fairies – Page 21 – Karla's Cottage

March giveaway does really exist and some Tag Book Tendinitis

celebrations, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), fairies, family, give away, jewelry, Sugarwings, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / March 17, 2010

Happy St Pats! There is a great parade downtown Lawrence, but I had to skip it today. Sugarwings went with the rest of the family and I stayed home to rest.

Remember the Frozen Charlotte flu that knocked me out of commission a couple of weeks ago? It turned into pleurisy. But on top of that, I seem to have some tendinitis in my left arm, from making over 70 tag books and typing out the labels. Funny, when you are over 50 and call the Dr. to say that your chest and left arm hurts, everyone starts to panic.

But, I knew it wasn't a heart attack, I could just tell. But my Dr. wouldn't see me to say what it was, I had to go to the ER. And since my stubborn, doctor's office hating, husband has high cholesterol issues and a family history of heart problems, I knew that if I refused to go in to get checked, he would use this as an excuse to not get checked himself if a future chest pain ever came up for him.

Since I KNEW it wasn't my heart, I finished all the tag books (from the tags that were already here, I am expecting a few more yet) and got them to the PO before I went to the ER. The pain had been around for more than 24 hours, I figured that if it was an emergency, I'd already have been dead.

So, the tags are in the mail, I am feeling better, but am supposed to rest up. I might take a couple of days off from typing, this hurts!

Sometimes it sucks to get old. Things hurt more. And linger longer.

Just ask poor old Bookie and Sparkle, they know how I feel. Those two hardly ever leave their pillow by the space heater. But I did coax them out to pose in their St Pats finery.

I'm going to take today and tomorrow off to get cozy and rest up while I recover from Frozen Charlotte Flu induced pleurisy and Tag Book Tendinitis. I've got some reading to do for book club and need to go see Alice in Wonderland.

Before I go, I wanted to show you the giveaway for March. Yep, its once again past mid-month by the time I remembered to announce my month long contest….

This is a china shard pendant that I've made from a vintage plate, a rose quartz cab, two rose quartz beads, and vintage crystals. This giveaway is retroactive, all comments all month, all posts go into the hat.

Now, back to my ibuprofen. I hope you all find a lucky four leaf clover and a pot of gold today!

Charlotte the bunny fairy?

Books, fairies, swaps

By Karla Nathan / March 13, 2010

Today, I am sending out this little Peat Pot Pretty with a Charlotte fairy to Amy. If you've ever seen her blog, you know she LOVES bunnies. So, I made slip on bunny ears for the fairy to wear.

Thanks for all your purchases, I love making these guys, and have plans for some pots covered in rosy wallpaper too. I'll let you know when they are listed.

That is, after I finish these!! Isn't that a pretty pile? Suz sent the book, and I can't wait to read it. but first, I am organizing tags into piles that look nice together.

While putting them together, I try to chose tags that look good together, but are still a nice assortment. I do take the assembly seriously, its kind of like picking out wallpapers or millinery flowers to put together in packs, you want some coordination, but still variety.

And I did keep the notes about special instructions to follow too. I just can't promise that I will be able to keep all of that in my head too, but will try. Please forgive me if you get your own tag back and you didn't want one of them.

But honestly, all of the tags are SO stinkin cute, you will love your books, I'm sure!

If I have loaded this correctly, you should be able to click on the collage and see it larger.

Okay, back to work for me. I have tags to play with! I also need to add the "Drink Me" labels to the little bottles. I'm going to drop a heart shaped key in each bottle, there was a bit of a problem with the keys I ordered. Apparently, I'm not very bright when it comes to metric sizes. These keys are miniscule!! If I tied them to the package, they'd just be lost. I need to either glue them to the covers, or drop them in the bottles. They are cute, just way too small.

what a nice week

Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), fairies, swaps

By Karla Nathan / March 12, 2010

Well, the parties are done, and today was back to work. I wish I could have had one more day to play! Between Carol here to do photos on Monday, and the surprise online shower for Andrea, then the Craft Day Tea Party Baby Shower for Shawn, its been a blast of a week.

Not to mention all the Alice tags filling my porch every day when the post man comes! Talk about fun!

I'm excited about them all arriving so that I can get them sorted, stacked and ready to build into books. Some people are running a bit late, so it will probably be Monday before I start in on them. I'm sorry that so many of you over-nighted tags to me, just to have them sit and wait here for other's tags to arrive! I wish that you had asked me before you paid so much extra for postage, I feel really bad. But I do appreciate your efforts.

Also, I figured that you were sending 480 tags to me, I'm adding 81 covers, plus my 6 tags too. That is 567 tags. So, please forgive me, if I can't follow your wishes to put certain tags together in books. Some have asked to get their own tag in a book, others say to make sure that they don't get their own tag back. I will TRY, but honestly, I'm just not that sharp. My skills will lie in putting tags together that look pretty in a book with each other. I might not be able to do that plus keep track of who gets which tag.

I'm really sorry, but I can promise you that ALL the tags that are coming in are cute as can be and you will like your book!

And I greatly appreciate the tidbits that have been included! Its really nice to get so many extra tags as gifts, they will make my own book really special. I'm overwhelmed with the generosity that's been rolling in. Lace from Debra, teacups, bowls, goodies, all sorts of pretties. I'd just admired this Alice collage on Sandy's blog, then was so surprised to see it arrive here at my cottage! Notice the cards painting the roses? What a cute touch.

This package came from Marian Ballog and I thought it was just about too pretty to open, but I'm glad I did- it contained the book in the previous photo, by Marian herself!

Thank you everyone, its all such a treat for me. And for little Miss Sugarwings too. She has a little pile of pressies to open. We will have a party and I'll get some pictures of her as she sees all of her goodies. Debra (who sent this beautiful lace panel) also sent some books for Sugarwings to share with Pixie Pie, so we'll invite her to the party too, and maybe make some fairies from a kit sent by Cindy.

Thank you everyone, once again, I have to say, I'm just BLOWN AWAY !

Since I can't start on assembling the books until the tags all arrive, I spent the day photographing and listing goods for the Boutique.

Yep, there are Heavenly Paper Packs FINALLY for sale. In the extra large size, 11×14" sheets of some of the prettiest papers ever.

And Millinery! In gorgeous springtime colors.

Also bits and pieces of jewels, and a sparkling bird in its flowery nest (first photo).

It feels good to get the shop stocked up a bit. Yes, its been a nice week. And tomorrow is a Sugarwings day, so the week just gets better and better.

Plus- my house is still clean from getting it ready for Monday's photo shoot! That is a miracle of some kind. I'm loving having a tidy home. Lets see, its been 4 days
now and things still look good? Yes, a miracle.

I'll have some photos of the shoot for you in the next few days, thanks for asking about them. Now, I'm off to wrap up some Peat Pots and wallpaper and millinery that I need to get in the mail.

There are 2 Fairy pots left, from the 12 I had for sale, if you want one, please email me. They are $25 plus postage, and are not listed in the shop.

Oh Baby, Baby! Twice the fun as just one.

celebrations, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), fairies, Food and Drink, vintage paper/collage art, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / March 10, 2010

Surprise! Today is a surprise baby shower for our sweet as can be, friend, Andrea. She is expecting a little sister for her two boys.

So, a group of us are helping her celebrate by sending her some hand made girly gifts to Hope, who lives near Andrea and is gathering all the presents and surprising her with a shower.

My gift is a little cartoon painting of her two sons as elves, holding a newborn fairy girl.

Its done in watercolor with ink. And I added some pearl paint to the baby sister's wings, with a hint of glitter.

Her gift was sent wrapped in vintage paper, and I used very little tape, so she could reuse it for a project. Don't you hate getting some cool old paper and having it ruined by the tape?

Here is a section of the paper that you can click on to enlarge if you'd like to print it to use.

Please visit the other shower "guests" and see what pretties they have made! Here's a list of who is attending the shower today.

And of course, what is a baby shower without some yummy treats? I made a carrot cake up for yet another baby shower. Tuesday, we celebrated Shawn's upcoming addition with a Craft Day Baby Shower Tea Party at my cottage.

As a surprise, I made a fairy picture of Shawn's daughter, Bethany holding a new baby brother.

We really wanted an Alice theme for our tea party, but since I had the photo shoot the day before, my time was short. I was able to make a mini effort to Alice up the table. The party favors were little Charlotte babies that came along with a pig picture cut out of a vintage book. Since Alice was holding a bundled baby that turned into a pig.

And I cut out little "drink me" notes to put by all the tea cups.

Beth was the Mad Hatter (or Russel f
rom Survivor?) and I was the March Hare.

Shawn and Bethany came with Rabbit Ears too.

Shawn has more photos of the day here.
Shawn's baby is due after Twinkle's babies are coming, so I told everyone we had to squeeze in one more craft day and make it a baby shower for Twinks. (if you live nearby and want to come, let me know!)

For Shawn's gift, we bought her an album and each created a page for it. Her husband is an aquarium enthusiast, so I thought that a fish theme would be good for my page. I made a pocket out of watercolor paper that I painted like to look like water, with little purple fishies in it. I cut out fish shaped tags for her to glue photos to, and slid them into the pocket.

Next, I painted some colorful fish and grasses on watercolor paper and cut them out to glue onto the pocket for a 3-D effect.

For the back side of my page, I used sparkle scrapbook paper over reversible scrap book paper that I folded into a pocket page. I do like pockets in photo albums. The little card with the old fashioned baby picture opens up, so that Shawn can add a small picture there too.

But that isn't all the babies, or all the gifts! Our other friend, Holly, is expecting her 3rd son. I wanted to send a little something to her and since I am on a Charlotte roll, I thought I'd use one of them. Although her child is a boy, so we won't say Charlotte, we'll say Charles.

The carriage is made from a box that I have cut down and covered in flocked wallpaper, then lined with white velvet, and trimmed with ruffled ribbon. The wheels are mother-of-pearl buttons.

And geez, as if this post wasn't already long enough, I need to let you know that I've restocked the crown rings in my Boutique.

Also, I will be emailing everyone who asked me to save a Peat Pot Pretty with Fairy for them, and will have a couple left to add to the shop too. Thanks so much!

And congratulations, Andrea, Shawn, Holly, and Twinkle on this spring's new crop of little ones!

Peat Pot Pretties with Fairies

fairies, magazine pictures or articles, parties, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / March 6, 2010

Not all of the Charlottes went into my Boutique for sale, I kept a bowlful for myself. And I do have more on order, but have not been able to find them as dirt cheap as I did last time. I found a decent price and will still be able to sell them to you at a price you will like, but probably not one so cheap that I sell over 100 of them in a matter of hours…

I'll let you know as soon as they arrive, and will probably sell them in sets, since everyone bought more than one. (Its easier for calculating postage that way.)

They certainly are a fun little supply to have in the studio. I have plenty of plans for Charlotting up some projects. For now, I am making Fairy Pots. To each, I am adding a flag with the name of a guest for my Baby Shower Tea Party Craft Day on Tuesday. I will set a potted fairy in front of each plate as a place card.

Each little fairy girl has been dressed in vintage millinery flower petals to make a skirt. I've added hand made, sheet music wings and "planted" her into a little peat pot. No two are alike, but I've stayed with a white, rusty brown, and cream palette. A couple have some faded pink, like this one.

The little pots are collaged in pages from old books. Lisa sent me some fairy pages that were just perfect, and I've added some other elderly text too. I've sugared and inked the pots after gluing on the paper.

When I decoupage, I never use Mod Podge. That stuff just isn't good in the Midwest, seems like in July, anything that it has been used on feels sticky. For this, I used Elmer's.

Then, I've topped off the pot with curly moss and bunches of flowers plucked from my old hats.

These pots will be part of the photo shoot I am doing on Monday with my buddy, Carol. Then, I'm doing double duty by having a party the next day and just keeping the table set overnight, which works out perfectly since we don't have little Sugarwings on Monday night. If we did, there is no way I could pull off having a table set for a tea party and not letting her in on it! She'd be insulted.

After Tuesday, these peat pot pretties will be for sale. If you'd like me to reserve one for you ($25 plus shipping) please let me know. I can write whatever name you would like on the flag. Or maybe just "Spring" or "Fairies", or "Welcome"?

When I get started on something its hard to stop, so there are about a dozen of these. Plus, this was my last arty project that I needed for the photo shoot, and I knew that when I was done with these, it would be time to clean the house. It was much more fun to play with Sweet Charlottes than to tackle cobwebs and wax floors.

Ugh. I'm off to clean. Sugarwings is here to help me, we pretend to be Snow White cleaning up after those 7 messy little dwarfs. That helps a bit. Although it is a bit disturbing when she keeps repeating, "Dirty, dirty, dwarf." Somethings not quite right about that.

Pretty girls

Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), fairies, family, Sugarwings, yorkies

By Karla Nathan / February 27, 2010

Pixie Pie and Sugarwings had a mini fairy fest last night with some new sets of wings. Now, my little fairies have plenty of wings, but there is nothing like a spankin new pair to get the fun going. Its kind of like when I have a room full of stuff to work with, but still get really excited about a flea market haul of new (old) supplies.

The little girls weren't the only ones who got treats yesterday. I splurged and took all three little Dorkies to the groomer. I usually cut their hair myself, but its easier to do outside in nice weather. I hate cleaning up all the hair after trying to cut it indoors.

Since I was splurging on groomer fees, I went all out. Twinks has painted toenails and a sparkly bow too.

It was so worth it. Look at that face! She deserves a hair cut that no one makes fun of. When I do the styling myself, there isn't much style to it. She is smart enough to act embarrassed about how funny she looks from my chopping. Last night, she was showing off, knowing she looked GOOD from the groomer's work!

Plus, she's going to be a mama, she needs some pampering.

Thanks for all the Charlotte shopping! I've been packing boxes for hours tonight. I think there are a couple left in the shop, not many. Man, those went fast. You'd have thought these girls had wings too, the way they flew out of here.

Thanks!

Little romantic gestures

fairies, holiday decor, paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / February 15, 2010

Did you get roses for Valentine's Day? If not, my boutique is stocked up with new (old of course!) millinery.

We had a nice day. For us, Valentines is a celebration of the anniversary of my husband adopting our boys, so we do a family dinner at a favorite restaurant with gifts to pass out to everyone. We might have been the only group seated at the romantic Italian restaurant filled with tables of couples!

Earlier in the day, I pampered my husband for the holiday, starting with a heart shaped breakfast.

Then, I made up a heart healthy snack mix of dried blueberries, pecans, and chocolate yogurt raisins and left it by his remote control, knowing he'd be happily surprised when he sat down to take a break and watch TV in the afternoon.

When you've been married for almost 30 years, the little gestures are even more important than when you are newlyweds. And small kindnesses like these are what keep you married for 30 years! I much prefer a thoughtful little gesture to something flashy and expensive. And I think he does too.

You can still enter the Alice Tag Book Swap, if you are interested. Details here.

The more the merrier!

I need to run, I'm having a big craft day, tonight and again tomorrow in my studio, so need to get my table cleared off. Its about a foot deep in junk at the moment.

But before I go, I want to thank you for all the well wishes for my 700th post and 3rd anniversary. Oh, and I need to announce the winner of the Grumpy Fairy book.

It goes to Suzanne Duda.

Wishing the Happiest of Valentine’s Days to You!!

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

By Karla Nathan / February 14, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day! Today is not only my 3rd blog anniversary, it is also my 700th post! What are the odds that would happen??? So of course, I am celebrating with a giveaway. Today is the last day to enter to win a copy of my Grumpy Fairy book

This little painting is for Sherry. She has EIGHT grand daughters and has asked me to paint them each as a fairy, like I did for Sugarwings in the Grumpy Fairy book. I've had a lot of request for doing this, but have always turned them down. Now, I think I am ready to take on some commissions….

To see if I really wanted to go into the fairy painting biz, I did a few little sprite cartoons of some of my friend's children.

Of course, these will not be exact portraits, cartoon is the key word here. I have plans for some vintage wallpaper covered mats. When I have it all done and ready to mail, I'll show you the photos I worked from and the finished projects. I'll be interested to see what the moms say. I'll be relying on their feed back to see if I will offer this service in my Boutique. What do you think? Is there a market for this?

Each is a mix of ink, watercolor, acrylic, and glitter. There had to be glitter!

My little Sugarwings has been doing some artwork too. She needed to make 16 Valentines for school, so I turned her loose with my red and pink paints and some glitter gel. She was enjoying the job, but was even more excited to think about the cards her friends were making for her. Their party is Monday after Valentine's, which is lucky, because she was sick on Friday.

Speaking of lucky, I've been getting some wonderful gifts in the mail! An envelope full of vintage die cuts came from Ruth, (who is one of the participants in our Alice Tag Book Swap– its not too late to enter if you want to join us!)

This giant selection of red gummed labels came from Kathy, along with the cute heart collage and the round stacking boxes. I can't wait to gaudy up those babies.

I think that these labels will come in very handy on my Alice swap tags.

Then, I got a package from Sue

that was filled to the top with pretty papers for me and for Sugarwings! Along with lots of fun tid bits for my fairy grand baby to craft with, stickers, tags, and even sticky paper to make your own stickers with. She used some over the painted Valentines she made for school.

There was a set of fairy wings for a doll too! Sweet, huh?

But that is not all! My pal, Tiffany sent a beautiful card from one of her photos and inside it was this Glenda bookmark. Just because. And Jenn sent a cute Valentine, which was a sweet surprise.

And I can't forget to mention the Valentine calendar that my Sissy sent for all of us to copy and use (previous post). I ended up putting a copy in my scrapbook today, but instead of a photo, I added two columns clipped out of the newspaper this week. They are both written by Lori Carson, who was the host for the Romantic Decorating Tips I did for the local news station (here and here). She used the tips for her column too, and gave credit to my blog.

Yep, I'm pretty lucky. Thank you to everyone who comes by my blog to keep me company and to all the great blog friends that I've met. Thank you for 3 years of fun. My blog means a lot to me, and so does your company.

I hope you'll continue keeping me company as I blather on in the future!

Waste not, want not

fairies, paintings

By Karla Nathan / February 2, 2010

My 5 Romantic Decorating Tips for Valentine's Day are almost set and ready to go. Now, I still need to clean the house to be ready for the TV cameras on Thursday. After Sugarwings gets out of school tomorrow, she and I will be spending the rest of the day spiffing the place up. Then we'll all go OUT for dinner so it doesn't get messed up again!

The tip shown here, is to decorate with candy. I've wrapped some candy bars in scrapbook paper, with heart shaped doilies and some ribbon, then put them in a glass canister. Doesn't everything look better under glass?? Another trick for making items look more important and interesting, is to gather them up together on a tray. So, I've used a simple white platter to display the treats on.

(I'll need to fill up the M&M's- they got snacked on, I'll add some red and white ones, then maybe a ribbon?? What do you think?)

All of the tips I show need to be easy and quick. The segment is only a minute or so, and there won't be time to explain much. I'm trying to go for displays that speak for themselves.

After working on the Valentine display ideas, I sat down to do a little drawing that a friend commissioned. But- the paper I had just wasn't working. Another friend had given it to me, and it looked like really high quality stuff, but when I went to erase on it, it just fuzzed up. So, I was unable to finish the piece as a painting. I hated to waste it, so instead of watercolor paints, I colored it with markers and did a quickie, swirly background.

My poor niece is recovering from an awful surgery, so I thought I'd pack up some scrap booking supplies to send to her to play with while she was down. I decided to use this fairy sketch on the cover of the album I wanted to make for her.

Nothing goes to waste around here! Those props for the photo shoot will certainly be gobbled up and enjoyed after the cameras are done.

Oops, gotta go, LOST is starting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Be My Fairy Valentine” Bird

antiques/junking, fairies, holiday decor, how to's, show and tell, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / January 30, 2010

What a good day! I attended a class that my Bella pal, Sheila was teaching today at a barn. Yep, a barn. But not any old barn. Yes, there were stalls, and horses and hay, but there was also a full kitchen, two bathrooms, a bedroom, living room, dining nook, and full work space!

No, not a typical barn at all. And the farm dogs were foofy, standard poodles.

The cute as a bug owner, Kelly, has set up the place for her design business and will be using it also for these class events. Along with the class, was shopping. Good shopping. Two of my favorite dealers from Rusty Chandelier had spaces here along with all of Kelly's gorgeousness. Clothes, jewels, and vintage tidbits filled the space, and I spent an hour before the luncheon was served exploring it all and picking out some treasures (photos later).

Sheila taught 3 classes, but Beth and I just signed up for one. And it was a doozy. What a cool idea she had to share! This is Sheila's class example, and she provided everything we needed to complete it just like this.

But I had some changes in mind…. For the bird, I brought ledger paper with pink lines, and made the wings and tail feathers from millinery petals. The eye is a crystal bead that Sheila provided. (I dropped mine, but Beth gave me hers to use) I used the Cropadile to punch an eye hole, then glued the bead inside, so that it was 3-d from both sides. And you can see through it in the light for a little glow.

Before making the wired branches as Sheila instructed, I wrapped the "trunk" in pink velvet ribbon. My theme became "Be My Fairy Valentine", so I used lots of fairy girls, pink flowers, and hearts.

One cool thing about these trees, is that you can take all the goodies off and change them with the seasons. So, next this can be a springtime tree.

There are pink velvet flowers wired onto my branches, so I am all ready for spring!

Sheila provided the oval chipboard, but instead of the photo she offered, I glued on some hand painted roses that I'd brought along.

Two little wooden hearts got covered in wallpaper on one side and that pink lined ledger paper on the other. I snipped a length of a broken pearl necklace off to tie into a loop at the bottom to hold a little rose bud. ( I should have cut the length longer, it was a bit hard to tie with the string that short)

To hang the heart, I twisted a bit of wire into a kind of, heart shaped hook.

The spool and wire were things Sheila gave us, along with instructions on how to make a little nest with three eggs in it. She is a wonderful, patient teacher and took time with each of us individually to explain the wire weaving to make the nests. I'd never tried one before, and really enjoyed learning that part. I can see lots of nests in my future…

The nest I made wasn't for birdies, though, its a fairy nest. I wired this frozen Charlotte onto the top of the spool and made wings for her from little feathers that were in our kit ( I used one under the nest too) and some velvet millinery petals. (Do you think she looks like she is hoola hooping? Maybe I should make her a tutu to cover the wire?)

To the front of the small spool, I added another wallpaper covered heart.

Before the class this morning, I glued a rhinestone heart to the front of this locket and made a tiny collage to put into it.

The fairy hanging behind it, is an old photo that I painted on. Then I covered the back in rose wallpaper, added ribbon and flowers to the bottom, and punched a hole to hang a crystal from (that Sheila had in our kits, she really provided some fun baubles for us).

This is also a locket, with a mirror on the other side. This is something that I hung as is. I added a framed ribbon rose by my friend, Natasha, too.

The tree was so much fun to make, that I almost can't wait to make more stuff for it and change the theme already! I will be first in line to head out to the countryside for the next Farmstead Style experience, let me know if you want to come too!

Again, I need to thank you all for making the wallpaper FLY out of my boutique! I've added a few more here and there and have tried to keep it stocked up, but some packets that are sold out won't be replaced. I did replace some scrap packs and added this selection. Hopefully, later in the week, I'll have a chance to add some more.

But I have to work on a little segment for our local cable news channel for Thursday. Which means cleaning my house for the cameras, and showing 5 projects about Romantic Decorating for Valentines Day. So, maybe the wallpaper will have to wait. My house is a wreck again. Didn't I just spend a solid week cleaning and redoing??????

Speaking of time flying, where did January go??? But, you still have a little time to enter the January Giveaway drawing for a little painted and glittered cardinal!