- thanks to all of your kind wishes for my fairy baby. She is doing much better now.

Seeing some more reds and getting an eyeful at the Wakarusa Fest

antiques/junking, Books, family, give away, Sugarwings, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / June 7, 2008

I’m still seeing red! This time, it is tie dye and wild, hippy reds!!

We went to the Wakarusa music festival yesterday, not camping out for 4 days like most festival goers, we just bought a one day pass and took our fairy grand baby out for some good music, sunshine, hula hooping, and dancing. Oh, and FOOD!

I discovered that snow cones are her favorite food on the planet and that she can determinedly try scooping them it with the long plastic straw/spoon, long after the ice has melted away into a puddle of syrup.

Sugarwings traveled in style, in her canopied red wagon, complete with fairy wings on the back.

Sugarwing’s Hippy Chick mommy was one of my favorite things to watch at the fair, she was so graceful and pretty while doing her hula hoop dance.

Can anyone give me an idea on how to load a short video of Sugarwings dancing at the concert?

In the meantime, here is a link to the video on Flickr- its very short if you’d like to watch it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/karlascottage/2561653016/

I’m not a huge concert fan, myself. I typically listen to National Public Radio instead of music, but this festival was more "event" than concert for me and I had a great time.

The lead singer of the Flaming Lips arrived in a giant hamster ball and crowd surfed while bubbles and confetti were shot out from the rainbow colored stage. And for some reason, giant Tele Tubbies danced away on the stage to every song. During one song, naked women from the audience joined in and danced with the Tele Tubbies. Now that isn’t something you see everyday!

Another thing you don’t see very often is me out garage sailing and forgetting to take my purse!

I didn’t realize until I got all the way across town this morning, that I didn’t have it with me. I guess I was beat from the late night at the Wakarusa fest and wasn’t thinking clearly.

So, I dug into my ashtray where I keep my emergency frozen custard money, and challenged myself to a morning of garage sailing on $8.75.

Not only did I do fine with a limited budget, I came home with change!

Not enough to stop for frozen custard, though.

I bought:

*3 hand made lawn baby gowns

* a delicate embroidered baby’s pillow case

* sweet little pink booties

* a small, old bottle with a glass stopper

* a tiny wooden doll to fix up for Bethany’s art show

* and this cute little child’s toy hutch to fix up for Sugarwings.

I promised that my June giveaway would be garage sale finds that I get this month. So, here is the first of the batch, one of the lovely, old baby gowns I picked up today.

Check back to see what gets added as the month goes by!

And leave a comment, on any post all month to enter, as often as you’d wish.

One more red, and some thank yous- Sarah, thanks for the "Seeing Red" week, it was a fun challenge.

Thanks to Rhondi for belatedly adding me to her porch party. I had been left off the links and thought I must smell bad or something, because I seem to be getting left off of party links lately!! She was kind enough to add me in to the party today. Even though, everyone was showing beautiful porch pics and all I had was a burr covered dog in a gazebo.

And thanks to everyone who inquired about my Friday Flea Market items in the last post, and to those of you who bought some pretties!

The table cloth and some hand made vintage wallpaper books are still available.

Here is what the covers look like, I was feeling Flocky when I made them!

Sugarwing Themed gifts (the best kind of sweetness!)

antiques/junking, Books, Moving to DC, Sugarwings, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / April 28, 2008

I just got home from our East coast apartment, and look what was waiting for me in the giant, overflowing basket of mail that came while I was away!

Talented Miss Lori Karla sent this along with her Card for Caroline as a random act of kindness.

Isn’t it the cutest? Such a perfect collage for this picture of my fairy grand baby.

And lucky me, how scrumptious is this???

My Centreville, VA blog pal, Robin made this frame from an old clock for my birthday.

We met up for coffee, the she offered to take me to own of her thrift store faves. (well, maybe I coerced her a bit)

I bought a cart load of goods for $13.90, between that trip and my Leesburg shopping adventure, I completely filled an extra suitcase for the trip home.

These two ladies’ creations sure are special to me. Not only do they involve pictures of my sweet little Sugarwings, they are such thoughtful and talent filled works of art.

I just love ’em to pieces!

Not everything is unpacked yet from my trip. Instead of putting away suitcases, I went through the cards for Caroline that came in the mail, and I have to tell you, there are some beauties there!

I’ll get organized and photograph them soon, and have a whole post devoted to just that, along with the list of updated names.

For now, I’ll show you a couple of pictures of the book I made in Debbie Shue’s class on Saturday.

The flowers on the cover are from some of my souvenir hats I purchased on my shopping day with Debbie.

She furnished rub ons and stickers, but I ended up doing doodles and added glitter instead of using them.

Debbie had a great kit with all the papers cut and ready to go. The whole book was assembled in the 2 hour class (that is impressive, that she can time it so perfectly and know just what to show everyone)

I changed mine a bit, and tried to make it part art journal/part scrapbook. I also purchased some Glimmer Mist and tried that for the first time.

I have to tell you, that stuff is FUN! I bought Robin’s Egg and Pineapple and plan on getting a lot more colors.

Don’t forget you can still enter my giveaway for this month.

EVERY COMMENT IS ENTERED for the entire month.

And all comments until May 5th are entered into my special 50th birthday celebration giveaway.

I’m a crappy little crafter today

Books, Etsy Goodies, holiday decor, swaps, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / February 29, 2008

Beth and I had a fun but frustrating craft day at her house yesterday. Well, I guess I should speak for myself, she was on a roll and doing fine. I, on the other hand was messing everything up, and at one point, said "I am a crappy little crafter today!" And for some reason, that gave us the giggles. Whats a craft day without giggles?

I tried to do a St Pat’s tag for my swap using a rainbow theme. It looked like a Jamaican preschool project.

I gave up on the rainbow colors and stuck with what I knew I could handle. But that wasn’t my only issue. Everything I did, I had to redo.

These tags somehow ended up finished and not horrid after all, but there was a lot of ripping, replacing, and complaining while doing them.

These are for my St Pats Day Two Tag Swap. I will extend the deadline till March 7th if you still want to get in on it. Email me if you do! All you need to make are two tags, and you get two other people’s tags back.

Well, hopefully. I screwed up on Phyllis’s Sweet Treats and Roses Swap and sent her own tag back to her on the recipe book!!

She is in my St Pats swap, so I will make an extra tag to add for her to make up for it.

While at Beth’s I decorated these two old green bottles. And yes, there were some issues as I worked on these too. It simply wasn’t t an easy day for me.

I was smart enough at this point, to use my text from an old book about rainbows, but not try to add rainbow colors after the tag fiasco.

I listed both of these bottles on Etsy this morning, if you are interested in either.

The small one has buttons and a pretty little Made In Japan glass cameo in green on it too.

I had forgotten all about these cameos I had. I used to add them to charm bracelets and make earrings from them.

At one time, I had tons of them. Now, I am down to a couple handfuls. I traded a few to Beth for some of her white, (sorted and cleaned, which is really nice!) vintage buttons.

Notice the nut cups? Beth wants to do a challenge- "what do you do with a nut cup?" Of course, you can always put a nut in it, like she did. I think that if she is going to make herself a hat from it, she should add some old millinery flowers at least.

Look at what found! THE nicest, old wallpaper book I have ever seen. Perfect condition! I just don’t know if I can cut it up and use it, the pages are so pristine. And the book itself is giant! (and heavy)

This picture is on the inside cover, she looks pretty high fa-luting, huh? I’d say this was a high dollar wallpaper book from the looks of it, pretty classy.

And unique too, this metallic penguin paper isn’t typical of what I usually see around.

Another reason to not cut into it is that the designs are all very large. Small patterns are better for collage work. These are beautiful backgrounds, I might just save the book to use as a photo back drop.

What a lucky find! I like flipping through it as if it were a magazine. And the cost was reasonable, only about $20, it cost more than that to ship it! I think the seller should have used book rate, but I was so happy to get my greedy little hands on the book, I didn’t care.

Speaking of spending money on whims, I need to get back to my stairway redo. Time to pickup Sugarwing’s daddy so he can help me pull off the carpet and see just how hard (and expensive) this task is going to be to complete!

Obsession trumps Phobia

antiques/junking, Books, give away, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / February 27, 2008

Thanks so much to all of you who took the time to comment on my birdhouse decor post Monday. I always appreciate hearing from you.

When I wrote the how-to’s I knew I couldn’t exactly tell anyone how to do the decorating of their bird house, that is up to an individual artist’s taste. I just wanted to give you some background tips, I hope they were helpful.

The winner of this little house is Bethany. She was chosen from comments left on that posting only. Comments from every single post this month (including that one) count toward my February giveaway.

I hope that Beth and I get a good turn out for our "What do you LOVE about your birdie’s home?" party (otherwise known as "Bling your Birdhouse Day")on Thursday, March 27th, I can’t wait to see all the pretty birdhouses out there. To me, birdhouses are such a symbol of springtime coming. And I am certainly ready for a shot of springtime!

Today, I am painting my stairway. Remember how I was entranced by the wallpaper risers I saw on a staircase in Virginia and decided I HAD to have one like that?

Of course, I decided to redo the ceiling and walls since I am ripping out the carpet, because one redo always leads to another.

I hired a friend to come and help today because I am too short and too afraid of heights to reach the ceiling in the stairwell, but she came down with the flu. And being me, with my obsession, I simply couldn’t wait till she was better, so I did it anyway. By myself- quaking with dizzy fear every time I had to stretch out to reach a corner of the ceiling, too impatient to wait for a nice tall helper.

But, by using the same pale pink color on the ceiling as the walls, I didn’t have to cut in with a brush- no way I could reach to do that. And with a long handle on my roller, I was able to reach as much as I could.

I’ll show some after pictures this weekend after my son helps me redo the stairs. Now, if he comes down with the flu too, will I be able to wait?? Nope, I’ll drag the power saws out and try to keep all my fingers out of the way.

I truly hate heights and today’s project was stressful. So I took a break to get out side into the fresh air and shopped downtown a bit. It was actually sun-shiny and bright, no wind, no snow, no rain!!!

I found this little French Grammer book from 1927 at the Goodwill store across the street from Home Depot where I had to stop for more paint.

Then I hit two antique malls downtown Lawrence and found a bonanza of hats!

I always feel so lucky to find pink and white hats at affordable prices. And even luckier when they have roses on them!

This beautiful bauble is missing a couple stones, but imagine it glued to a box covered in pretty vintage wallpaper, with a spray of millinery flowers over the missing stones!

But the best thing I found today on my $50 spending spree during the one hour break that I took from dangling over the stairwell to paint a ceiling?

A vintage Easter dress for Sugarwings!!!!

Dotted swiss dappled with rose buds, with a frilly petticoat and a matching head band for only $20 all wrapped up into a dainty little size two frilly package just meant for my fairy grand baby to look adorable in.

She might just have to wear it every time she comes over here to play, not just save it for Easter.

How cute is she going to be in this?? And she LOVES dress up. I think she’ll be excited to see this. I certainly was!

Now, if I could just find a matching dress for Sugarwing’s Cuddly Cousin, they’d be pretty cute doing their piano duets for the family.

We were having a birthday party for my neice this weekend, and these two were the evening’s entertainment. What’s more fun to watch than a couple of smiling baby girls who want to put on a show?

I did some short cut cake decorating for the party. Wal-Mart, (of all places! You don’t expect to find lots of cuteness there. ) had these little pink puppy cakes for $3 each.

I baked a layer cake, iced it in chocolate, plopped a puppy in the center of it, then wrote her name in white icing.

I took my new favorite snack, Strawberry Whoppers, and added some along with more white icing around the base of the cake and put the rest of the Whoppers in a dish next to a glass filled with horns.

My Sissy made these pretty, glittery pink birds for me for Christmas and I left them up for Valentines day. Then for Nicoles birthday party, and now I think they’ll be up till Easter. I’m sure I’ll think of another reason to leave them up, I enjoy having them there.

I hung some party hats that matched the horns (bags of 6 for a dollar at Dollar Tree) and filled them with dried roses, then hung a couple of my hand made tussie mussies up with them. Simple and easy decorations for a simple party.

We set out pizza toppings, small Bobboli crusts and everyone fixed their own dinner, not too much work for me at all. I was able to relax and enjoy the show that the little ones were putting on for us over at the piano.

I love to be able to kick back and enjoy my guests and not have things too fussy!

12 hours, 3 trips to Office Depot, one to Hancocks, some dried out salmon, and a box of cookies later….

Books, give away, swaps, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / February 2, 2008

We made it! Our Sweet Treats and Roses Recipe Swap books are DONE.

Not that it was easy. We started with a Cropadile and ribbon, thinking that would be fine.

It wasn’t.

After an hour, we had two books done!

I thought I’d resort to the binding machine. The box said that the binder would hold up to 90 pages, and we had 42, but they were thick, so the binder was too small.

So- off I run to Office Depot to get larger binders. And they didn’t fit my binding machine!

At that point, we took a lunch break. I made marinated salmon, Kansas City strip steaks, sweet potatoes and Yukon gold potatoes and salad with pears and pecans.

I was side tracked too much and the food was dried out. I should have paid more attention.

But we came up with a plan while eating! So, off I go again to Office Depot, this time to get a 2 hole punch and then to Hancock Fabrics for BIG needles.

Jen (one of my friends who is in the swap with us and who helped today) said to try a big needle to get the ribbons through the holes.

Perfect! We got going on a roll and just a few hours later (well maybe about 6 hours) we had all the books assembled.

The participants took so much time and care with their pages! All were lovely as can be.

My Silver Bella Pal, Heather Bullard even sent her postage money beautifully wrapped! As well as including Starbucks gift cards for Beth and I.

Our swappers inundated us with treats! Rachael provided much needed carmel chocolate cookies from New Zealand that gave us the energy to keep punching holes and threading ribbons! And gracious Mrs. Staggs sent the prettily wrapped rose patterned cup and saucer filled with chocolate kisses! I could just KISS her ! (I am quite devoted to chocolate)

I have already shown you some of the gifts that people sent earlier, including Karlas’ fairy doll and puppy dog for Sugarwings. Well, she also sent along these Valentines that she made! Sugarwings for me and Milo for Beth.

I think I will add mine to my scrap book. It will make a lovely page.

I am totally and completely overwhelmed and surprised by the gifts we received along with the recipe cards! As Sugarwings says all the time, "OH MY"!

I don’t even know where to start. Tags, candles, candies, silk ribbons, ephemera, hand made soap, sachets, note cards, lotions, treats, wallpaper, and more.

Double "OH MY"!!

Look at how beautiful it all is together too.

I’ll be using all the tags in my scrapbook filled with pictures of the fairy grand baby. And I’ll be gobbling down that candy!

Thanks so much, Sandy, Jennifer, Joy, Lena, Karen, Heather B., Karin, Amy, Sissy, Deb, Heather K., Terri, Rachael, Amy W., Kathy, Ele, Sarah, Jessi, Tamy, Lee, Mahala, and Betty. Oh man, I hope I didn’t leave anyone out, everything is sooooooo lovely. And over the top. I feel like it is Christmas again!

A complete list of all the participants in our swap is on this post.

And please visit the Flickr site that has pictures of pages and covers to see more. I will be adding to it later on.

This pretty pile of loot is all from that friendly and fun, Jessi. She went in for surgery today, if you get a chance, go by and wish her well.

I met her at Silver Bella,and I can tell you, that girl is a bundle of energy, I doubt if she will be kept down long!

Here they are, FORTY TWO hand made books. And they only took about 12 hours. Well, for our part today, at least. So many people worked so hard to do their share to make these beauties and I appreciate it all so much.

No two are alike, each one is a joy to flip through.

My own book has a cover by Beth and a tag by Mrs. Staggs.

This page is by my friend, Jen, who came up with the brilliant idea to use a big needle to get the freaking ribbon through all the holes instead of us cussing as we tried to pinch it through by hand.

I was so pleased to see the variety that came in, but to also see how well they all fit together when assembled.

The book has a nice flow to it.

Some people did the backs of the pages too. Some embellished each page by hand. There was a nice mix of styles and designs, to all pull together for a unique and lovely finished product.

Yes, I know I am gushing! But I really am thrilled with it.

Thanks so much to everyone who created part of this. I can’t wait for the next swap! I thought I was hooked on swaps before, now I am hooked on hosting them! What a blast!

ps- my January giveaway winner is:

Cheryl

Thank you all for your comments, each was entered. Today starts a new giveaway!

Sweet Treats and Roses- a Valentine’s Swap coming up

Books, Food and Drink, holiday decor, swaps, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / December 14, 2007

Thank you all so much, for participating in our "What do you LOVE about your holiday home?" party!!

Wow, it was quite the tour of homes. I loved getting a peek into the creative and colorful as well as the traditional and charming decor that you all shared.

I am blown away by the beauty and the response for the get together!

I’ll continue to link as many people who want to join until Christmas. So keep checking back, and take your time looking through a few particpant’s homes here and there for a taste of holiday cheer throughout the season!

I’ll announce my drawing winners tomorrow- for today I have a special announcement.

As Beth and I were hanging out and making things yesterday ( I made this banner), we decided to host a swap!

I LOVE blog swaps!!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them!!

So, what would be more fitting than hosting one that is full of Valentine LOVE?

Yes, I know it is really early, to be thinking about, it isn’t even Christmas yet! Am I as bad as Wal-Mart, having the next holiday out on display before this one is even over??

There’s no hurry, sign up is until Jan. 2, 200EIGHT.

We were just too excited about our idea to wait till later to tell you about it.

These photos are a hint of what is to come.

The swap involves you making photo copies of a decorated dessert recipe and Beth and I making covers for them and assembling the cook books.

So, yesterday, we made up a few sample covers to show you.

These first two are mine. All will have a rose theme, but no two will be alike.

All will be made with lots of vintagey goodness to go along with your yummy recipes.

Here is one that Beth made.

How pretty is that???

We will ask that along with your copies (color on card stock) of your treats, you send in a rose themed decorated tag, (one original) that we will tie onto another swapper’s cook book after we add the cover and assemble it.

And look at this one from Beth! I am looking forward to getting one of her covers, that is for sure.

I will be in DC setting up my part time apartment there after the holidays, so please RSVP to Beth at her blog, Gathering Dust.

She and I will be sharing hostessing duties, and you are lucky about that, because she is very organized and I am not. She’ll make sure that the books all get the right amount of pages and get mailed to the right addresses. And are on time.

So, please contact the detail oriented one of our group to sign up.

And speaking of details, here is what she wrote up for us- the Swap Rules are:

Karla & Beth’s Roses and Sweet Treat

Cook Book Recipe Swap

Put your favorite sweet treat recipe on a 5 ½” x 8 ½” piece of paper turned vertically, and decorate the page. (5 ½” x 8 ½” is half a regular sheet of paper.)

Make as many copies as there are swap participants- we’ll let you know the number when the sign ups are complete.

Also make a tag (approx 2” x 4”) decorated in some way with roses.

Send to Karla and Beth. They will assemble the recipes into a “Sweet Treats” Cookbook. Each cookbook will have a unique cover, handmade by Karla or Beth, and a tag decorated by another swap player.

The Details

Recipe Card– 5 ¼” x 8” with the recipe vertical. The books will be bound on the top, so leave at least a 1” margin for binding. The copies should be well made, in color and on card stock.

Sign Up Date- Sign up by emailing Beth, using the email link on the upper left side of her blog. The deadline is Jan 2. We’ll limit the number of players to 40.

On Jan 3, we’ll send a confirmation email to all participants letting them know how many copies to make. (To save on copy costs, you can print 2 per page, and cut the paper in half before sending to us.)

Receive by Date – We’ll need to RECEIVE your copies by January 20^th so we have time to make the covers and assemble them.

Cost- The cost for a padded envelope, mailing and materials is $5. Please include the $5 with your copies and tag.

What You’ll Get

A Sweet Treat Recipe Book with a one of a kind handmade rose themed cover created by Karla or Beth, decorated with a tag from another player. We’ll mail the books by Feb 7, so you’ll have them in time to make sweet treats for Valentine’s Day.

Can you imagine how cool the individual pages will be from all those great artistic crafters out there in blog land?????? I can’t wait to see what you all send in for this!

Here is the button for the swap:

PS- thanks for your interest, we are full now! And we have GREAT players!! thanks to all of them, can’t wait to see what they make!

Can there be TOO Many Roses? and a Temporary Hobby comes to an end.

antiques/junking, Books, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), Etsy Goodies, fairies, holiday decor, how to's, magazine pictures or articles, paintings, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / October 4, 2007

Do you ever do a project that you put some time into, but it was still a wasted effort?

I painted this floral on the back of a linoleum scrap to make a rug. I’ve done this many times, it is a great way to make a cheap rug that is durable. (I have a stone patterned one in my office from a post a few days ago)

For some reason, this linoleum curls up on the edges, and will not lay flat, no matter what I try to do to flatten it. Guess I should have made sure it was going to be flat before I painted it, huh? Well there goes $10 in supplies and an hour of my time!

On a happier note, look at my new frying pan!!!

I got it for $1 at an estate sale last Saturday! It is a good, well made and well loved pan, and has a lot of use left in it- and it is PINK!!!

Carole sent little Sugarwings this book for her first birthday, and I promptly fell in love with Tasha Tudor. How can I have gone almost 50 years without noticing her work before?

I love her style and thought I would "adopt" it for a series of Christmas ornaments.

Generous Carole, is having back surgery tomorrow, please drop by to wish her well if you can. As a person with a bad back, I know how emotionally and physically draining that can be. I’ve had my share of back surgeries!

I only got a couple more ornaments painted yesterday,but they are not Tasha Tudor inspired, just my regular roses.

I also used two of my hand painted rose medallions (available on Etsy) to make a folder from one of my favorite vintage wallpapers. I’ll stuff it with Cottage Collage Kit vintage goodness and have it offered on Etsy too. (This is the same pattern as the ones that will be featured in Somerset Living – yippee- love that magazine!!)

I purchased these unfinished wood frames at Hobby Lobby after the 4th of July for under 50 cents each. I thought they could be Shabby Chic Christmas style instead of Independence Day with a few changes.

This one has a simple and sweet border of barely-there glitter and the roses are painted onto green sheet music, then coated with paper glaze, for a sheen.

the second one got a gloriously gaudy border with a heavier application of glitter, and a small silver star with a vintage rose bit of jewelry added to it at the top.

These roses are painted onto gold and white old wallpaper, but I got carried away and the paper doesn’t even show.

Are you all rosed-out at this point? I did have quite the rose painting day, yesterday between running errands (20 minutes to wait for a prescription at Wal-Mart????).

My Sissy gave me this print as part of the Swap we did in August. See the little Dorkie in it at the girl’s feet??

I decided to make the little girl in the picture into a fairy, by painting on some wings and antennas. (Although,if she wants to put her pretty bonnet back on now, the antenna might get in the way.)

To make the paint look like it belonged to the print, I used a crackle glaze over the whole picture after the paint dried, then when that dried well, I wiped a dark umber glaze into the cracks.

I used old ribbon and a fairy charm to hang it.

I covered the mat in the same vintage wallpaper I had happened to have laying on the craft table from making the folder (some decisions are best left to chance, I move quicker that way!) I used my stardust Gelly pen to outline the roses in the paper and give it some sparkle.

The inside edge of the mat is covered with seam binding ribbon and the old pink velvet is glued down then old earring are glued over that. I tore a chunk of flowers and velvet off a lovley old hat and added that at the bottom for extra foof.

Can you see the bottom of the painted wreath it is hanging from? I painted that on my closet door and hang little pretties from it sometimes. Others, I just leave it as a plain grapevine wreath.

And speaking of grapevine wreaths- I have finished my "temporary hobby" of making wreaths.

This is my 4th and final wreath. The rest of the 25 cent silk flowers will just go into vases. I did enjoy doing these few wreaths, but decided it just isn’t for me.

I was just making wreaths to get them done and over with, life is too short to make things because you feel like you have to.

By the way, in case you don’t know, if you leave a comment you are entered into October’s Giveaway Drawing.

Also, I am at 190 posts! I’ll have a special drawing for #200 and giveaway a gift then too!

A flowery guest, some flowers I painted, and second thoughts

antiques/junking, Books, Etsy Goodies, paintings

By Karla Nathan / September 3, 2007

I hope everyone had a lovely Labor Day weekend? We spent a lot of it boating, and I just had to show you this fashionable young guest, Katie, who came along today for her first boat ride.

Everyone brought great food for a pitch in picnic and the lake water temperature was perfect. I spent a lazy afternoon floating around and stuffing chocolate cake and pasta salad in my mouth.

Why does food taste so much better outdoors???

Before boating, I did manage to get some work in. I packed up goods that sold in Etsy and have them ready to mail, then painted a lot of white base coats on things I had lying around waiting to be spruced up.

This was a too shiny brass piece, isn’t the paint and umber glaze an improvement?

I also painted two of these buckets that I bought at Goodwill. They were plain galvanized tin, with the embossed hearts, I painted them white after priming them and adding a crackle spray coat.

After adding the hand painted roses, I glazed over the buckets with umber glaze. When it was wiped off, the crackled areas showed up pretty.

This isn’t a project I did today, but I found it today! It was packed away and I forgot I had it. This is a mirror that I sanded the back off of in a spot, and added some vintage rose paper to, so that it peeks through the hole. I added a wired ribbon and one of my vast collection of millinery flowers, and its done.

While I was painting roses on buckets, I decided to paint more wallpaper medallions.

The rest of the day involved cooking and cleaning, not nearly as much fun as creating or boating.

I did take some time to look through this book that I purchased at the flea market this week.

I bought it because the font was pretty, the words were French and the pages were old. I want to use it as wall paper on the wall behind my couch.

I thought I could frame the illustrations, and glue the text to the wall.

But after examining it, I think it just might be too nice to tear up. What do you think? The only date I could find in it is an inscription in the front that says

"Edward Breck With love to Papa Chele from Nell. Christmas 1928"

It is a soft cover book and the front is torn loose a bit.

The illustrations are on a tissue paper and are simply laying in the book, not glued down. They are wonderful, but I keep going back and forth about my original plan, I wonder if I should just salvage the lovely pictures and make use of the rest of the book, or is this book worth something? I paid $20 for it myself.

Does anyone know about old books and have any advice?

Simple Scrap Booking and a Simply Beautiful Book

Books, fairies, family, Hand Painted Furniture, Sugarwings, swaps, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / August 18, 2007

g Today is Sugarwings birthday party, and I have been finishing up some gifts for her.

She has always loved the toy piano at my house, so I painted a fairy on it for her and am sending it home with her to play with there. I have found another one to fix up to keep here.

One more spray of clear coat and her gifts are ready to go.

Doesn’t every little girl need a "just her size" rocking chair? This one has a flock of butterflies painted on it.

I also did some scrap booking today. Those pre-made books by K& Company are the best! I love those small color coordinated books to make mini scrapbooks as gifts, or for special occasions.

This one is a Grandma’s book for my sister-in-law with pictures of her daughter and baby Madison.

I used another of these ready to go scrapbooks to fill with pictures of our family reunion this summer. Here is baby Madison again in the book I made for myself, with her 5 week old cousin, Rosebud (Sydnee).

And of course, every one of Sugarwing’s FIRSTS gets documented by her Grandmama. Here she is at her first carnival during our trip to Iowa.

I keep these books pretty simple and use a lot of stickers, and stock papers. I use a few vintagey doodads here and there, but mostly, these books are quick and easy. Basically, I want to get my photos into them while the memories are still fresh and I am excited about the pictures. If I let them pile up, who knows if I will ever get them into a book??

This pile of pink and green sweetness is my treat from the Christmas in July Swap hosted by Angelina . These pretties came from Sonya and are all cute as can be. I have a feeling some will make it into my scrap booking, I like using cards and tags that I receive as gifts in my books.

Sugarwings got something in the mail today too!

This beautiful book by Tasha Tudor was a gift from Carole ! If you read her blog, you already know she has a big heart.

Time to get to the birthday party. I’m off to celebrate our VERY special occasion!

Remember to leave a comment if you want to enter the giveaway for August.