Hand painted – Page 5 – Karla's Cottage

A Book of Enchantments

Books, Hand painted, jewelry, parties, Snow White, vintage paper/collage art, wallpaper, We're having a party, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / May 8, 2013

The weekend in CA at An Enchanted Affaire was filled with fun and friendship-from so many nice people…

People like Charlotte, who I've known a long time through blogs…

And my husband's sister, Terry, who came along to her first big art weekend…

And goofy gals who I am lucky to meet up with again at various getaways like this…

And tables full of new people to get to know.

Teaching at one of these is the best way to meet people, I was flitting from one end of the room to the other, pausing to talk to everyone at the tables.

Here is part of my table. I took classes as well as teaching this time, and asked to have "newbies" sit with me if they wanted. It was fun to get to know some different people. At most events, I sit with my same friends every time (and really LOVE that) but I realized that I'd met them all at these kind of places and I should open myself up to meeting some more new friends.

Good idea!!

This is another one from the class I taught. Being up and moving around during class made for a good time to get photos of everyone at work. Normally, during class, I'm so involved with the project, I don't get to see what everyone else is doing.

Hopefully, the ladies enjoyed the class. The first half of it was pretty much busy work, tons of gluing paper to card stock to create the background of the book.

After making the pages, we crafted the cover and assembled the book.

It looked like most people at least got that much done, not many were able to start decorating, though.

But I provided an overflowing kit full of goodies, so they had plenty to play with later when they were ready to start embellishing.

If I teach this again, I think it would be better in an all day class, so we can do the decorating of the interior of the book too.

There were lots of examples for interiors, and many ladies took photos inside of my own books for later on when they finish theirs.

Here are some completed covers by the students.

Here is another.

When they started working, I'd told them that it was absolutely impossible for any two of them to have the same book when they finished, even if they tried their durndest.

With vintage supplies, and a big page of collage images to chose from, the completed books were bound to be filled with variety!

Since my book was titled, " A Book of Enchantments" I decided that I needed a few enchantment spells to add to it. So, I wrote 4 little poems about finding joy, happy dreams, a true prince, and hope. They are printed on vellum and are part of the embellishment package.

(by the way, I made extra kits, if you want to buy one for $65, there are a few left. Many ladies bought a second while there, so I think that means they liked them)

EDIT: my email is down, if you could leave a comment or contact me on FB, I'll check those to see if anyone is ordering kits. They are selling, but there is still a few left.

Kim had asked all the teachers to provide a prize for the drawings, so I brought this assemblage.

It was won by my pal, Natalie, another teacher.

I LOVED HER CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I used a smokey quartz and ruby on my own creation.

I'll leave you with a few more photos from my class, and still have some more pictures of the event to show you later.

Karla paints a table for Karla

While I had the paints out and my work clothes on to work on the giant mural/banner, I finally painted this little table for Karla. Last year, she helped with my Pay Pal sorting for tax time, like Beth did for me this year. It's a good thing to have accountant friends!

So, about 6 months ago, she dropped off this little white table and said I could return the favor and paint a rose on it.

Here is what I did:

First, using a large, flat brush, I dry brushed toast color across the whole table top, over the white paint that was there.
Next, I took a kitchen sponge dipped in white and sponged the center of the table, leaving the toasty color heavier around the rim.
With a one inch flat brush, I dry brushed a hint of white from the very edge over the toast toward the center of the table, but only about 2" or so away from the edge.
With the sponge, I wiped on a green around the routered edge.
Where the toasty color was left as is, I painted a swirly design all around the table top.
Last, I plopped a rose in the center.

I was happy to do it, but it took me forever to get around to it. I just don't paint furniture on a regular basis like I did in the past and it took some gearing up. When I started painting roses on the banner, it occurred to me that it would be a good time to get out the much delayed project and slap a rose on it too.

(Twinkle insisted that I take her photo too)

Hope the pink is the right tone. It's been so long since she showed me the pillow sham she wanted to match, i can't remember what it looked like. ooops

Here is a table I found for myself, to use in the garden. Only $5 at the West Bottoms in KC. I paid that much for the bag of kettle corn on top of it.

And here is a mini redo that I did for myself. Years ago, I'd given my Great Aunt Caroline's clock a coat of white paint and then distressed it. But it was still dark inside. So, I leaned a page from a vintage bird book in it, and added a rim of lace (held by a couple dots of glue) to the frame under the clock face.

It only took a couple of moments and I think it added a lot.