guncles – Page 2 – Karla's Cottage

Guncle time craft day

By Karla Nathan / November 11, 2023

On my recent getaway to the sunshine state, my first stop was Guncleland on Sweet Cherry Lane.

We had one night to make enough ornaments to fill a small tree, but well, we got a little side tracked.

In a fun way of course.

There were doggies to snuggle, interesting neighbors to meet, and fresh, delicious piles of shrimp to savor. Oh and wine, there was of course, wine to drink as we chatted, caught up, and giggled.

But serious crafting too! We’d worked on embellishing old violins when the boys came to KS in September, but Randy wasn’t pleased with his. He liked the wood grain, and was glad he hadn’t painted it, but felt that it wasn’t pulled together.

We gave it a quick makeover by removing some of the decor, and adding sheet music. Over that we stuck to a wings and roses theme to make it feel more cohesive.

There was a broken German figure on his desk, and some wings, and well, lots and lots of intriguing bits and pieces to sift through. I gathered what was in front of me and made it into this fairy to hang on his tree.

Then we moved onto some more traditional holiday goodies. I’d brought a few vintage card scrap pages from an album, he had wooden discs from Hobby Lobby.

We didn’t talk about a color theme or style, we just started making ornies.

I’d also brought some of my Nutcracker images that I’d been using for my Good Juju display. So their tree will have quite a mix match of hand made pretties, won’t it?

We could’ve used a few more days of this, I love crafting with my baby bro and being with his sweet family in Jax. Our time was way too short. But I had more adventures to come all jammed into one, way too short, week.

A musical interlude

antiques/junking, collections, guncles

By Karla Nathan / September 16, 2023

A few years back, Guncle Randy and I redid a couple violins and fell in love with the process. He has been on the search for more instruments for us to recreate.

After finding another violin for himself, he came across TWO more that his brother, Mark had. Mark and his partner, Allie had found them tossed away and snatched them out of a landfill.

How nice that they offered them to us to use. Allie wanted us to Halloween one up for her, and we were thrilled to have THREE to play with.

The one Randy wanted for himself had glowing wood grain that he didn’t want covered up, so his stayed natural.

Mine got painted white. (Big surprise)

With a crackle finish here and there.

I used crackle on the black one for Allie too. It didn’t show up much til it was accented with silver wax.

We used lace as texture too.

I didn’t get a full photo of mine, but will show one when I get it hung in the house with my previous creation. Allie says hers will go onto her mantel. And Randy’s will be wired into his Xmas tree.

This was our work space.
we moved all of the furniture to one side of the room to have it ready for my son to install the new floor. Randy and I had a small table hidden in the forest of cabinets. And we were lucky to have the guys here to help move stuff so the room was ready when Adam arrived to start on it.

I’ll leave you with some close ups of the musical trio.

Guncles in Kansas

cottage, family, Food and Drink, guncles

By Karla Nathan / September 13, 2023

We had a Guncle-riffic visit last week. They spent half the time with us, the other half with close friends in KC. Their last night in Lawrence included a birthday party for that couple, who are family to the guys.

Now, down on Sweet Cherry Lane in Jax, the tablescapes and delicious food are legendary. Randy keeps his dining table set on a regular basis and then goes even more all out when guests arrive.

And the food, oh my.

So while they were visiting, I had Randy help me set my table.

Our big craft project had been to restyle some violins.

So we incorporated those along with some violin sheet music.

We had a small group at a large table, and only needed to decorate half of it. Kevin makes the best German chocolate cake, so that got center stage on the other half.

Dinner was a luscious lemon chicken. And the company? The best!

I’ll have some close ups of the violins in my next post.

Magic at the Hawk and Hawthorn

family, flowers, Food and Drink, Garden, guncles, Travel

By Karla Nathan / July 24, 2023

Hawk and Hawthorn (about 20 min north of Asheville on top of a scenic mountain) is my new favorite vacation spot.

The Airbnb is set upstairs of a newly renovated, charming old house and the patio over looks the farm.

Bonus- the view includes the barn/event center.

Double bonus for me- my son lives there.

He is their onsite trim carpenter.

He and his buddy just built this outdoor kitchen for tent campers. Spaces are available through Hipcamp, and campers have access to the barn for yoga, bathrooms, cooking, and more.

I think how much you can hang out in the barn depends on scheduled events. They had just held one, and this mushroom display from it was still set up. I spy a couple of my schroomies in there too!

They host workshops, festivals, retreats, music, etc. Our visit was Sunday thru Friday, so it was pretty low key.

We had full use of the facilities and after harvesting our food to fix in the apartment kitchen, we walked it across the field and up the hill to dine in the beautiful barn.

It had just started to rain and was getting dark. We ate while listening to the drops on the metal roof and the curtains swayed in the breeze.

I am not sure how many times I used the word “magical”, probably way too many, but it was justified.

Our meal was trout that the kids caught with their grandfather that day and deliciousness we gathered from the vast gardens.

I would say that the term, “magical”, had to be correct. There had to be some magic in the head grower’s touch. Look at the size of this corn! All the veggies were lush and vibrant, over the top with health and vitality.

It made me think that my Kansas garden back home was a sad comparison.

We picked fresh produce daily. And had flowers in our salads, and even cooked into chewy brownies.

And I got to forage for chanterelles! It was my first successful mushroom hunt.

We walked through what felt like an enchanted land of moss and streams to find them. While on the hunt, my boy taught me tricks about different types and what to look for.

He is always on the lookout and you never know when he will abruptly pull over the car to spring out and return with a handful of berries to share. He spots tasty treats everywhere he goes.

At the farm, there are baby bunnies to hold and goats to visit. There is a fresh mountain spring set up with pipes to fill your containers.

Pretty and rustic areas to enjoy, trails to explore, and vistas so lovely, all you want to do is sit back, sip a glass of wine and take it all in.

Plus-NO CHIGGERS! It felt oddly uncomfortable to walk through tall grass without bug spray. In the back of my mind, I kept worrying that I’d be up all night itchy and miserable.

But I got used to not needing a thorough spritz before going outside. And I was not homesick for any midwestern bugs that typically torture me all summer long.

There is cool art everywhere, including on these shirts.

The dragon was by our front door.

I don’t know why I didn’t get any photos inside our cozy studio apartment, maybe because there was so much to see and do outside.

The tranquility was just what we needed, the rest of the trip was so stressful. Serious family illnesses, an auto wreck, all were overwhelming.

Thank goodness for the peace and welcome we found at the Hawk and Hawthorn.

It was MAGICAL.

The Guncles’ Christmas Gift

Goldendoodle Puppies, guncles, jewelry

By Karla Nathan / January 11, 2023

Guncle Randy has been wanting to make a jewel tree but hasn’t had time to do it. So, I decided to surprise him and Kevin with a special, Pet Butler tree.

In my decades of collecting jewelry from flea markets and estate sales, I have always been drawn to animal pins and to initials.

So, I just happened to have the perfect ingredients to make this animal lovers’ tree, adding in KS for Kev and RN for Randy.

Besides pets, there is a snowflake for Xmas…

A starfish for Florida…

A fairy, and lots of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies to represent their garden.

And a goldendoodle for the trunk of the tree for my grand puppy, Olivia Ryan.

Rainbows and Fire Dancing for Pride Night

celebrations, family, guncles, Sacred Circus, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / July 22, 2022

On Randy and Kevin’s night to cook for the family reunion, they wanted a Pride Night theme.

They had rainbow everything to go with the grilled chicken and salads. I don’t know why I didn’t get more pictures, it was quite the festival and the decorations were bright and fun.

Our Hippie Chick brought rainbow, glitter face paint and many partiers got all sparkled up.

There was even a fire dancing show.

Featuring our professionals.

And crowd members could take a quick lesson too.

There was a great view from the balcony. These two were on the lighting committee and did a spectacular job with it.

The night ended with a few 1am stragglers sticking their forks directly into the rainbow cake.

We had different events throughout the weekend, but I think pride night was the best.

I am going to leave all of those lights strung across the courtyard, and possibly add more as I find them at garage sales for a very pretty reminder. Thanks, Guncles!

More fun from St Augustine and the Guncles

family, flowers, Food and Drink, Garden, guncles, Travel, wallpaper

By Karla Nathan / April 2, 2022

Our five week, meandering trip included 2 single and one four day visit to Guncleland, where the family pitched in and rebuilt some of the fencing. While guys were busy sawing and hammering, I took some time to clean up the pathways, reset stepping stones, and spread mulch.

They replaced two gates and one length of fence, then added a privacy fence for trash cans and storage.

After a dozen years or so, the garden stones had all sunken down under the earth. So I un-earthed them and reset the pathways along one side of the house and the garbage can storage area too.

Which is where I found these! I felt like an archeologist, digging up ancient ruins. Apparently, they had been on the ground there, and like the stones, had worked their way deep down under the dirt.

But I preferred to think of them as from an earlier inhabitant of the land.

Our evenings were spent relaxing in the Guncles’ unique home with all eight of our combine canine family having some cousin time.

Oh and eating! There was lots of eating! That’s what you do when you go to Jax and visit the Gunks. They feed you endless, yummy, seafood. I thanked them with a pie.

But it wasn’t all manual labor and big meals. Randy and I took a mini road trip down to St Augustine to meet up with my sister, Bobbie who was visiting elsewhere in the state.

Where we met some interesting new friends.

In some cool places.

See what I mean? This steam punk store is a cool addition to George Street.

My favorite thing I saw downtown was this wallpaper in a shop.

Or was it this wallpaper?

No, my FAVORITE thing from the day was this. I love those two so much!

Steampunk Vintage Violins

guncles, how to's, Travel, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / March 8, 2022

This could be one of my all time favorite projects. Randy had a violin he wanted to possibly modpodge, but then we got to talking and thinking and planning and brainstorming and getting excited and going through his stashes and well, it blossomed.

He had so much cool stuff to work with! Some was from sister, Terry, who sent him the gears and such, some was goodies he’d been collecting.

We painted the violin black then glued down some lace for texture and painted it too.

Next we picked out what we wanted to add to it, painted those bits and bobs all black too, including some small frames we placed vintage photos in, then covered in paper glaze.

The mat black (chalk paint, so no priming was needed) was very stark, and needed some dimension, so I dry brush silver over the high points of each item.

Once everything was all glued into place, it got aged with more dry brushing of a bronze mixed with sepia (acrylic craft paint).

The brown/bronze really topped it off. (The white is wet glue that will dry clear)

We loved making this so much, we couldn’t wait to start another! This time, ivory with the addition of some sheet music. I still used the gears, frames, keys, etc, but also embellished it with some vintage rhinestone jewels and pearls that I had with me.

Because who doesn’t travel across country in an RV with four dogs and not bring vintage sparklies to craft with?

Hello from Guncleland!

guncles, Travel

By Karla Nathan / March 5, 2022

We are zig zagging around Florida and visiting Guncles between other adventures. They have been kind enough to let us park our camper in their driveway, fill up their four dog house with our four dogs too, and feed us great seafood meals!
Plus crafting, did I mention crafting?!? THE BEST PROJECT EVER!

And the boys have taken turns visiting us at the campground in St Augustine too.

At the moment (and actually throughout the visit) my internet hasn’t been that great, but I have a little window now where it’s cooperating. So I thought I’d slip in some quick pics of how pretty their house looks, all decorated for a fancy, fancy, foo foo Parisienne styled dinner they served us.

More later when I get another opportunity.