fairies – Page 11 – Karla's Cottage

Fairies and friends will always cheer you up

Books, fairies, Tutorials, vintage paper/collage art, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / August 29, 2013

I've been fairying it up around here. I draw these little girls onto plain paper, then cut them out to use as patterns to use on vintage text and wallpaper. After they are assembled and glued to a background, I embellish them with some millinery flowers.

This one is in a very old metal frame.

This one lives in a painted and distressed,wooden frame that I lined with rose patterned wallpaper.

At the bottom of the frame, I glued a branch of little blooms and used that to hang some butterfly charms on.

At first, I'd made the heads from text too, but I missed having a facial expression, so I cut out new heads from the border of the text and used markers to add a sweet, little face.

Both of these will be added to the Boutique. That is, if I ever get around to adding anything to that poor, neglected little shop again…. If you are interested in either for $35, you can send me an email at: Karlanathan@sbcglobal.net

This sprite is one that I am keeping for myself, I've added her to a book that Beth made for me.

Don't you love the binding on it? She knew I was having some personal troubles and made the journal for me to fill up as a distraction. Plus, she listens to my complaints. Now, that is a friend.

Between poor Ry losing his job (rather unfairly) and the hours I've spent trying to help him find another, worries about this and that, as well as feeling crappy, I'm afraid I've been a bit cranky. I don't even know why she is still my friend, all she ever hears from me are complaints.

Ry has some interviews, I've been to the Dr. and have treatment now for esophagitis (from swallowing a heavy, string wrapped around a grilled tenderloin and scratching my throat, I thought it was gristle and tried to be polite by not spitting it out, since we were at a friend's house for a dinner party), and the other problems? Well, things work out somehow, don't they?

It's going to be fun filling up this journal with doodles, and doodads, and dwaddles. Getting creative again has made me feel better already!

One of the patterns I'd made for these kids was lying on my desk and it reminded me of a shadow, so I added it to the next page of the journal.

This fairy is a new creation too.

She and this angel have been added to the Mini Dress Form tutorial, with some simple how tos to embellish the basic forms that are taught there. If you have already purchased the class, these are a bonus and you will find them under "fairy" and "angel" in the category list on the side bar of the blog.

If you'd like to join the class, you can do that here.

PS-Leave a comment on this post, if you would like to enter my two giveaways. I'm away at the moment, but will draw names after Labor Day weekend

A grand weekend filled with magic

Dew Drop, fairies, family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / August 20, 2013

The Summer of Whammy is coming to a close, but we sure made the most of it while we could. Sugarwings is back in school, now a first grader, missing a front tooth. I was lucky to be able to take off and enjoy her last few months of being a little kid.

We had our fairies for a whole weekend and took them for a couple of outings. One was the local county fair, which we happened to hit about 2pm on a Saturday and the timing was perfect. Not a line in sight.

We bought wrist bands for unlimited rides and let them run back and forth from one to the other, some times, they were the only kids on one of the rides.

But the big fave of the day were the honies. Which is what Dewdrop calls her true loves, My Little Ponies. She could have went round and round for hours on the horses. She was a little disappointed that they weren't pink (the best color in the universe, according to these two girls), so I adjusted her steed a little on Picmonkey and printed it for her.

She was thrilled.

Sugarwings' pony was a little too dark to change. But when I told her that hers was chocolate and her sis's was strawberry, she was fine about it.

There were animals to feed, things to ride, and all sorts of fun to be had.

Prizes were won too. Sugarwings chose this little pink fish from the one point pile, even though she had five points to cash in at the duck pond game. Sometimes, it's not the size of the prize that counts. And you can't beat a pink Nemo. It was a happy choice, even though it wasn't a quick one… Important choices like that are too big to rush.

(look at the sign behind her. "LOVE"!)

With all the activities we have done with these two this summer, we seemed to have shown up places when no one else was around. Our timing was ideal everywhere we went from the zoo, to movies, restaurants, carnivals. No lines, no waits, in and out easily. And we were smart enough to enjoy the time playing while all was quiet and happily left when the crowds came along.

There must have been magic in the air for our outings to have gone so perfectly.

Or faith, hope, and pixie dust, as Tinker Bell says.

Ideal weather too, we couldn't have asked for a nicer summer. There wasn't a hot, sweaty, rainy, impatient, or crowded time on any of our days out.

Speaking of magic, this video magically appeared on my camera! I was taking photos all weekend, not video. All of the still shots turned out fine, just as I had taken them. Along with this little video collage of our time at the carnival.

Nothing else from the weekend was on the video, and no photographs were missing. How odd. But how nice! I've enjoyed watching it, especially knowing that it was put on my camera by sprites and I had nothing to do with filming it!

A fairy play room part 3, a hand painted mermaid bed, with no sanding

cottage, fairies, Hand painted, Hand Painted Furniture, how to's

By Karla Nathan / July 31, 2013

As I was telling you last time, we did a few changes in the fairy grand daughters' room. And of course, one change leads to another. A fixed up area makes its surrounding areas look left out and forgotten.

Sugarwings loved that we were redoing her room, but as she looked around, she said, it would be nice to have a pink bed. And pink curtains.

Well, I think I have some sheer pink curtains packed aways somewhere, I'll need to dig those out. But for now, I've been redoing her bed.

Very few things in my home are brand new. But sometimes when you need something, you need it now, and don't have a few months to find the perfect vintage piece. So, we bought this bed for our little fairy when she outgrew her tiny bed, and had declared herself too big to sleep there anymore.

Little did I know, she was just making a play to sleep downstairs on the sofa… and didn't sleep in her new bed for a year after I got it. I guess I could have searched for the perfect vintage piece after all.

Anyway, it was creamy white and was fine, but not to the taste of Sugarwings, who thinks the entire world should be pink and has taught Dewdrop to ask for pink in everything too.

First step, NO sanding. I hate to sand. I use Glidden Gripper bonding primer under my interior wall paint and never have a problem with peeling.

There are multiple posts about how I paint furniture, you can get step by step instructions here.

I chose Ballerina Pink from Glidden to paint the whole thing.

After the base coat, I added a blue background in the oval and color to the trim, plus some roses on the sides. I was too lazy to paint the foot board, it is just base coat pink, no flowers on it.

This little girl loves mermaids and has been a huge fan for almost her entire life. If I had it to do over again, her whole room would be an under the sea theme. But then, Dewdrop would feel left out because she loves fairies and "honies" (My Little Pony, or unicorns). And I like the fairies that are already there.

Since the room is such a jumble of choppiness and different things going on anyway, I went with mermaids in the woods with the fairies for her. We'll just call it a fairy tale theme and not worry about the details.

I painted a mermaid in the center of the oval. She adores Ariel, but I went anti-disney. Plus, I wanted a sweet little girl, not a teen.

And I know, I should have added a crown, but didn't feel like going back to do it later when I thought of it. At that point, my paint plate had dried out over night and I wasn't up to mixing up the colors again. You can't just slap a crown on, you have to blend it in with the right shadows and make it look like it is actually sitting in her hair.

When she (sob!) gets too old for mermaids, it will be easy to paint over this oval and change up the bed for a more grown up look.

Over everything but the portrait and the flowers, I painted on and wiped off white glaze. I mixed one cup of clear glaze with one 2oz. bottle of white craft paint. I made sure I got it down in the cracks and crevices really good, and wiped it off the high points.

Now, where are those pink curtains at? I'd better go look through the closets, I know they are hiding somewhere.

A fairy play room part 2

cottage, fairies, Hand painted, Hand Painted Furniture, Snow White

By Karla Nathan / July 28, 2013

A few weeks ago, I showed you some photos of the little fairies' room after I added part of the canvas mural I'd done for An Enchanted Affaire.

After thinking about it, and talking to Sugarwings, we decided that more of the mural needed to go in the room.

Here is the whole thing, set up at the event. I'd designed it so that the right side was a darker side of the forest and the main interest was to the left.

We cut off the sunlit meadow side and put it behind Dewdrop's tiny little bed.

Later, I went back and painted the vent to make it blend in.

This was the section left over to use by Sugarwings' bed. For one thing, the center tree is just blah, it wasn't meant to be a focal point. For another, the flowers were too red, and so was the cottage.

So, I livened up the central tree with more branches and some lighter toned leaves.

And pinked up the cottage. (sorry, the crooked photo makes it look like the house is melting)

One of the smaller trees in the distance got some vining roses.

And the blue bird got bluer. Basically, I wanted the whole thing a bit lighter and brighter since it was going to be part of a little girl's room now.

All the red flowers became pink ones, and a fairy with a flock of bumble bee friends was painted in right where Sugarwings could visit with her when she laid down to sleep.

My poor, old, eyes! This girl was only about an inch or so tall.

After repainting the forest, I looked around the room to see what else we could do.

I changed out the bedspreads with some lighter weight ones for summer. The girls also now have a vintage, pink high chair to use when it's feeding time for the teddy bears. Dewdrop had outgrown the chair and I was wondering what to do with it. Giving it to them to play with has been a hit with them.

I'm not sure about the droopy wrinkles in this part of the canvas, but the kiddos don't mind.

Just like they don't care about the choppy look the room gets from it's various wall treatments. From a design standpoint, this could have been done much better, and I know that the original mural on the closet walls doesn't go with the canvas ones that we hung in there.

But it has some sweet fairies on it, so the theme still fits, even if the style doesn't.

At least the ceiling still matches, I painted it like a sky before Sugarwing's was born. When she was still just a wish, not quite a person yet.

Speaking of wishes…. my little one loved the redo, but was wishing for a pink bed. So, what do you figure I did about that?

Part three of the saga up next!

A Sea Fairy, and a bad trip that was better than it should have been

fairies, Travel

By Karla Nathan / July 25, 2013

My husband travels a lot on business. I used to tag along sometimes, but he often travels with coworkers, or the timing is wrong, or I've got too much going on, so I just don't get to go as often as I used to. But I do pester him about when he will be headed to the Outer Banks again and hint that I'd like to be there when he goes.

An opportunity came up this week to go with him on part of his trip, and he flies so much that I get a free buddy pass to go anywhere he heads to on Southwest, so I packed my bag and headed out for a couple of days oceanside while he worked.

The day started off with a delayed flight.But not too bad, we knew we could still make our connecting flight.

Apparently it wasn't delayed long enough. As soon as the plane took off, the baby sitting behind us filled his diaper up. If the plane was a couple minutes later, the poor kiddo could have been changed before boarding. And the delays were due to storms, so a bumpy flight means everyone stays in a seat belt, which means mom and dad can't take the baby to the lavatory to change him. He was MAD and screamed to let us all know. But he smelled worse than he sounded.

The whole day was turning kinda smelly on us. I got lost at the airport (embarrassing and really, really dumb), but we made our connection. We landed safely before a big storm hit, but the storm caused a delay in unloading the luggage. A 3-1/2 hour delay. Could have been worse, at least we got to land.

There was no internet and I couldn't download a book to replace the one I'd just finished on my iPad, so I had to buy a real book to read while waiting for bags. Which ended up being a happy accident. This was a fun beach read.

And it was short, which was good, because our beach time got shortened too. My husband got a call cancelling our trip, he had to fly to a different city the next afternoon!

Due to the first flight being late and the second one holding our bags hostage for hours, we only had a partial evening after drivng from Norfolk to Kitty Hawk. But we found a restaurant with a covered patio serving frosty margaritas with fresh seafood and live music. Plus, the singer sounded a bit like Rob Thomas. Very nice.

Then I had a walk on the beach the next morning until check out time came along at the hotel. Having grown up spending lots of time in Sarasota, FL with my grandma, I developed a love as deep as the ocean for all things beachy, so a few hours on the sand is much better than none at all and was worth the trip.

My plans were to walk up the coast and gather a bag full of shells. But as I went along, I noticed that the shells were all broken. And looked like toenails.

When I saw this one, I thought it looked like a witch's toenail. And bent down to take a closer look. I started to notice that all the shells while broken, were still really nice.

They were like beach glass, buffed and shined, with smooth edges. As if they were ready to be placed into a jewelry setting. I even found some hearts here and there, not just toenails.

And I could be wrong, but I think some of this is beach glass. What do you think?

These were not the shells I'd gone seeking, but I was liking them. Just like this wasn't the vacation we'd planned, it was still nice to get away and see the sea.

Then, I came across this broken shell, which should have been sharp, but was buffed smooth by the waves. And I knew what I wanted to do with the shells I'd been picking up on my walk.

All of my collected bits and pieces were just waiting to become a sea fairy. I'd picked up all the right components for a flower petal skirt, and a perfectly shaped head. (I hope she doesn't mind that I gave her cankles and clown feet)

I was tempted to pack her back up and bring her with me to reassemble in Kansas, but she seemed to belong there, so I left her in a fairy ring, hoping some little girl would find her and be excited.

Most of the time, there are happy little surprises lurking for all of us, if we look hard enough and can get past only seeing our troubles. I sure had to remind myself a few a lot of times during that trip. I had some grumbles here and there, but in the end, it all worked out.

How to make playdough with glitter

fairies, family, how-to projects, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 24, 2013

We recently made some playdough. And it was pretty easy to do, plus for DYI-ers like us, a lot more fun than just opening a can.

Here is what was in it:

2 cups flour

2 cups warm water

1 cup salt

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon cream of tartar (optional for improved elasticity)

Mix all in a saucepan and cook. At first I was dubious, it looked like crumbly pie crust gone bad. But all of a sudden, as it cooked, it turned into playdough. One minute, I was ready to toss it out, the next, it looked and felt like the real stuff.

At that point, we added scent. Sugarwings chose mint extract. I voted for orange or vanilla, but she won.

That is usually how it goes around here.

Once it cooled, we mixed in food coloring. I heard you could use Kool-Aide, but that isn't something we keep on hand and this was a spur of a moment idea. So we tried the expensive, paste kind of food coloring that comes in so many pretty colors.

A couple were okay, but most turned it odd tones. The plum shade made a yucky shade of brown. Well, yucky till we decided it looked like gingerbread, it's all in how you look at it.

After that, we tried the cheapo, 4 pack of liquid colors. It was quite messy, but the color was truer.

(all the liquid food coloring washed out of her clothes, wore off her skin, but some of the paste coloring stained the white table. I've not made much of an effort to get it off, bleach will probably do it. Or another coat of white paint?)

After we worked the color throughout the dough, we piled on the glitter. And LOTs of it. This was a fine one, not too heavy, so it didn't feel gritty when you played with it.

(Make sure you don't use the glass stuff, sorry, I know that is obvious, but I felt like I had to say it, I've seen that dangerous stuff used in some stupid places)

The sparkles are very pretty in it. And the texture was really nice. The smell was wonderful, but between the talk of gingerbread and smell of mint, we had to whip up a batch of real gingerbread and throw ourselves a Christmas in July party.

The darker the color, the better the glitter showed up. And Sugarwings likes adding color, so we had some pretty dark ones.

We've had the stuff wrapped up in zip lock bags and everything is as nice this week as it was last. I don't know if I'd store it too long, with no preservatives in it. It could go moldy. At least, that is my guess.

A fairy play room

cottage, Dew Drop, fairies, family, Hand painted, paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 7, 2013

Remember the canvas mural I painted for Kim's Enchanted Affaire? Instead of trying to sell it, we cut it up and are using it in the fairy grand daughter's room. I still need to touch up the vent so that it doesn't have that ghostly glow and stand out so much from the painted trees.

Sugarwings had not used her bedroom since we bought her this big girl bed. So, I never bothered to repaint it like I had originally planned. Now that the enchanted forest is part of her room, she has been happy to stay up there, so I'd better get busy and paint something in the ovals of her head and footboards.

Previously, there was a shelf all the way around the top of the room, and a sky painted above the shelf. The rest of the bedroom was left that way, my son only took the shelf down in the space where we added the canvas.

Since we lost a big section of shelf, it was a good excuse to dust and redo the rest of the shelves.

While I was at it, I tidied up the fairies hanging above the windows from sparkly white branches.

There are fairies peeking out from all sorts of vantage points around the room.

And of course, real live fairies running around the room too.

Little girls seem to like a newly redone room as much as big girls do. As soon as I finished getting it all put back together in it's new configuration, they set to tearing into every corner and exploring toys they'd over looked or forgotten about.

The canvas is stapled all the way around, but hangs a little loose. If I ever have more time….(yeah, right) I hope to tighten it up a bit, or at least steam out some wrinkles if they don't straighten out with time. I'd like to add some fairies too. Maybe portraits of the girls as fairies?

I'm not so sure I still like the closet doors painted as a fairy garden any more since it doesn't match the new scene. I'll have to do something about it.

On the other hand, the kids like it as is and it is their room. So that probably means more than my sense of continuity.

At least the ceiling was ideal for the new look, it blended in perfectly!

Of course, the room is not this tidy any more. Instead of two little fairies flitting about, it looks like it had a couple of ogres tramping through it. For dainty little cuties, they sure can trash a place. It is now knee deep in dress up clothes and who knows what else.

(the magic mirror on the wall is one that I made for Sugarwings. Here are the directions if you are interested)

Here are some pictures of the room in it's various looks over the last few years.

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!

I just discovered that all my older photos are GONE. I'd thought I'd found most of everything from before my hard drive died, but just now realized that I don't have any photos from before 2009.

Thank goodness my life is on my blog. I can retrieve all my favorites from there. I only started taking digital photos in '07, when I began my blog, so I'm missing two years of pictures. All of my previous pictures are in print. And I'm sure that most of my faves from the missing years are printed and in albums. But still, it's disconcerting to look for a file to reuse a pic and not find it. At least I know that it's only the file that is gone, I have the photos in albums or on my blog.

durn

But look at how fast I found a couple from my blog archives.

I'll seach out some more later, after I talk to the Best Buy Geek Squad and see if they can find any other old files. This whole hard drive/wireless debacle has taken it's toll on me. Stress, stress, stress.

While my computer was down, shoppers waited so kindly and patiently for me to mail their 30% sale packages from the Boutique, that I gave them another 10% off when I finally got things mailed.

I've decided to extend the 40% off sale before I start to restock the shop. Since I haven't really kept up the poor little store since the holidays, months ago, I thought a Christmas in July Sale was fitting.

Use this link for an automatic 40% off at check out:
http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=sale

And please note that I do refunds of shipping overages after I box up the package and figure the actual cost to mail it. Sometimes, buying lots of little things make the shipping price go sky high according to the way the website calculates it, so I adjust and refund as needed.

A Fairy Tea Breakfast

celebrations, Dew Drop, fairies, family, Food and Drink, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 5, 2013

When someone wanders down the stairs first thing in the morning wearing a vintage nightgown and wings, there is only one thing you can do.

Have a breakfast tea party!

Bird collage pendants

bird song art event, fairies, family, jewelry, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / May 10, 2013

I did it! Not only did I finally figure out what my second class was going to be for Birdsong, I got lots of samples made and packed every single kit up and have them tucked away ready to go when my peeps arrive!

Beth, Mary, and Karla came over on Tuesday to participate in a practice class, here are a couple of their pieces. The book they are lying on is filled with little bird images and was published in the 1800s. I've used these old birdies in the kits, so of course, no two will be alike. In case someone gets a bird they don't care for, there are plenty of extras to chose from so the artist can find just the right little creature to put on her collage.

This is the actual pendant we will be working on, it's a large one, so we have space to play with the collage.

Now, I just need to get the bird cage kits packed up for my other class. All of the elements are prepped and ready, I just need to get them wrapped up.

If you would like to make a bird cage/wire cloche, I have spent weeks working out the best way to make them and have made a tutorial with step by step illustrated instructions, along with downloadable images to make fairies to keep in the cages once you get them made.

I've come up with a way to make the cages that I've not seen anywhere else. My son helped me come up with some great ideas that simplifies the process and keeps the wires from springing out every which way and driving you crazy.

He really deserves a lot of the credit, the boy is great with wire, and is a talented jewelry maker. This bracelet that we collaborated on will be featured in Jewelry Affaire. I'm thrilled to be doing an article with my son!

And greatly appreciate his input on the birdcage problems I was having.

A surprise craft day for Judy

celebrations, fairies, guncles

By Karla Nathan / April 1, 2013

Our visit to Karen's doll house was such a magical time.

The weather cooperated and was ideal, lots of sparkling sunlight. While blizzards blew at home in Kansas!

Here I am with Sherry and Karen on the porch of the Kozy Kottage. This is Karen's get away in Mt. Dora, and is as girlified as any retreat can be. Pinks, whites, roses, pretties, all twinkling and sparkling in a joyous petite doll house.

Guncle Randy and I had a bit of trouble finding it, because the GPS took us to another pink and white house a block or so away. (who knew there would be so many pink houses with white picket fences on one street??)

No one answered the door there, so we got out, walked around, and called Karen to leave a message and say we'd be back soon. Then, left my piles of craft supplies and kits on the porch to save bringing it back later.

As we drove off and around the corner, I spied another pink and white house.

hmmmm…

I told Randy that I thought just maybe, we should turn around and go get my stuff off of the other home's porch!

No one had opened my boxes and created bird cages while we were gone, so all was fine.

I'd brought tons of goodies for the ladies to go through and make as many fairies as they wanted and cloche/cage for the little sprites to live in when done.

We spent the afternoon at Karen's dining table twisting wire and gluing away as we chatted.

It was a fun group, we had the birthday girl, Judy, and her daughter-in-law who was part of the big surprise Karen had planned for Judy.

One of my best friends, Sherry had driven down from Georgia, and Casandra was there from a nearby Florida town. I've always wanted to meet her. And she is every bit as nice as you'd expect her to be.

Guncle Randy met up with me in Orlando, where I flew in. He was there to receive yet another, Top Sales Director of the Year award from Hilton. I was very proud of him!

Karen scooped me up at the airport for a day of junking, while Randy was busy accepting his trophy. She showed me some good places to shop in Orlando and was lucky enough to find a few florally hats to tear apart that night at the Hilton while I waited for Randy.

We all made these fairy cloche/bird cages, and I think they turned out sweet.

We will be doing a version of this again at Birdsong. Karen and Sherry will both be coming to visit me in June for that, so looks like they will be starting a collection, huh?

After we were done, we walked downtown to dinner. And then, weren't quite ready for the party to end, so we kept working till after midnight on projects.

My only regret (besides the fact that I probably passed my awful cold onto everyone) is that I didn't get to jump out of a giant cake for the surprise. I was hoping for strawberry.