give away – Page 2 – Karla's Cottage

Hooked on books

By Karla Nathan / June 7, 2012

This book is the project we made in Jeanne Oliver's class at Tiffanys. It began with a vintage paper collage, and was painted and textured, then we used inks, paints and who knows what all over the top of that! It was a never ending layering process. I really enjoyed doing the textures. Years ago, when I was a muralist and faux finish artist, I used joint compound all the time. Its been a while since I worked with that kind of textural material and I realized that I missed it while working on this.

My book is different than the others, I went with a (surprise!) Fairy theme and hand painted a fairy, flowers, and butterfly on the cover. I was going for more lacy and romantic than funky and cute.

The technique was so addicitve, that when I got home, i was looking around for stuff to blob modelling paste or joint compound onto.

This collage is the one I am having a giveaway for. (leave a comment if you are interested, all comments on all posts are entered in the drawing)

Beth was teaching a 3-d style collage at Birdsong, and we did a practice class the week before, to make up a few of these. (no two alike, she had a GREAT stash of supplise to work with)

It was pretty before, but I like it even more now that I added the textures, then inked over the edges of those a little too.

Here is the other one I did with her. This one does not have the added paint or modelling paste over it.

Good class, huh? She has agreed to teach another one with me too. We hope to do something in my studio for fall, along the lines of our Romantic Gothic Ghosts online workshop. But in person, not online. Maybe a Sat. in late September. Or early Oct?

Back to the Journal from Jeanne's class.

I took the book with me to Beth's for a craft day and really had no plans. But decided to start covering the pages with old papers as a start. Beth had carved out a little niche for me to sit in among the piles of fantastic ephemera she has collected adn told me to help myself.

So, I challenged myself to randomly pick up pages and odds and ends from what I could reach without leaving my chair and covered quite a few pages before realizing the book was going to be really thick. So then, I began removing every other page to make it less bulky, and covered the remaining pages.

When I got home, I started adding family photos, and other tidbits I'd saved, like this card my Sissy made.

And this bit of lace that was given to me last year by someone in my swap (by the way, I do have another swap plan in the works, details soon)

Sometimes the background pages I'd randomly used really fit the pictures.

Like this calandar page where I circled Sugarwing's birthday.

Other times, the papers were just background. I tried to take the theme from the color or tone of the pages to coordinate my photos to.

But mostly, it was gorilla scrap booking. I was slapping them in as fast as I could.

Sometimes it worked out well. I didn't realize this old magazine page was from a December issue till I'd glued a holiday photo down, to what I thought was just a neutral background. Lucky mistake!

If you are wonderfing why there is such an over abundance of Sugarwings in this book, its because I was way, way behind on doing a scrapbook, and these are mostly older photos I'd been stockpiling.

The Dewdrop photos are mostly tiny baby pictures. I have another stash of more recent photos that need to go in the next book I do.

Some of these photos are three years old, before Dewdrop was even around!

On this one, I added a flower plucked from the hat that my fairy baby is wearing in the picture.

I'll leave you with a few more pages. I think I've rambled on enough for now.

(this paper was not in Beth's stash, it is a painting Sugarwings did for me for Grandparent's Day!)

Cooking up some paintings

Food and Drink, give away, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 5, 2012

Sugarwings and I decided to make our own paint. I'd heard you could make it with food coloring, cornstarch and water, but had no instructions.

But how hard could it be? So we gave it a try.

Each batch turned out a little different since we aren't the measuring types.

Our colors might have been a bit more festive if the head chef wasn't so thrilled with squirting out the food coloring. She practically emptied each color in to the first batch, which produced a deep black.

Using more cornstarch made a pastey paint that you could kind of mold, and was fun to squeeze. Less made a more paintable liquid.

Mix water, cornstarch, and food coloring in a saucepan, cook till thick. I used about a cup of water each time, maybe a 1/4 cup of the cornstarch, but it varied.

We used paper cups leftover from our Halloween party to pour the paint into, then set it in the freezer to cool off fast so we could get to work playing with it.

While it cooked, we thought it looked a lot like pudding. Of course, as soon as we were finished, we just had to make some pudding too! We decided to make the pudding into a fudgesicle ice cream cake while waiting for the paint cooled off.

We mixed the fresh made, chocolate pudding with a cup of vanilla ice cream. Half of that went into a glass bowl, over a layer of granola.

Next, a layer of vanilla icecream, then more granola. And a drizzle of Trader Joe's carmel sauce, then the rest of the pudding.

We slipped it into the freezer, then after dinner, sat the bowl into a pan of hot water for a moment to loosen the treat, and flipped it over onto a cake plate. It was as pretty as it was tasty!

I'll let you know if the paint comes out of the side walk next time it rains…. It did dry lighter than it was than wet, so I have a feeling that there will be a gradual fading away.

I kind of hope it doesn't. I like her little green hand prints all over the driveway. Of course, she has already left her prints all over my heart.

PS- a new friend, is planning a shopping/crafty class weekend in Sept. Its in St Joe, and you know, that city is filled with great junkers and wonderful stuff for sale. I'm always up for any reason to visit there. More details later…

What once was lost and a giveaway

antiques/junking, Books, give away, I do tend to run on, don't I?, vintage paper/collage art, wallpaper

By Karla Nathan / June 3, 2012

While cleaning up the studio for a mini redo, I came across some art journals I'd made a LONG time ago and forgotten about.

It started by cleaning the garage and coming across this buffet I'd forgotten about. After our kitchen remodel, I'd stashed it out there and it was buried under a pile of stuff my son was storing. I don't know why I didn't move it into the studio in the first place instead of leaving it to the spiders and dust in the garage for 9 months, its perfect in my work space.

The hutch had been sitting on a table previously. I switched the two out, then returned the hutch and all the stuff in it. The table is now in the garage with the spiders and I have an empty cabinet waiting to be filled up with more crap from garage sales treasures.(so I can lose them in the chaos too, like the art journals and the buffet. Who loses a buffet anyway? Does that mean I have waaaayyy too much junk?)

Back to the journals… I found a couple of them, and they are now listed in the Boutique.

One is filled with ephemera pages, and the other is a heavy canvas art paper, that I bought at an estate sale, kinda vintagey, not real old. But just perfect for a journal.

Um, I hate to admit it, but I found some other stuff packed away and forgotten too. Stacks of extra covers from the Birdsong tag book swap last year.

Plus a few extra tags I'd made while I was on a roll with the theme.

So I made up a couple of tag books and listed those too. And listed those in the Boutique under the Altered Books category, which had been empty for quite a while.

This art journal is in there now too, its a recent creation and was made from Beth's stash of goods, not mine.

I was at her house for craft day and was at a loss for a project.

She handed me a chipboard book and a box of paper and I did the basic pages for this, then embellished it when I got home.

(I have another project to show you from her stash too. I'll post it later this week. It was done with just what I could reach from my chair and not have to get up. I have to say, I could have gone on for years with this and not made a dent in the supply!)

She has great old papers piling up in her studio. This was in her box of odds and ends. I love the cracks from age.

When I listed this last book, I included a bagful of OLD goodies from my stash to finish it with, and am selling it as a kit.

Slowly but surely, I'll be filling the Boutique back up, and maybe, just maybe, I'll tend to the poor little neglected Etsy shop too.

But maybe not, I'm going out of town again this week.

Hopefully, I'll get more in the shop before I go. All purchases after Tuesday will be mailed when I get back.

I'll have fresh blog posts up for all week while I'm gone. And a chance to win this college I made when Beth and I practiced her class for Birdsong.

Leave a comment on any (or all posts) and I'll draw a name after I get back, probably on Sat. the 16th.

Valentine celebrations and a giveaway

celebrations, free images, give away, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / February 10, 2012

This week Sugarwings and I threw a little Valentine making party for our friends. I set out lots of supplies for card making and for decorating gift boxes, plus had a few examples for ideas. The treat cabinet was filled up, and we made sure to have some healthy after school snacks out too, to make the parents happy as well as the kids.

One of my examples was a pop up card, with instructions next to a couple of finished ones. Its a very simple version, that even the kids could do. Here are the instructions, if you want to whip one up. The part you can't read, behind the pop up just says to make sure not to glue the paper you cover the outside of the card with to the part that folds up.

The kids all seemed to get into the projects and worked away on them for a couple of hours. Its good to see little ones be creative and stick to something like that, to not have to get up and run around or go play with toys. It was refreshing to see them all involved with making their boxes and exploring all the different supplies there was to dig into.

They all kept me pretty busy, I didn't really get to sit down to make something myself. But before the group arrived, I had made up these. Isn't the chalk board top perfect for writing a sweet note to your Valentine to read before opening it up to see the treats inside?

Its been a while since I've done a giveaway. And I was reminded while reading Beth's blog that our 5 year anniversary is here! Hers was the 9th, mine is actually on Valentine's Day itself.

Thanks again, Beth, for getting me started!!!

So it seems appropriate for me to offer a Valentine to you as a giveaway prize to celebrate!

Just leave a comment on this post, and I'll draw a name Monday, for this sweet little giveaway.

And if you are still cutting, pasting, and creating your own valentines, here is the back cover of that candy box I have on my dining table. A friend asked to see a close up of it, to see if the music was acutally playable. So, I'm posting it here for her. Its a cool graphic, and if you wanted to use it in your art, you can click on this to open in a larger window, save it to your computer, print it and cut out the heart.

That music note, heart shaped border is a pretty one to use. I might try to make something out if it myself.

Only 4 more days till Valentine's Day! I hope you have some sweetness planned for your holiday too.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, I love Kim’s house! plus a Boutique sale and a giveaway

Food and Drink, give away, the Boutique at Karla's Cottage, Travel, We're having a party, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / December 23, 2011

Everything at Kim's was pure perfection, she has major decor, design, and detail skills.

And the ladies who came to spend the day were such fun! I hope they enjoyed my two classes as much as I enjoyed sharing the tips with them.

There were gifts galore too. Kim gave us all the table decorations she used to foof our seats, I already have these wings on display in my own holiday decor.

And the generous attendees all included me in their swaps, even though I didn't have time to participate. (photos to come, you'll be impressed with their work!)

Kim's house was sooooo pretty. I said that word so many times, that I sounded like a broken record. Or a dimwit with a pitiful vocabulary.

Can you blame me? Pretty was everywhere.

Kim was attempting to show me around when I arrived, when I caught a glimpse of her studio through the open doorway and I was magnetically pulled into the prettiness of the room, with no hope of stopping myself. I just had to explore that space.

But it wasn't just the studio. The whole house is that great. This is the bedroom that Jessi and I shared, Kim's daughter, Kate, gave up her room for the whole weekend.

My main project was a wire wrapped wreath, with lace leaves and a nesting dove. I brought a table full of "extras" for everyone to play with. Ribbons, lace, beads,glitters, etc. When I teach a class, I think its only fair to include everything you need in the kits.

But- its good to have an option to personalize the piece and have some bonus goodies to dig through.

Don't we all love to dig?

Everyone's project was unique, no two just the same. Just the way I like it!

We also played with paint, and I explained some of the techniques for short cut painting tips that are on the side bar of my blog. I'll have some pictures of that later, as well as a bigger sample of the work. Kim and I painted her nightstands using the same steps that we did on the small wooden boxes that I brought for the class.

When I arrived, she had a pristine, newly painted, chalk board door.

And I had the honors of supplying its first drawing.

Kate has tamed a feral cat and it adores her. So, my thought was to add the kitty to the picture, and have it play with the ribbons dangling from the wreath that we were making that day.

I have more photos to share after Christmas, but for now, I really need to get shopping and wrapping! Sugarwings has been ill since I got home and a lot of my time has gone to snuggling instead of prepping for the big event this weekend. I hope Santa can find my chimney, because no one in this house should count on gifts from me…. I'm not prepared!

Speaking of gifts- don't forget that you have till Christmas to win a special, surprise gift from me. Any comment this week, any post counts.

Also, if you have Christmas gift cash to buy your self a gift, come on by the Boutique. Everything is 30% off if you use THIS LINK.

The only catch is, that I won't be doing any mailing for a few days. You might not recieve your box till after New Years.

And if you click on the website directly, you can't get the sale price, its only available from THIS LINK

When you fill your shopping cart, you need to type in the words- happyholidays – then hit "recalculate" to get the special price. Its simple to do.

Merry Christmas!

Gifts and Giveaways and free images, Happy Happy Holidays!

Books, free images, give away, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / December 18, 2011

Last week, friends came by to help me practice my "Song of the Season" class that I am teaching at Kim's. As a thanks, and a Happy Holiday, I made up a little goodie bag for each of them.

These great scented candles from Bath and Bodyworks were on sale for 5 or 6 dollars, I can't remember, but it was a very good deal, so I bought a bagful to pass out this season. Each one got foofed up for the person it was going to. My pal, Angie loves pink roses as much as I do, so hers is topped with a circle of my favorite wallpaper in the world, and I wrapped a coordinating old, gold striped paper around it, tied it with a pink bow and added a millinery rose and a bit of sparkle.

Beth and Karla are both accountants, so their candles were decked out with pages snipped from a 1910 math book.

A bit of glue, a scrap of paper, and some foof, and they were quickly personalized to suit the giftees.

(the scent I chose was Vanilla Peppermint, and it reminds me of the happy evenings Sugarwings and I have spent with our cocoa parties by the Christmas tree. We like to stir the hot milk with candy canes, and then either add a spoonful of shaved chocolate, or a squeeze of vanilla agave syrup to our cups)

There is still another gift for Beth, but I didn't have it ready for her that day. She brought a Christmas present for me, and of course, I did NOT wait till I had one for her before I opened this. It was wrapped way too pretty. And even if I did pretend to be polite and wait, I'd have opened it as soon as she left anyway, then would have had to scramble to re-wrap it for when I had a gift ready for her and we could officially trade.

Her present was layers upon layers of gifts! A tattered old corsage and a hand made, ruffled scarf as a bow topped it all off. Under that, old wallpaper in gray and sage (I've already made something with a scrap of it, too).

Inside were two books, one was a 2012 planner done by local talent, Greg Johnson.I've never owned one before, but have always wanted one of his annual creations. I stole this photo from my friend, Debbie, she sells them in her Curious Sofa shop. You can get one for yourself, here

The other book is a flower child book from 1910. In the cover it says:

"To every child-flower that blooms within the curious garden that we call home, this little book is lovingly dedicated"

Its going to be a favorite of Sugarwings and I! Way too nice to cut up and use for projects, but I'll be scanning and using the pages, for sure.

These pages are for you. Just click to open in a larger size, save to the computer from that window, and print.

My dear friend, Shanna brought this beauty to me. She is a stained glass artist and makes wonderful Christmas ornies. My tree is full of her creations. This one is a new design, a tussy mussy, with hand painted enamel designs.

Now some more gifts for you! I picked three names from the comments this last week, and they have a choice of a dress form class or a cuff class online.

The winners are:

1-Debbie Jullirat

2-Wanda Contrears

3-Nancy Thompson

Will the 3 of you please email me to get the info for the tutorials?

Since its Christmas and I love making and giving presents as much as I love getting them, I'll do another giveaway too.

Between now and Christmas, leave a comment and I'll draw a name to win a surprise prize.

Holiday French Ephemera labels, free images for you

free images, give away, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / December 11, 2011

Holiday decor is an ongoing thing around here. I thought I was done, and was going simple this year… but every day it seems like I think of "one more little thing" that I want to do.

We spend more time in the kitchen than anywhere else, now that it is all remodeled. Its homey and a great gathering place for the whole family. I've got a table top tree in there on the buffet, and the big tree in the living room is placed so that you see it from the dining table.

But the rest of the kitchen looked like it could be any old day of the year.

So, I made up some quickie labels using some French images I got from my pal, Gwen of Bottoms Up. They were chocolate cards, I digitally removed the words and added my own holiday themed ones, and then removed the colors and tinted them all slightly neutral.

I always print my images onto matt photo paper, the results are much prettier than just copy or laser paper.

The backs got a quick smear of glue stick, and the cut out labels were then pressed onto my everyday cannisters. You have probably heard me complain about glue sticks in the past, the glue never lasts. Which is perfect for this, because its only a temporary look.

And yes, if I was really going all out and doing it right, I'd empty the canisters and fill them with candy canes, cookies, ornaments and other holiday foof. But no, this was a very easy, very quick project just to add a vintage and Christmassy feel to this corner. In January, I'll just take a soapy, hot sponge and wipe the glue away, and with little fuss and bother it will all be back to normal.

If only putting away the tree was that simple!

In the spirit of the holiday, I'm also giving away some tutorials. Please mention in your comment if you are interested in one or the other of these.

Oh, and by the way, I'm still adding more and more trees to the Etsy site, and there are still a few in the Boutique.

Its nice to see that they are still so popular, since I enjoy making them so much. I've had to replenish the stock a few times, but it is getting late in the year, so probably won't be adding any more after this. Thanks so much for shopping with me!

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

Here are the images that I used for my canisters. Just click on the image to open it in a larger size before you save it to your computer to print it. Some of the edges are cut off, but that didn't bother me, and it doesn't really show once they are all cut out.

A Christmas Angel mini dress form

give away

By Karla Nathan / December 9, 2011

One of my favorite things about the mini dress forms that I've been making all year, is the different ways to dress them up.

This one is an angel, to set out for Christmas.

She wasn't always an angel. She started out as just one of the gals that I'd made as an example for the online class.

But I saw these premade, white feather, wings at Hobby Lobby (half price this week, too) and picked up a pair.

I added some glitter to the body, and tinsel to the skirt, then slapped the wings on, and ta-dah! A holiday angel.

And if you'd like to win a dress form tutorial, please mention in your comment that you are interested. Or if you'd rather have a cuff one, please let me know. In the spirit of the holiday, I'll be giving away three more classes this week!

A tree top Christmas Party with Little Edy and a giveaway

give away, holiday decor, how to's, jewelry, redos

By Karla Nathan / November 23, 2011

My new, white Christmas tree is up and ready to be decorated! I'll be away for 2 weekends in Dec. and I am a little sad about missing out on tree time. I wanted plenty of time to enjoy the holiday decor, so my plan is to have the halls decked before Thanksgiving. But I needed a new topper, since I have two trees this year and plan on using my other tree in the newly remodelled kitchen this year.

While tidying up Sugarwing's room, I came across this little doll who had seen much better days. Either my fairy grand baby has the same tendencies to hang onto things that need refurbished, or she is the cause of the need for refurbishment…

This doll kind of has a Little Edy/Grey Gardens look about her, doesn't she?

The first thing I did was repaint her eyes and brows.

Then, I popped her into a party hat with the point cut off. At this point she doesn't look like she is going to any kind of party I want to attend. But there is still work to be done.

The party hat is a perfect skirt base for her, its sturdy and I can slide it right over the top of the tree.

I wanted a halo that stood up from her head, so I made a wire ring to hold it. The ring fits around her noggin, and was glued into place before gluing yarn hair over it. The halo itself is a vintage, circle, rhinestone brooch.

To keep the halo standing straight up, I glopped on a bunch of glue where it is wrapped with the wire. That needed covered up, so I added a white millinery bloom over the glue blob.

Her dress is made up of vintage papers, trims, and lace that I glued to her body and the party hat, no sewing for me. The wings are feathers and flocked wallpaper, and she is decked out in some millinery and jewels.

When she heads up to the top of the tree, I'll get a photo of her in her new home. That is if I ever get caught up and get that tree decorated… Right now, its up, the lights are on and its naked as a jaybird. But still festive! I'm happy just to have it there waiting for me. I've wanted a white tree for the past few years, my old one turned yellow and I hadn't found a reasonable priced one to replace it with.

The yellow was not a good "patina-ed with age look" it was a "did a dog pee on your tree?" look. It had to go.

My life is full of white trees right now. I've been bleaching and glittering more batches of bottle brush trees this week. I thought I had plenty of them done, but needed another couple of sinkfuls to fill some special orders. Plus, I like to have plenty to play with and decorate myself too!

Can you have too many? So far, the answer is no, and I seem to have a LOT of them.

And finally, I made up some cuff bracelet kits.

All filled with lacey, velvety, vintagey goodies.

These are priced separate from my Cuff Tutorial. Previous kits included the price of the online lesson, but with these kits, you need to either purchase the $6 class separately or use put them together in your own way. The kits come with the aluminum blanks and all the trims and bits you need to make a bracelet according to my directions in the class.

There are also plain cuffs for sale for you to use if you don't want a whole kit.

They are stocked in the Boutique in two sizes, 1 inch and 1-1/2 inch.

I hope you have a happy holiday weekend planned. We are going all local/free range/ organic this year, and even roasting our own pumpkin to make the pies. I've never done that before, so I might need to have a frozen pie as a back up… If you have any tips, please let me know!

Happy Thanksgiving!

PS- as a Thanksgiving treat (because I'm thankful you read my blog and buy my stuff and I can pretend this is a real job) I'll give away 2 Cuff Tutorials. Please leave a comment letting me know if you are interested.

ps- Have you visited Amy? She makes the best stuff from nothing. She is having a link party and I joined it today.

Craft Day fun and still time to enter the Craft Day Giveaway

give away

By Karla Nathan / September 15, 2011

Tuesday, we had another craft day. Lately we've been pretty good about keeping up with these. I'm so glad, because they mean a lot to me. This last one was really fun, all of us seemed to be in a snarky mood and we laughed all day.

Beth had this post card with her, and it made me laugh because it suited my mood that day. As an artist, I work alone a lot, and it can be lonesome. Craft days are such a great break from the quiet "good girl" days of slogging away and working alone. Its nice to have a day with buddies when we can crack jokes and be a little rude.

Beth also brought some goodies for our Craft Day Club giveaway. We'll draw a name for the winner on our next craft day, on the 20th.

Leave a comment here if you want a chance to win.

Mary completed a record number of glue book pages last Tuesday. This was my fave.

Her glue book swap is still open, by the way.

Beth worked on this embroidered bag.

The Other Karla did some stitch work too.

While I worked on my two dozen paper mache mushrooms. These are not quite done, I'll have some photos of the finished product soon.

But the prettiest thing all day? Beth's flirty little feathers. She just came from the hairdresser and had some pink feathers woven into her hair.