Dew Drop – Page 16 – Karla's Cottage

A Happy and Organic Thanksgiving

celebrations, Dew Drop, family, Food and Drink, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / November 26, 2011

Was your holiday nice? I hope so! Ours was pretty wonderful. I think we had the best turkey dinner ever. My son helped me cook, and it was a lot of work, we went all organic, local, and from scratch. We tried to avoid convenience foods or short cuts. Man, it was tasty! But it did seem like we were in the kitchen non-stop for about 24 hours… Roasting a pumpkin before you can bake the pie isn't the quickest way to fix dinner. And about midnight on Wednesday, I was wondering if if was the dumbest. But those pies and pumpkin cheesecakes were really, really good on Thursday and we were glad we'd stayed up to do it.

Quality ingredients do make a big difference in the end result of the meal though, and cooking side by side with a grown up son is pretty cool too. The whole family pitched in to help, but Sugarwing's Daddy and I were in it for the long haul.

Our fresh, free range turkey was the best ever. I don't know if it was how he cooked it, or if it was the bird itself. We soaked it overnight in a brown sugar/sea salt brine, then he tossed an orange, onion and celery inside the cavity before rubbing it down with a blended slurry of fresh herbs, garlic,olive oil, honey, and S&P, then slow roasting it till it was tender and juicy.

Our local grocery store was selling these herb planters, brimmed with just what a holiday dinner called for. I made good use of them too, stuffing with fresh sage is sooooo good. We used a toasted loaf of whole wheat bread, and added rosemary, thyme, sage, and garlic to the onions and celery that I'd chopped and cooked in veggie broth the night before. We also through in a little olive oil and a cup of chopped kale.

In the past, I don't think I've given kale a chance. But now its a fave. We used dark green, purple, and the pink and white kind in our tossed salad too. Sugarwings and Mr. Finn both helped me with the greens. We tore a head of Romaine up with the kale, and added chopped radishes, pears soaked in lime juice, dried cranberries, sugared pecans, roasted pumpkin seeds, and goat cheese. Letting the kids make the salad themselves and filling the bowl with such pretty colors encouraged them to eat lots of greens (and purples).

The dressing was a half cup of cranberry pomegranite juice, a 1/4 cup of white balsemic vinegar, 1/2 cup of olive oil, S&P, and a tsp of chopped garlic. Fast, simple, and a good compliment to the kale.

To go with all that, we had sauteed fresh green beans with red peppers. And to make sure the meal wasn't too heart healthy, we had a good, gooey, sweet potato and butternut squash casserole that our Gypsy girl made with lots of butter, blueberries, and brown sugar, then topped with marshmallows. I baked the potatoes and squash the night before while the pumpkins were roasting so she just had to work her flavor magic and pop it in the oven to heat up while the turkey was being sliced.

Oh, and of course, there were mashed potatoes too. I try to keep those healthy by using golden potatoes so they look buttery without actually adding any butter. It seems to trick my family. To make them creamy, I use a cup of fat free cottage cheese instead of sour cream.

Dew Drop discovered that she could pull up a chair to the kitchen island and sneak some appetisers while we waited for that turkey to bake. I'd never cooked a fresh, free ranger before and discovered that they seem to take another hour longer than a Butterball turkey does. They also cost about 3 times more.

That part was painful. But I'd already committed to the whole fresh/local food idea before I saw the price tag and it was too late to back out. I'm still cringing at what fresh/local/organic costs for the whole meal compared to canned goods and a frozen bird.

But I'm thankful that I have a houseful of grand kids that think purple kale is an exciting thing to see on their plate. I spend a lot of my life in the kitchen, cooking healthy foods for my family and sometimes I complain about how much time it takes to chop and prepare the meals. But I love it that they care about eating well and appreciate the good food.

Its not cheap, its not fast, but maybe we'll end up with longer lives because of it, and that will make up for all the time I've spent in front of the stove?(of course, I will probably also die poor from paying three times as much for food to get it organic)

And with this great newly remodelled kitchen, how can I complain about spending time in it??? Its a joy to have and to work in!

Don't forget, I'm celebrating the holiday weekend by giving away a couple of my online cuff bracelet tutorials. If you are interesting in winning one, please mention that in a comment to enter. I'll draw winners on Monday.

Born to be loved

Dew Drop, junk, Music

By Karla Nathan / November 20, 2011

Last weekend, we went to see Lucinda Williams, right here in Lawrence. My Handsome Husband and I are big fans and had hoped to get to Dallas to see her but couldn't make it. Last year we caught her show in Chicago, she is worth a trip to go see. We were thrilled to see she was going to be playing in our own town, at Liberty Hall.

Its an old opera house and I always love to go there to see movies. I never tire of the cool paintings on the walls, its a wonderful old building with lots of history.

We went early enough to get some super good seats too. Center front row of the first balcony. Practically looking right into her sad eyes all night.

Here is a little snippet of one of her songs. It wasn't typical lyrics for her, these were rather upbeat. She usually sings about heartbreak, so "You Were Born to be Loved" was a pleasant surprise for me.

That is such a great sentiment. Sometimes it suits junk too, not just lonely people.

I was at Beth's house the other day, after she had been doing some cleaning and downsizing. As we pulled out of her driveway, this little bride's head was peaking out of the trash and I yelled, "Stop the car!" because it looked so funny, I had to take a picture. But when I got closer, I saw that this baby was not trash-worthy and just needed some love. And I was too taken with the doll to get the photo at the right angle that looked so funny from the car, with her head just peeping over the edge of the can.

Sugarwings was thrilled with my save. In her imaginary world, everyone is about to have love's first kiss and become a bride with a long white dress. She is fascinated by weddings and brides, and keeps a photo of my husband and I on our wedding day by her bedside.

There are so many things that I feel like its my job to save and love. Its an obsession. I'd rather alter, restore, or refurbish something that is ruined or just out of date than do practically anything else.

Like this little birdie. It had seen better days, poor guy had ripped wings, missing feathers and a torn up body.

To me, she was just waiting to be saved.

I glued her and her equally tattered sis back together, gave their tummies and cheeks a blush of pink ink, added fresh white feathers, glued mica to their wings and clear glass glitter to the rest of them. The bright orange beek got camouflaged with silver glitter, for a look that will coordinate better with my Christmas tree where they are going to be nesting.

After that, I replaced thier orange plastic eyes with pearl beads on one and black rhinestones on the other.

After that, some jewels and a crown.

There are a few of these crowns for sale in my boutique. They are actually rings and really pretty to wear. I've sold dozens and dozens of them over the years to adorn the fingers of my shoppers.

But, now, I am marking them down to make them a reasonable price to use in projects. I only have a few left, you can find them here if you have a doll or bird or someone else that needs to be shown a little love.

Or if you want one to wear. I wear mine all the time.

ps- there are lots of new things in both shops, and they will be pictured in upcoming posts.

Speaking of sweet things born to be loved, this little fairy is perfect as is.

She had her first birthday last week! At first she was a bit leery of the flames on the cupcakes.

But once she had some help getting them blown out, she was very much into her treat. She got to help a little bit in making the icing for the cupcakes, I had her hold onto the mixer with me.

Before I know it, she'll be big enough to join Sugarwings and me at one of our favorite past time, baking. For now, she's pretty happy with being our taste tester.

Kitty’s Rescue free image to download

Dew Drop, fairies, family, free images, kitties, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / November 14, 2011

Thanks for all your well wishes on the additions to our family!

This book just happened to be sitting on my desk and I thought it was quite appropriate to our situation. Although the little girl clutching the cat at our house isn't quite this lady like. She's every bit as happy to have a kitty to hold and cuddle, though.

This is scanned at high resolution, if you'd like to print it to use in your art, please click on it to open in a larger window, then save that one to your computer and you'll get better results than saving it directly from my blog.

No, we didn't adopt an eight legged cat, Sugarwings is carrying them both.

Everywhere she goes.

And it surprises me that the cats seem to like it. If she sets one down, it will follow her around till it gets picked up again.

Little Dew Drop is not as interested in the kittens, I think she is more of a dog person. She likes the new family members, but is more fascinated by Twinkle and Agnes.

Plus, she has other things on her mind, like learning how to walk and celebrating her first birthday this week!

My goal of adding new stuff to both shops every day kinda slipped from my grasp.

There was no school on Friday and Sugarwings kept me hopping. That and the new kitten/lost kitten/ new kitten/ found kitten excitment that we had. Then, along came the weekend including a concert, a fun craft day with Beth, a big family dinner, and before I knew it, I'd missed three days of getting photos posted in the shops.

But I did get a chance to make some new things!

These decorated 1" wreaths are in the Boutique.

And their ready to be decorated cousins are in my Etsy shop.

There are lots of trees added to the Etsy shop, I got to work on listing some Monday afternoon. The white ones are always popular.

And so are the eensy teensy ones.

There are still a few million trees filling up one of my work tables ready to be sorted and packaged and sold, but at least that is a start.

Some of my paper clay fairies are now in the shop too. This one is made on a vintage cake topper.

And this one sits on a wallpaper covered box.

Her eyes are vintage crystals taken from an old necklace. I pushed them into the wet clay, then added a black sequin crystal pupil, and painted the rest of the eye. They really have a nice sparkle when the light hits them.

I'll leave you with some photos of more new stuff listed. There is more to come too. I'm wrapping up purchases today and will have more photos taken to list goodies after that gets done.(thanks so much to you shoppers out there!) I also need to get pictures of all the new things I've been making. It sure felt good to get some time to sit at the worktable and mess around with all my toys!

Cuff bracelet tutorial

Dew Drop, family, jewelry, Mayara, Sugarwings, Tutorials

By Karla Nathan / November 4, 2011

The cuff bracelet tutorial I promised is up and running. There is a button on my side bar to click on for more info, or click here.

Its a $6 class.

The class is online, in blog form, and holds written instructions lots of photos of the steps that I use to make my own cuffs.

(why on earth don't I ever think of polishing my nails before I do one of these???)

Here is a button for the class if you'd like one.

Its up and running, with no end date. So you can refer back to the blog in the future for a refresher.

I've also made up some kits for sale. You can find them in my Boutique, on this page.

The tutorial is included in the kit price.

There are a few kits listed and I am waiting on a bulk order of the aluminum cuffs to make up a few more. For now, I have the 1-1/2" size, next week I'll also have the 1" cuffs. Today I found some toasty, cream cotton velvet too, won't that be pretty?

And if you aren't in the mood to make your own, I have listed a few that I made myself too.

You can find some here, and some in the Etsy shop, here too. (Yay, I got it reopened! And have big plans to restock it for the holidays)

I've got another half dozen cuffs to photograph and list, but today was busy with putting packages together. I've been in bed with a cruel stomach bug all week and haven't had a chance to get my orders filled. But if you are waiting for a package from me, thanks for your patience, its on its way now!

Little Dew Drop and the rest of these photos don't have anything to do with the stomach bug, I figured they were much prettier pictures than anything along the lines of what I was talking about. Its been a rough week, but with a trip to the ER for fluids to revive me, I am on the mend.

Seems like the worst part of being sick (beyond losing a week of work, when I am trying to fill my shop for the holidays) is finally crawling out of my dark, depressing, sick room to find the house a mess. Now, I'm not blaming my sweet husband, who spent the night sitting up in a stiff chair at the ER while my veins were pumped full of that wonderful IV nectar that made me better, and who watched Sugarwings on his own while I was out of it.

He was just great. He was helpful, he was loving.

But he just doesn't notice messes.

I honestly think he doesn't see them.

So, when I finally was able to get up on two legs and left the bedroom, instead of just crawling from the bed to the bathroom, I was a bit down to see how things had piled up around the cottage.

But the worst part was that I passed the bug on to him and to Ryan and then had to take care of them, while I was still feeling like noodle legged mush myself. Not to mention taking over the care of an energetic Sugarwings for the night.

The two girls were already exposed to the bug last week when their Daddy and his Gypsy were sick, and haven't caught it yet. I'm hoping they don't. Its awful. I feel guilty enough that the guys picked it up while bringing me juice. They were very brave and are paying for it now. So, I'm off to go check on my menfolk, and see if they need a refill.

I hope all is well at your house. WINTER IS COMING (that Game of Thrones quote stays with me) and so are the bugs. Dang, I miss the summer bugs, as much as I hate mosquitos, they are better than the stomach flu!

A Dew Drop Gem

Dew Drop

By Karla Nathan / October 6, 2011

We were lucky enough to have our tiniest fairy here for a sleepover last week. It was an adventure, sleeping in my husband's office with the two little girls and the three dogs, then breakfasting in the studio while we had to stay away from floor coating fumes in the house.

Sugarwings loves my studio and would rather make projects than eat breakfast. And I was trying to juggle getting her ready for school with taking care of her sister.

Now, years ago, I had two kids even closer together in age. Honestly, how can I have forgotten how to do this? For some reason, having two to dress, feed and get out the door seemed like an impossible task.

It took us three hours to get to PreK.

After dropping big sis off (very late) to school, little Dew Drop and I went to Hobby Lobby. Its never too early to teach the love of shopping for a new craft supply to someone.

She seems to "get it".

What she really wanted, though, was a resin Yorky. One of her first words was 'dog', she is quite the animal lover and is crazy about our pups.

We didn't buy the dog, but I did let her see it. The first thing she did was give it a big ole kiss and hug.

Remember how I was struggling to find a fairy name that worked for Mayara? Well, I had to wait until she grew into one, I guess. Lately, I've been calling her Dew Drop.

It has some special meaning to me. When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the morning dew. One day, on the bus, leaving for first grade, I was staring out the window at a particuarly heavy dew that was catching the sun. At a bus stop around the corner from my house, I spied a treasure trove of sparkling jewels in my neighbor's yard. All day at school, it was all I could think about. I couldn't wait to get home again and rush over to Dwight's house and search his front yard for the emeralds I had seen glowing in the grass that morning.

I was so disapointed when Mom called me home for dinner before I'd had a chance to find the gems. I went back for days and days, because I was so certain that there were treasures there, and I just had to keep looking.

Little Mayara is the Dew Drop jewel that I finally found.