cottage – Page 10 – Karla's Cottage

Trying to be creative

Corona virus, cottage, dogs, family, Painting with thread, Ryan

By Karla Nathan / February 4, 2021

The malaise of 2020 is spilling over into 2021 for me. I have made efforts to be creative and busy, but haven’t had any project consume me, like they have in the past.

Lots of embroidery happened, because it’s kind of a mindless task, just to keep my hands busy in front of the TV.

I’ve had some studio time, but it is all a lot of simple projects, like doodling on this tag.

Or trying to make my own dog tags. I have also painted a lot of things, repaired and reorganized. But most were “one of”. Nothing prolific, as I have always been in the past. Typically, if I make something, I can’t stop and next thing you know, there are twenty of them.

I made a scrapbook for Ryan, fairy wings with the grand fairies, and added a vinyl floor to the closet/laundry room.

That was a long delayed job, and has made the floor much warmer.

I even decided that I’d start grooming the dogs myself.

At least the little dogs.

So, I’ve kept busy. I’ve gone for long walks, had socially distant visits with friends, and stayed active. I think the unease and uncertainty in the world because of the virus, and the unimaginable loss of my son who was also one of my best friends has dampened my drive.

We have a camper trip planned, and I hope to clear my mind and refresh my soul with some sea air. When I get back, I’d like to work on reopening my shop. It’s not exactly closed, but it is ignored right now. It would be good for me to revamp and restock for spring.

It has been important to me that I don’t lose myself to the sadness, that I keep crafting, creating, contributing. And while nothing will ever be the same, I am slowly trying to rebuild my world.

It looks like it was a big effort, but this is really just a mini redo

cottage, Hand Painted Furniture

By Karla Nathan / January 24, 2021

When I fell in love with this hutch, it was despite the yellow, goldish color it had been painted. I thought I could live with it as is, but it grated on me, until I finally had to neutralize the piece and make it this classic white.

The original hardware was gorgeous, but too dark for me, so it got painted too.

See what I mean? It is a magnificent hunk of furniture, but just didn’t go with my house as it was. Maybe the tones were more Mediterranean instead of romantic cottage?

Ahhhhhhh, much better!

And a much more simple project than you’d think. I bought a quart of white chalk paint at JoAnne’s with a 50% off coupon. (There was a lot of paint leftover)

No prep needed, I just brushed it on. I didn’t take out drawers or remove hardware, I just carefully painted them in place, watching out for drips as I went along. After painting a drawer, I’d leave it open a crack so it didn’t stick shut.

I considered doing a glaze over all of it to accentuate the carvings and details. Then decided against it, because they showed up nicely in the solid color. Plus, other items in the room were painted that way, and I don’t like things too matchy.

The handles got the treatment, though. They looked odd in plain white, like they were unfinished.

The brass was turning a little green through the white paint and I kind of liked it, but didn’t want too much of it, so I used a clear coat on them, then another coat of white, barely leaving the green patina to peek through.

After that, I brushed on umber paint and wiped it off.

Then the whole cabinet got a satin, water based clear coat. Not wax! That stuff would have been soooooo much work to apply and buff on something like this! The clear poly worked just fine and was done in a fraction of the time.

Chalk paint dries quickly and covers well. It took one coat plus touch ups. The entire project was done in three hours, start to finish.

A cheeseboard with heart

cottage

By Karla Nathan / January 14, 2021

The artist/carpenter who built our dining table and dog crate also made this cheese board for me.

I’m always on the look out for found hearts in nature. This is a log that was in our woodpile. My husband cut slices of it for me, and I set them aside to dry a few months.

The heart isn’t as clear after drying, but it’s still there. With a few additional marks that developed in the wood, I think it looks pretty cool.

A Dog Crate That is a Piece of Furniture

cottage, dogs, Hand Painted Furniture

By Karla Nathan / January 10, 2021

Ta Dah!

The crate is finished and I am thrilled with it.

It’s very spacious inside, actually a bit larger than our wire crate.

And a whole heck of a lot prettier. We keep a crate by the back door so we can send dogs with muddy feet right into it until dry. I was so tired of looking at that eyesore. I tried covering it with a tablecloth, but it just looked bulky.

The crate was exactly across from my seat at the dining table, my view every day when I sat and had my morning coffee. And over dinner.

I was over it.

Still, an ugly view was better than a muddy one that I had to mop up.

We still are using the wire cage until the polyurethane smell is gone, we don’t want to have fumes affecting the dogs. So for now, the wire one is still in the room and a hepa filter is running in the new one for a few weeks.

I think I’ll probably need to keep the metal crate out for a while after the fumes are gone, though. When I ordered this, we hadn’t planned on keeping a puppy. I am sure that no matter how good of a pup little Molly is, she would be tempted to chew on wood if locked inside. It’s probably safer to use it just for the big girls, not the baby.

And look at this!

From my seat at the table, this is what I see- the corner of the cabinet creates the silhouette of a bird!

Do you see it?

The front is a vintage floor grate. The top is from the same tree that that our table is made from. There is a door on each end with four metal medallions from Hobby Lobby as air vents.

I’d been worried about the hardware since there were no flea markets to go to, due to Covid. But I found some vintage styled ones on Amazon that worked out fine.

My dogs have always loved their kennels, I hope they like this one as much as I do.

Christmas decor blended into winter decorating

cottage, Goldendoodle Puppies, Hearth Room, redos

By Karla Nathan / January 8, 2021

It was time to take down my holiday decorations and trees. I didn’t do a lot (for me) this year, mostly trees, pinecones, and lots of lights.

The warm white lights had brought me a lot of joy this season. The first thing I did every single morning after letting the puppy out to potty was to flip all of the power strips on to get that cozy glow going. Molly wakes up way too early and everything is still pitch black and feels very wintery. She is desperate to go tinkle and doesn’t care if I am half awake, she is ready to go.

When she comes back in, I take a few moments to snuggle with her before making coffee and getting on with my day. Typically, I am not an early riser, but we enjoy our quiet mornings together with the lights sparkling in the darkened rooms.

January itself is too stark to go from a house full of festivity to none at all. So the lights above the windows are staying for a while.

Along with our hot tea and cocoa station. It got de-Christmassed, and we have rules about no cocoa parties unless they are near a Christmas tree.

But we have been known to still sip a cup of hot chocolate now and then…

The mercury glass stayed out too. It fit nicely with the holiday, but I think it will also be pretty for the rest of the winter. Anything that is reflective adds light to the dark months.

The Christmas trees had been decorated mostly in pinecones and twinkle lights in honor of a happy day that Ryan and I had together gathering pinecones last year.

After plucking them out of the branches and packing the trees away, I decided to keep the pinecones out for a while. I stuffed newspapers into the matt white pottery and a few mercury glass candle holders, then topped that with the pinecones. Some rosebuds, dried from an arrangement that came after Ryan’s death were put under glass for a hint of faded color.

Swans from Lesa Daily’s A Snowbird’s Song class are on top of the kid’s game and book cabinet. I like their silhouettes in the mirror.

The hutch previously had lots of mini, battery operated LEDs on its shelves. I took them down, but kind of miss them. I might bring a strand back out.

The mantle didn’t get much of a changearoo. I took out the pink shiny brites and left the garland stuffed with hydrangeas and pinecones.

For now, these changes feel right. I have some natural elements from outdoors and mostly neutral, low-color tones with a hint of sparkle throughout. Plus warm throws and lots of extra pillows, for us and the dogs. It always hurts to put the Christmas clutter away, but streamlined, serene surroundings aren’t bad either. I’m spending so much time indoors, it is nice to have the calm decor around me, along with the warmth of the lights that I left in place.

A mini greenhouse gets a mini redo

collections, cottage, redos

By Karla Nathan / January 6, 2021

I’ve had this little terrarium for ages and always thought I’d try to make it look a bit more vintage. (This is the after)

Here is the before.

Then I saw that Hobby Lobby still sells the exact one, and when I noticed it on the shelf, I thought to myself that it really needed a makeover. I guess I’d just gotten used to seeing it as is in my house and had gotten to the point where I probably didn’t see it at all.

In the midst of putting away all of the Christmas stuff (admittedly, there wasn’t much of it this year, but it did take all day), I took a break and repainted this white. I glued a couple of ornamental dodads over the open hearts too.

Looking for found hearts is a hobby of mine, I love seeing them appear in nature. But not so much as cut outs on things in my home, although I do love this old, old, tin trim filled with hearts.

There might have been too much impatience in getting it done, because I had some issues with the glued on pieces. I was trying to paint them while the glue was still wet and at one point, the heavy, wet paint was too much for the gloppy glue and one embellishment slid right off. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, if it had just landed next to the terrarium on the newspaper I was using to protect the table.

Nope. It decided to fling itself away from the newspaper with a hefty bouncing motion and spew minuscule paint drops across my kitchen floor.

Once I finally got it dry, in one piece, and the floor mopped up, I refilled it. I pretty much reused what I’d already had in it before, just rearranged and cleaned it up a little.

It might be a tad too springlike inside for the rest of my winter decor in the room, but I like a splash of spring somewhere in my home. I keep some favorite things in it, porcelain roses broken off of a vase, a sea shell with a glossy pink interior, crystals and pretty rocks I have found on trips.

Oh, and crystal balls, plus some houseplants that are easy to keep alive. And a sweet birdie. I always need little birdies around. I hope she likes her spiffed up, new home.

A Christmas Surprise

cottage, Dew Drop, family, holiday decor, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / December 25, 2020

Merry Christmas!

We had a surprise visitors! Dewdrop and her Daddy hid under our tree on Christmas Eve, Sugarwings and I did not know they’d be here.

It just isn’t Christmas unless Sugarwings’ Daddy falls asleep on the sofa with her on his lap.

She was so happy to have him here.

And this goofball brings joy with her wherever she is.

Everyone was enjoying the surprise.

There was pie baking, cookie decorating, fairy wing creating, and candle pouring throughout the day.

On the day before the night before Christmas, Sugarwings and I were missing our littlest, goofiest fairy. She made some purple wings for her baby sister on craft day, and was sad she wasn’t here to give them to her.

We hadn’t set up the tree in Dewdrop’s bedroom, and I hadn’t gotten our big tree out either. We decided it would cheer us up get the large tree out of the closet after all (at bedtime) and she decorated it with all of Dewdrop’s ornaments so we’d feel close to her.

Then, there was Dewdrop and her daddy, sitting under the that tree the next day!

Typically, I spend hours making sure the tree is perfectly decorated. This is the year, that I discovered that it isn’t the way the tree looks that matters. I have enjoyed my mostly naked trees with just twinkle lights and no ornaments beyond some pine cones for Ryan. And I love this quickly set up tree decorated by one grand fairy with my other grand fairy’s things.

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Free Christmas Decorations

Corona virus, cottage, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / December 22, 2020

I hadn’t planned on doing a lot of decorating this year, and kept the inside of the house mostly just twinkle lights and plain trees with pine cones.

Since our only get togethers with friends can be outdoors and socially distant, and we have been blessed with some nice days to enjoy them, I decided to “spruce” up our yard a little.

Sugarwings took the John Deere Gator back in the woods with her grandfather to trim some trees in the way of the trails out there. I asked them to bring me back some branches. Then stuck the evergreens everywhere.

Even in the patio umbrella stands. And in all of the empty pots. Some, I just laid on the tabletops.

The flower pots are topped off with rocks to keep the pup from digging in them, so the branches are staying pretty good, stuck down in the dirt and wedged between rocks.

Some small branches were put on top of pots and had spray painted pumpkins left from Halloween added over the greens. Plus a little glitter on top of the pumpkins.

The patio itself got a sprinkling of glitter too. It started out as an accident, I was glittering up an ugly sweater and made a mess. It looked good, so I dumped out some more.

There are evergreen branches poking out of every available surface out back, and it not only brightens up a dull, gray, Kansas winter, it smells nice too. They last for at least a month. It probably didn’t even take me a half hour to place branches around the yard, and it sure brightened the area up.

I just hope our weather offers random nice days for get togethers all season, long after the branches are thrown out. With summer behind us and the virus still lingering, we appreciate every opportunity we get to gather (safely) with people we care about.

Hooked on gingerbread houses

celebrations, cottage, family, Food and Drink, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / December 20, 2020

After having so much fun making wooden birdhouses into gingerbread, I just had to make more.

Of course, I tend to go all in with a new craft and flood the market with my creations. But this year, I was making them just for us, so reigned myself back just a little.

And after a decade of making real gingerbread houses that looked like a toddler had done the work, I was excited to be working on one with paint instead of icing. Puffy paint, meant for tee shirts is so much easier to use than those plastic bags of icing that come with the house kits.

Since I was using wood and chipboard, I thought it was important to use cookie colored paint, as much as I like pastels, I wanted it to look as realistic as it could. Plus the village was going into our Cocoa Corner, where our colors were more traditional than my other holiday decor.

Sugarwings has a couple to finish too, and they will be squeezed in when done. There is always room for more!

We have already had to shuffle the area around a little. At first, we were using our tea party cups from Sugarwings’ other grandma who passed away. But with the giant, cocoa bombs we made, we figured we had to get some bigger mugs, so switched the dainty cups for hefty, Santa mugs.

The largest, chipboard house is ideal storage for a ziplock baggie of cocoa bombs. The roof comes off, like a lid and there is plenty of space inside.

When we are ready for our cocoa parties, my grand fairy comes to this buffet to gather up all the supplies and set the table. We have some very strict guidelines for drinking hot chocolate, first and foremost-

Cocoa parties can only occur in front of a lit Christmas tree!

A few more rules-

Tea party rules apply: polite chitchat, best manners, etc.

Watching Christmas shows on the TV while drinking cocoa is encouraged.

The table must have a cloth on it and napkins can be paper, but must be pretty.

Santa hats or antlers need to be on your head.

And some new $6 chair covers too

cottage, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / December 16, 2020

I was so happy with the way the new curtains from Amazon updated and brightened up the hearth room, that I decided I wanted some slip on chair covers too. I already have full skirted ones that I typically cover up my dining room chairs with, but living with a teething puppy made those impractical.

This is the chair in its natural state. Which I like as is, but I do enjoy switching things up, and prefer the colors lighter for winter.

I was tempted to order cream or white covers, but was worried they might be a little transparent and the pattern underneath would show through.

So I ordered this taupe that matches my velvet recliners in the living room. After putting them on, and seeing how nice they were made, I think a white would be fine to try. And at $6 each, I should go ahead and order another set.

Their shade doesn’t really meld with my hutch. But that tone is something that bugs me, anyway. I love the piece and am thrilled to have found it, but it is too yellowey for me, and it is on my list for a redo. (Possibly a pale, pale greige with an umber glaze over it?)

But that will take some mental fortitude that I am not feeling right now.

The slipcovers are stretchy velour, sold as velvet. Which I knew they wouldn’t be. But didn’t care, because they have that velvety feel and seem lush. They probably should’ve been popped in the dryer to fluff out the wrinkles.

Eh. They are good enough, it’s not like I have company coming in the house this season. I will get rid of wrinkles when Corona ends and I am inviting friends over again.