fairies – Page 19 – Karla's Cottage

Practical Magic in all of us

Books, fairies, family, Film, holiday decor, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / September 25, 2010

Do you ever read Alice Hoffman? Its been too long since I've picked up one of her books. They always have a thread of magic woven through them,. Some of her stories are pure magic, some just have hints of it. But the most mystical of them all is Practical Magic.

That book was an all nighter for me. And when the movie came out, I didn't see how it could possibly measure up, but man. I'd watch that movie over and over just to get another glimpse of the house. But the whole thing is worth watching again and again even without the eye candy.

So, when I heard that Justina and Anna were having a Practical Magic party, I had to join in!

(right now, I'm out of town, and pre-posted this- but I will be party hopping and checking out all the garden spells and pointy hats when I get home)

I've always loved the witchy side of life. The hint of magic in all of us. Having Sugarwings around and seeing the world through her eyes has brought out the magic and fun in my life even more.

I've also discovered as I get older that playing dress up is just as much fun as it was when I was little like Sugarwings.(This picture is not doctored! I'm standing in front of a "light birdie" that the sun coming through a prism on the window has made)

At my Sissy's 60th birthday party, we all dressed up as fairies and witches and one of the highlights of the night was to dance around the house to "Put the Lime in the Coconut" like the sisters did in Practical Magic.

Maybe what I love about the book and movie so much is the sisters. Mine are my best friends, and I miss them every day. There is power in the love of sisters.

Magic is all around you, just waiting for you to find it.

Life is too short to not be hunting the magic that is waiting for you.

No matter how silly you might look while doing it.

You don't need a crystal ball to find the kind of magic I'm talking about.

All you need to do is pay attention, open your eyes to the beauty around you.

Be light hearted. Let yourself fly.

Show love, give love, be loved. That is the greatest magic.

Being creative is a way to find the magic inside yourself too. Lose yourself in making something.

Create something to decorate your own home, as a gift, or just for the pure sparkling joy of making it.

These crowns, that I made are all from images and some techniques we provided in Romantic Gothic Ghosts. (although the crowns themselves were not taught in the classes)

I've enjoyed doing the class so much. To me, Halloween isn't about the scary stuff, its the mysterious that I find intriguing. Practical Magic probably should have been on our list of Gothic Romances in the review Beth did in our tutorial. That luscious house, the gorgeous gardens, the teaser of the unknown, all evoke the feeling we wanted to purvey, and what the class is about!

Yet another reason why this blog party drew me in. I've been knee deep in Gothic witchiness for the last few weeks!Its not too late to join us if you'd like to create some moody Halloween decor for your home too.

And please remember, that for my September giveaway, I'll be drawing a name to win one of the projects that I made for the class. All comments count.

Thanks again to Justina and Anna for coming up with a great theme and for hosting the party.

***********************************************************************************

I
will be away from my desk and unable to answer comments or mail
packages until Wed. But please do leave a comment if you'd like to be
entered in the September giveaway of one of my completed projects for Romantic Gothic Ghosts.

PS- I know I'll be spending too much in Texas, so I'm having a sale in the Boutique to replenish my funds. Type in this code:

Roundtop

and you'll get 20% off of every purchase!

A FairyTaking flight

fairies, family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / September 13, 2010

We had such a blast last week at the Kansas City Renfest that we went back again for another day! And as I was going through the photos on my camera, I noticed that Sugarwings was so happy there with her own kind (fairies) that her feet barely touched the ground most of the day.

A pack of wandering fairies swooped her up and invited her to join their flock. She was thrilled to go off with them to dance around the Maypole.

So, she flew off with her new friends and we trailed along behind, walking on the ground like humans.

She fluttered over the ground as she danced with joy.

Another day filled with magic.

Like all my days spent with this little sprite.

Not a bad way to celebrate Grand Parent's Day!

Art ADHD

antiques/junking, fairies, flowers, paintings

By Karla Nathan / September 12, 2010

Today, I finished a fairy painting that was more than a bit overdue…. Sorry, Janice! But its finally ready now!!

I was given a stack of pictures of these two sisters, and some info about things they liked. The older girl enjoys pulling her baby sister in a wagon, so I put the littlest fairy in a flower petal cart.

As proper Lawrence, Kansas girls, they both like the Jayhawks. So I added a pet Jayhawk for them.

And the older girl enjoys reading to her sister. How sweet is that? So, I included a bag of fairy tale books.

After I have my paints out, I wonder why I don't do watercolor more often. I think that I should at least leave some paints and brushes on my desk to remind me that I am a painter…. and maybe to incorporate some painting into my collage work too.

My interests are spread out quite a bit. I adore working with millinery, ephemera, and well, most things old and pretty. But painting was my first love and I should try to get back to it more often.

What I really love to paint are flowers. Especially if I make the picture look vintage. But I do love cutting and gluing, and using cherished old lace, old postcards, WALLPAPER (yummy yummy wallpaper), and rhinestones in my art too. So, I can't picture going back to painting full time like I used to. Its just too fun to find cool old things and imagine what they can be made into.

Plus, the hunt is half the fun. As much as I love to paint, going to a retail store and buying a tube of paint is no comparison to hitting a flea market to find supplies!

Even silly things like this.

And even sillier ones like this! Life is too short to limit myself to just one style and one type of art. So, I'll dabble in paint like always, and still flit from idea to idea, playing with ephemera, and making stuff no one wanted into something pretty.

Even though, some days I wonder… if I had stuck with one thing and really worked with it for a life time, would I actually be successful?

Or just bored?

If you are like me and love to use vintage supplies, I'm adding these items to the Boutique, with more coming in the next few days.

Older, wiser, more tired

fairies, holiday decor, paintings, swaps, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / September 2, 2010

Today, I've been working on a little fairy picture. So far, so good, but now I've run out of time. Its always so hard for me to stop a project midway…. but as I get older, I get wiser. Or more tired? Maybe that is it. Once upon a time, I'd have stayed up all night to finish it. Now, I know that I need some sleep because tomorrow is a big day.

The best kind of day, a flea market!

But I did finish this- its Beth's first project for Romantic Gothic Ghosts. She made this mini journal easy for us, you have the option of following the directions and making it step by step, or just downloading the cover as is and embellishing it! That was my choice. Quick and easy!!

I copied and printed it exactly as she made it, then added inks and marker. After that, I used "Paper Glaze" on the girl for a bit of a shine and to make her stand out, then I gave her a crown.

There was a mouse on her shoulder in Beth's version, and I turned it into a more 3-D look by printing the same mouse picture, ( provided in our image collection), and gluing it directly over the other mouse with a bit of folded cardboard underneath to raise it up. It's eye is a little black crystal and its tail is a bit of twine.

After that, I added a key. One of the images that I scanned and provided was a cool, gothic style key, but I had a bunch of keys on my work table so I used one of those.

It was easy to finish, I printed some of the papers we had in the collection onto cardstock and cut them out with Beth's pattern.

Beth's tutorial for the book starts Friday. Then, over the weekend, we have some Halloween decorating tips coming up. Information to join the 12 days of classes (including tips, giveaways, and LOTS of good images) can be found here.

This book is in the mail now, to the winner of my August giveaway, Debbie. I'll offer another one of our projects from the class to the September winner. If you are interested, just leave a comment!

Last week while shopping my way across Ohio, I found another old Wizard of Oz book. Not as old as the first one, and not as many illustrations, but hey, it was only $2! And its pages will be great for wrapping up the Dorothy tag books as I make them up and package them to send out to everyone.

My lollipop charms are done and ready to tie onto the tag books. I made them with paper clay, stuck them onto vintage stir sticks, then painted and sugared them.

Some are better than others, no two are quite the same. They are far from perfect, but I think they'll be fun to have on the tag books, some books will get lollipops, some will get ruby slippers.

I'm also looking for "emeralds" to foof some up with. I found these two pins at the same store I found the book, and they were only $1. Heck, I couldn't go to Hobby Lobby and buy charms for that. And these are nice, old rhinestoney bits.

Here are some images from the Oz book I just got in case you still need pictures for your tags. Or just like Oz images, help yourself! Click on the images to open the pop up window and save that one to your computer to print, it will be a larger version and print more clearly.

And here is a site with free Oz images to use too. Amy reccomended it to me.

Pixies and Pixels

fairies, holiday decor, how-to projects, magazine pictures or articles, Sugarwings, Tutorials, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / August 20, 2010

Getting ready for this online tutorial has kept me hoppin! But between counting pixels and trying learn how to make pdfs, I took some time off to make a pixie too.

This one is on its way to Somerset, but in it, you can see two tricks that will be taught in my Romantic Gothic Ghost class…. Actually, there are 4 separate things in this picture that I will be giving how-to's for.

The technique I used in this Sugarwings creation is one of them.

She is also going to Somerset Life today. I'm always honored to hear from them.

All of my projects for the class involve a Gothic arch, moody colors, and NO ORANGE! Oh, what a pretty Halloween it will be this year!

Okay, now back to the hard part. I can make things like crazy, I actually made a book, a tag book with 6 original tags, a wall hanging, and a banner with five 8-1/2 x 11 collages for the classes yesterday. Plus two collages to send to Somerset Life.

When I'm on a roll, I can whip stuff out.

Its the pixels that kill me. Everything I used in all the projects has to be available to the students to click on and print to use themselves. Now, that is a spooky Halloween for me.

Oh, the horror of it all!

A silly way to spend a day

fairies, family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 21, 2010

Isn't this a gorgeous pendant? I liked it on this bust so much that I thought about keeping it there, but I took the listing photos anyway, and will add it to the Boutique.

Along with a few other trinkets.

Hmmm, odd picture? My son found these rocks out in Western Kansas, I'm not sure what they are, but they are unique. Some of them are large and have caves in them, others look like little peanuts. Or, to Sugarwings and I, they looked like people. So we drew faces on the peanutty little rocks with black markers.

Some of the little stones looked more like dogs than people.

Sugarwing's Daddy brought a pile of these rocks and left them heaped up by my garage last year. I don't know why. I figured he had some plan for them and just ignored them. But today my fairy grand baby and I sat down to look at them and realized just what a gold mine of fun they were.

It was her idea to add the glitter. A lot of glitter.

I tied ribbons to a stick to make a flag. We built our "castle" near a weed that was growing through the rocks so our people could have some shade.

Funny, that such a silly thing made such a fun morning for me. I hope it was for her too. And I'm glad that I didn't nag at my son to "do something with those durn rocks or get rid of them!" like I had been tempted to do a few times over the last year or so.

She and I might have some of the peanut people come and live in our mini fairy garden too.

I am in CA playing mermaid with my arty friends and spa-ing it up, so this was written before I left, and I will not be able to answer emails or ship purchases until I return.

Please do leave comments, though, I love reading them. And each is an entry for the July Giveaway, a pair of genuine pearl and sterling silver earrings.

A box full of Mermaids

fairies, how to's, magazine pictures or articles, parties, Travel, vintage paper/collage art, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / June 28, 2010

Do you love Lisa as much as I do? I'm kicking myself for not going to Paper Cowgirls. It would have been great to have a chance to hang out with her in person. If she is half as much fun as she is on her blog, she'd be a blast.

So, of course, I was happy to participate in her soap box challenge. The box is kind of like egg carton texture, and to me looked like a perfect little shadow box frame.

Since I'll soon be heading out to Kim's event in California, I thought I'd get myself into a mermaid mood and turn my mini shadow box into an under sea treasure chest.

I've heard wonderful things about Kim and her art affairs. I'm so glad to finally be going to one. My husband will be flying out with me and going on a brothers golfing trip for the weekend while I am with the arty crowd. Then, he and I are meeting up for a spa get away. The company he works for owns some luxury resorts, and we were able to score some rooms for fantastic employee rates.

I'm going to feel like a princess. Or at my age I should say Dowager Queen? And an itchy, poison ivy crusted one at that. If I don't get this crud cured, I won't be doing much spa time.

Since I am soon to be treated like royalty at a couple top of the line resorts in California and spend an entire weekend filled with creative fun with friends, I'm already feeling a bit royal with the anticipation of it all. That influenced me to add a "crown" to my shadow box.

The sparkly topper is made of a corner bracket from an old photo album with a rhinestone necklace glued over it, and a rhinestone clasp underneath.

My sea creatures are made with two sizes of frozen Charlottes, with the smaller one in back and glued directly to background, and a larger one in front, raised up by gluing her to a button and shell. I thought this might give it some depth.

The Charlottes have mermaid tails made up of paper clay, that has been painted and glittered. I added crowns of German foil and crystals to their heads.

Each is glued down pretty solid, but their sea horse friend is suspended from a wire, so that she sways a bit. The seahorse charm was gold toned, and I drew on it with a black sharpie, and wiped that off a little, then wiped some white paint over that. I also swiped a swatch of white paint over her wire so it didn't stand out so much. If I were to do this over again, I'd use fishing line instead of wire, because the wire is still prominent even with the paint.

The box sits in a plate stand that I wrapped in vintage ribbon. For a touch of extra gaudiness, I tied an aqua ribbon to the front of the stand and dangled a star fish charm from it. Because by the time I'd got to that stage of creation, the gaudiness was already pretty thick and I thought I should just go for it and gaudy it up even more. Once you've crossed the line of over doing something, there's no turning back and you might as well just revel in it.

See what I mean? There is a LOT of foof happening here. The inside of the box perfectly fit an old button card with the words "Mermaid Pearls" on it, along with two buttons.

Along the inside walls, I glued ruffles sewn from pattern paper, then I edged it with a strand of pearls.

Then, the cut out on the lid was lined ink, glitter and a lace ruffle.

The large parts of the box were covered in aqua wallpaper that has a nice sheen to it. The sides of the box have a raised edge where the lid meets the bottom, and it looked just too hard to cover in paper. So, I ran a bead of glue around it, and wrapped a ribbon around it, gathering as I stuck it into the glue.

Yep, this project was just what I needed to start feeling like a Mermaid Princess and get me in the mood for my trip. Its been a rough week, and I look forward to a get away.

Thank you to everyone who shared scary pregnancy stories with happy outcomes, that encouragement helped. And thanks for all of your well wishes and prayers. I'm doing my best to stay distracted until we get news from the Dr. about the newest member of our family.

And a big thanks to Lisa for hosting this party! It was a fun challenge and a well needed distraction for me.

I'm sending Lisa a had that I thought was suitable for her palette of colors. She always seems to appreciate my hat whispering skills, so I thought I'd share.

Puppy Not Included

Today I was also able to finish up my articles for Somerset Life. One is about this altered book.

The other was about my Peat Pot Pretties with frozen Charlotte fairies. And remember, that this one is the giveaway for June. All comments all month are entered.

I'm also giving away another present from my followers. So, please join in on my list if you'd like to be in the running for that gift, a pair of vintage rhinestone earrings.

My fairy grand baby’s room

fairies, family, flowers, Hand Painted Furniture, paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 13, 2010

While I am away from my computer for a few days I thought I'd leave you with some photos of the cottage. I'll be back on Sunday, and will have trip photos as well as some new listings to add to the shop (well, hopefully, I'll have some successful shopping while away!!) Any orders while I am gone will be sent out on Monday the 14th.

This is Sugarwing's room. She's pretty proud of the fact that she is big enough for her own night light (shaped like a tea pot) next to her bed. Her closet doors are painted with a mural of fairies in the flowers, and our dog, Sparkle.

Since she only comes to stay, and doesn't live her full time, the closet didn't need to be filled with her regular clothes, so it holds all of her dress up and play clothes. I'm always on the hunt at garage sales and thrift stores for fairy wings and princess dresses that are cute and cheap.

The ceiling and the area above the shelf are both painted like the sky. The shelves hold a collection of fairies and pixies, and little bird houses covered in vintage wallpaper for them to live in.

Her princess bed is vintage, I found it at an auction, and painted it white with pink glaze (instructions on my short cut paint technique are on my side bar under "tutorials")

Since the room is upstairs in an old house, it tends to get stuffy, so we had to add a window air conditioner. It doesn't exactly look great there, but it keeps her comfy.

There are white sheers on the windows, then above them, I screwed painted and glittered branches to the wall and tied trailing ribbons to them. We've clipped little butterflies and dragonflies to the ribbons and dangled fairies from the branches.

When Sugarwings was tiny, these pastel pails hung over her changing table and held her lotions. Now they hold fairy dolls that readers have sent to her.

I painted the fairy to look down at her on the changing table and she used to love to coo and talk to her while getting diapers changed.

I've painted LOTS of murals in nurseries over my lifetime and one thing I always make sure of, is that the pictures are interactive for the kids. In places where the baby spends time, like the changing area or crib, I was careful to add something of special interest for them to see. And in the rest of the room, all the creatures had friends. No matter what the theme was, fish, dogs, teddys- they all were in conversational groups.

One night when my fairy grand baby was just learning to string sentences together, we were laying on the floor of her room playing and she said "Grammy has pretty stuff". I told her, no baby, this is all YOUR stuff, this is YOUR room. She was speechless for a moment, probably for the only time in her chatterboxing life.

I think she likes her space.

Who is the Dork?

Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), fairies, family, Sugarwings, Travel, vintage paper/collage art, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / June 8, 2010

We are heading out of town again, this time to see my sisses in Indiana where I grew up. I've decided to take the pups with me, Sissy is being brave about a house full of little Stench Monkeys, as we call them sometimes. I should be packing, especially gathering up the dog paraphernalia and stuff to entertain Sugarwings on a 9 hour drive.

Instead, I'm playing in the studio. This photo of Sugarwings at the water park was just calling out to me, I had to turn it into a fairy collage for my photo album.

Especially after Beth pointed out that this water spray looks like a dorky! I printed the picture and drew over it, following the dog shape in the water, then cut out the puppy.Okay, so now you know what you suspected, I am totally dog crazed. Maybe I am the dork, not the dogs. But Beth saw it first, so its not just me.

Between playing with the dogs and imagining dog shapes in water fountains, I listed some new things in the Boutique.

But since I'll be away, I can't mail any purchases till Monday. Thanks for your patience!

All the pups are spoken for now. I decided not to sell ANY of them after all!! Each is going to family or friends. I'm delivering one to Indiana to my niece, and another will go to my MIL in Utah. This will most likely be our last litter ever, so I wanted to keep them as "family". I just got too attached.

Between listing and gluing this morning, I also made some puppy pillows. I had a pair of rose patterned flannel PJ bottoms that had ripped, and I couldn't bear to toss them. So, I cut the legs into squares and stitched up little pillows, then tossed them in with all the pups. I'm hoping that when the pups go to their new homes, taking a pillow that smells like their siblings will help with the transition.When Teresa picked up her Lily a couple weeks ago, I sent a rosy pillow home with them too. I'm NOT a good sewer, and the pillows are simple as can be. But I think they are a cute idea for the babies.

Twinkle and the other big dogs will stay behind on this trip, with Ryan to watch them. Its great to have a grown son around to dog sit! Plus my dogs have a fenced in yard with a doggy door to let themselves out whenever they want. Ryan only has to fill their bowls once a day and say hi to them.
He lives in an apartment above my studio, so when I am away, the house is not empty.

Well, as much as I dread packing, it can't be put off much longer. I'd better start wedging stuff into my poor little car. I have 3 adults, a preschooler, 3 puppies, luggage, puppy gear, toys, and a cooler to fit into a Scion. My car is roomy for a small car, but this could be pushing the limits!

How much fun can you fit into one day?

antiques/junking, celebrations, collections, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), fairies, family, I do tend to run on, don't I?, parties, Sugarwings, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / June 7, 2010

Omaha was great, we had such a nice trip! Don't I have the world's sweetest husband, to chose a weekend at the zoo and the Holiday Inn's water park with all the kids as his 50th birthday celebration?

We LOVE this little water park in Omaha, its in a newer Holiday Inn that has great service, and free meals for kids. The indoor pool area is meant for smaller children and has never been crowded or busy while we are there.

Plus, the hotel is located near the Old Town area, with great food and shopping. While the kids napped between swimming in the morning and zoo time in the afternoon, I escaped to 2nd Chance. Where I found a pile of floral hats for under $7 each.

Plus a pile of Victorian scrap and old photos. I'm planning on making some fairy ornaments (hopefully a make and take at Silver Bella in November.) Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find just the right photos to make into fairies? You need to make sure you get both feet, a standing or sitting position that works well when the person is cut out of the photo, and no fingers to have to cut around.

Well, you don't want the person to be fingerless- you just don't want the fingers to be splayed and beyond the edges of the girl's dress. Its just easier to not have to cut out each tiny finger.

Normally, when I am on a family trip like this, I don't get in much shopping. This time I also got to stop at Rusty Chandelier in St. Joe on the drive home. It was a quick trip, to stretch legs and for my husband to fill up the car while Sugarwings and I looked around antique mall.

But I just knew that I had to stop, and I was right, my hat whispering skills had led me to a couple more hats that were waiting there for me.

How PERFECT is this sequin top hat???? Silver Bella's theme this fall will be hats and Teresa has been using a cute top hat as the symbol of the event this year. I found not only this hat, but this bit of Victorian scrap with this little girl wearing a top hat herself. There are some possibilities for that rolling around in my head right now!

So much for my theory that pictures for fairies need feet. I can see her as a little sprite, can't you? She might be the foundation for my design for the make and take for vendor night.

And there are a few pictures of Sugarwings that I might make into a fairy for my photo album.

We had lucky weather while in Omaha, there was sunshine and a light breeze at the zoo. Sugarwing's Daddy and his new family (well some of them, not all the kids could make it) came along for the trip and I discovered that its even more fun to have extra grand kids to spoil and play with!

Before the trip, I bought the girls matching dresses, and a coordinating red shirt for the little guy. Corny? Yep, but I thought it was adorable, plus it made them so easy to keep track of all day. We knew that the red blurs running up ahead were ours.

Our hotel was around the corner from the Qwest Center, where Barnum and Baily Circus happened to be for the weekend. We hadn't planned on attending, but the kids had never been, so when the zoo closed at 6, we swung by for the next performance at 7.

The morning started at the pool, then napping, then zoo, then circus, then ended at the pool again. Whew! That was one jam packed day.

But, my husband and I decided at the last minute to play hooky and just buy tickets to the circus for the rest of the group. He and I snuck over to Old Town and had a romantic dinner, then walked around holding hands and enjoying the evening.

As ideal as the kids were all day, sweet, polite, and fun- it was nice to have a night out with just the two of us. When we got back to the hotel, we joined the kids at the water park, where I taught them how to play shark tag, and let the parents go have their own little get away dinner.

I think my handsome husband had a fantastic birthday, I hope he enjoyed the trip as much as I did! He's a great guy and deserves a good celebration!

Still, its nice to be back home with our puppies again.