holiday decor – Page 29 – Karla's Cottage

Over the river and through the woods

cottage, dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), family, holiday decor, puppies!

By Karla Nathan / December 11, 2012

Its been much more fallish than wintery around here lately and we've been taking advantage of that weather. Last week, we crossed the creek and went out in the woods to cut down a tree for the Hippy Chick and her roomies. They wanted to set up a nature tree outdoors for the birds and animals and are going to garland it with popcorn and berries, and make birdseed ornies to hang on it.

We've got tons of scrub cedars, that it never hurts to clear out a bit, so we all trouped off into the woods to pick a pretty one for them.

Dorothy Rosebud was a big chicken, and had to be carried across the creek, and through most of the underbrush. Twinkle and Albie Brave and Strong ran off ahead were so busy that all the pictures I tried to get of them were just blurs. They ran non-stop and explored every fallen leaf.

Cedars aren't the best trees for indoors, but I think it will be a good one for the birdies to have their snacks arranged on outside. I hear that it was a bit sappy, the girls had a Griswald-ish time getting the sticky off of themselves!

While it was nice outside, I took some time to clean up the yard and move furniture into the shed.

These chairs are brand new from an estate sale, I'm looking forward to figuring out where to use them next spring. I got 4 chairs and a table for $20. They are meant for indoors, but have metal frames, so I'm thinking that if I cover the seats in something waterproof, they will be good in the yard.

Some day, I'll do something fun with this shed. It used to be my antique store, now the other half of it is the chicken coop. It might be nice to turn this half into a play house for the fairy grand babies. The new estate sale table is not going to be good for outdoors, even though the chairs can work outside. So, leaving it in the shed can be a start for making the play area next year.

Well, at least its something to day dream about once the long, cold winter hits!

I've added some neutral toned mini wreaths with millinery to my Etsy shop.

As well as a few more trees.

Some not so neutral pretties too!

The last couple of weeks, I've been trying to accommodate as many special orders as I could, but I'm now officially out of stock, after what is listed is gone. So, what is pictured is all that there is.

Sorry I can't do any special packages for you now, but I can't even find any dark trees to fix up, the stores all sold out early this year, so I am too! I made quite a few tree runs this season, and now its time to move on.

At the time I am writing this, there is still a good selection in the shop, especially the ones that I have decorated.

Thanks to everyone who shopped with me this year, I appreciate all the tree sales!

How to decorate your chandelier for Christmas

holiday decor, how to's

By Karla Nathan / December 9, 2012

This year, I was going to keep things simple, and not add Shiny Brites to my chandelier.

But after so many years of adding baubles to the dining room light, the room looked empty without it. And really, its not that much work to do if I pay attention to what goes where. In the past, I have added, stepped back, observed, removed, rearranged, added, and on and on.

That had to end. This time, I planned out the steps and didn't add the balls randomly and have to redo as I went along.

The trick was balance, so I sorted my silver and gold balls according to size. Then, I put them in piles of 5, since my chandy has 5 arms.

Specialty balls like bells or bell shaped ornaments went into a pile together too.

Next, turn off the light, those bulbs are hot!

Then, gather a pile of paper clips or ornament hooks. Yes, it would probably be prettier if all my hooks matched, but honestly, you don't notice the paper clips unless you are standing on the table like I am with the camera. And paper clips are nice to use, because you can open them up, so that they are twice as long, to get some good dangle length.

Of course, if you have patience and don't mind snipping and tying, fishing wire would be invisible and you can cut it in any length.

I started with the tiny balls at the very top. I chose to leave my amberish crystals up, but changing them to clear might have been good too.

The center of the light fixture had a cup, or bowl that I filled with smaller balls.

Yes, that is me reflected in each ball. Standing on the dining room table. Sugarwings enjoys looking up at the balls and seeing herself reflected dozens of times while she eats dinner.

I started at the top of the chandelier, working my way around the five arms, with a similar shape, size, and color ball on each arm.

For layers, I hooked balls to the metal of the arm, and also to the crystals hanging from it.

I opened up paper clips to make them twice as long, to hang some of the balls.

On the bottom, around the outside I hung ornaments from each other, three linked together from opened paper clips.

At the base of the light, I hung five speciality ornaments in a ring, then from the very center, a really large ball. I opened up the paper clip to wrap it around the tip of the chandy, since there was no where to put a hook through. And I wanted the large ball dead center.

Some ornaments were hung from the crystal chain too.

Mine is covered in a mix of balls, but all within the same palette of vintage silver and gold.

Ta dah!

See what I mean about the paper clips not really showing? I'm sure that fishing line would be ideal design wise, but I'm all for short cuts and this was much quicker.

This is last year's completed light. I used a garland of beaded wire and hung them all over it as well as the crystals and arms of the chandelier. These hang down from ball to ball, linked with open paper clips.

That is a look that I really love, but that beaded wire was a nightmare, it tangled on everything. I ended up taking the ornies off after the holidays and leaving the beading up for months, calling it "winter decor" instead of dealing with untangling it.

Here is the light a few years ago, with multi-colored vintage balls. You can see that in some places I have used up to 3 or 4 paper clips to hang some of them. I was going for a very random look, and was happy with it, but its funny how much longer this takes than to actually count out matching sized ones in groups of five like I did it this season.

My goal was to keep it quick to put up and to take down. I'd say it took me about an hour this time. Any time I can get something pretty done and save time doing it is much appreciated here at the holidays!

I'll leave you with some photos of some new items in the Boutique and on Etsy.

Christmas trees, cocoa, gingerbread houses, yay!

holiday decor, Sugarwings, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / December 7, 2012

We are making the most of our holiday season, and have our bedtime hot cocoa in front of the tree when Sugarwings is having a sleepover with us. We make it into a real party, setting out the pretty cups, and fancy napkins. After that, we read a few stories from our collection of Christmas books while enjoying the lights.

Our gingerbread house is progressing too. Every time Sugarwings comes over, we work on it a little bit more.

This year, I actually was able to assemble the house in a decent way, it didn't fall over, I didn't need to use hot glue, it really held up and is even straight.

It gets a LOT of layers over the next few weeks. But Christmas day, it will be a huge, amorphous blob of colorful icings and candies. Then, it gets carried down to the Fairy Berry Trail for the fairies to move into.

Because they need to get a present too, right?

We worked on our gingerbread house while we waited for our guests to arrive. My Utah friend, Molly, was coming to stay with us before she and I attended the Shine workshop, so I decided to have a little dinner party. Beth and her husband, Jeff, joined us, and Sugarwings was using her best manners at a grown up dinner party.

Molly used to be a ballerina and you can tell its still close to her heart. I found a couple of these vintage brooches and made added them to some gifts for her.

Yes, this is a brooch on a brooch. I've been making pins from my bottle brush trees, and added a ballerina to this one for Molly.

We hadn't used the guest room in a while, it needed a good freshening.

And of course some holiday foof.

This banner is from the Romantic White Christmas class that Beth and I did a while back. Its still for sale and has some fun projects, including all the vintage papers scanned for you to download and use.

I've enjoyed unpacking some of the examples I made for the class and using them around the house.

And I enjoyed decorating the guest room a bit for the season too.

Especially since I had helpers with the task.

This guy helped me clean the closet out in the studio. Leave it to a little pup to find the dirt, they make great dust mops. But it looks like I've gone way beyond dust! The closet in the studio is open to the garage. Ugh, might be worth building a barrier of some kind this spring.

I've linked up today with Deb at Common Ground's link party. I'll leave you with some new additions to the Boutique and Etsy.

Shine

holiday decor, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / December 5, 2012

Friday at Carol's was the best. I've never been to an event quite like it. You know how I love, love, love arty weekend gatherings and blather on and on about them, right?

Well, I now know that I love creative business workshops too.

Mostly because Debbie is a fascinating story teller, Carol is an empathetic, creative, and knowledgeable store owner, and Amy is a sharp business person with a lot to share. I learned something from each of them.

All in the gorgeous setting of Carol's late 1800s farmhouse.

Where everything was simply styled beautifully.

The treats were yummy!

And the crowd was as talented as can be. Before we began, everyone spoke a little bit about themselves and I was intimidated by the level of success many of them were at.

I always say that I attend workshops for the friendships and the creative atmosphere, not always the projects. I leave them pumped up and with a spring in my step just from mingling with the other attendees.

This day was no exception, and I was so impressed with Carol and the job she did putting it together.

It was an honor to be in such company as a presenter, even though I was a bit out of my league. I didn't have a power point presentation, I decided not to use the projector since I was doing a little make and take project.

So, I just kinda winged it and talked while we were making things. My talk was about blogging and tutorials, so we did one of my projects from a tutorial while I spoke.

Basically, what my talk boiled down to, was that you need to decide just what is important to you before you go into a business. I didn't talk finances, business plans, or profit margins, I talked about looking for happiness.

I you are an artist and want to do art, do you really need a huge business to run, or do you want to make things? What I had to say might not be what they were there to hear, but it was sincere and I just told them what works for me.

In my world, I've realized that you can't have it all. You figure out what parts are really important, compromise and make it fit.

I'm glad I had a project for them to make, glitter up, and take home, hopefully, they didn't feel like I left them hanging. Because my advice was more about being creative in all aspects of your life and less about building a creative business.

I should have just called it, "Me Like Blogs, Blogs is Purdy"

Hopefully, my ramblings about being happy and what success really means was slightly coherent.

And I hope they liked my cookies. See, to me, having time to bake homemade butter cookies with edible glitter on the frosting is very important. I would be miserable if I had to spend all my time in an office managing a business, I like my little corner of the world where I can bake cookies, make pretties, and play with the grand fairies and dorkies.

Being happy goes a lot further than being rich and important.

Oh my, I'll probably never be asked to speak again.

Along the way, I tried to impart some pearls, no nuggets blobs of wisdom about blogging and marketing. I hope it made sense.

Carol, Debbie, and Amy had smart and topical things to say, so I couldn't ruin the day with my blathers, it was a very worthwhile day for everyone because of them.

(the bottle brush tree on a candlestick is a gift I made for Carol)

I learned a lot from the three of them. And any time you spend in Carol's home, is a time of beauty.

Wow.

Just Wow.

It was like being in a magazine spread.

Thanks, Carol!

A glittery woodland holiday

holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / December 3, 2012

This year, one of my Christmas trees has a "Birdsong" theme. I had a box filled with birdies and gifts and projects packed away from that arty weekend, and loaded all of it onto my nature inspired tree.

If glittery silver trees existed in nature, that is.

There are some butterflies on it too, this one hung on my Mom's patio door for years and I always put it on my Christmas tree.

This was a gift from Hope. The attendees were so generous and thoughtful, I had lots of lovelies to add to the tree from them!

The vintage birds are some that I had hanging from the ceiling above the work tables.

My trees are always filled with sentimental things. Mementos of the years past. The box is one that I made at Kim Caldwell's Christmas gathering last year and the frame is from Silver Bella. Ah, Silver Bella, I miss that!

I'm glad there are so many more arty gatherings to attend, and meet up with friends. I met so many good friends up in Omaha at Silver Bella. And have continued the relationships at Kim's and Jenn's parties, as well as the little casual gatherings I have here at the cottage.

I hope to catch up with old friends at the April workshop that Kim is hosting. And meet new ones too. If you are a first timer for one of these parties and are going to this Snow White fantasy affair, please contact me and I'd love to invite you to sit with me at our table of newbies. There are still a couple seats left at the table, I think.

Recently at an estate sale, I found a couple of chalk ladies that remind me of fairy tale characters.

I love them in my holiday display. I think that adding non-Christmas items or unexpected pieces makes for a much more interesting look.

My buffet top has a woodland theme this year, with bottle brush trees and deer. The two cloaked chalk figures seemed to fit right in.

For height, I like to use cake plates or compotes and stacks of books to place items on, I think that having lots of levels makes a more compelling design.

And anything served up under glass always seems more important! Beth taught me long ago when we had an antique booth together, that if you put something under a cloche, it sells faster. Not that this is something I am trying to sell, but I thought my little white trees and reindeer deserved to be shown off the best I could.

These things are for sale, maybe I should have put them under a cloche before I took the photos?

White brooches on Etsy

And pink too.

As well as some decorated little trees on spools.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / November 28, 2012

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I usually get my halls decked. Every year, I seem to spend less and less time on it, the decor is becoming more about quality than quantity. Or am I getting old and just don't do as much?

As I finished late in the evening, it was nice to sit and relax and enjoy a glass of wine with my husband in the light of the tree.

The dogs were all curious about the tree and think that the area beneath it is their new club house.

Aunt Sandy joined us along with Daisy and Dixie. We are trying to make all the dogs get along. Kind of a cease fire for the holidays.

It wasn't exactly a success, but at least there was no blood shed.

Albie wanted to wrassle under the tree, so refused to pose there. But he joined in for a family portrait once he got away from the excitement of the bright lights. Although, these guys are growing so much, that they are too big to sit in front of their mom, you can hardly see her.

The studio is all Christmassy too. Although it looks more like Santa's workshop after the elves have been working overtime.

Right now, there are trees taking over the place. One table is filled with trees photographed and listed, another with groups waiting their turn to have their pictures taken. Then, there is the drying table for the pile of newly dyed and glittered ones. And of course, my desk is filled with in progress ones being decorated.

These are all my newest color, I call the collection coffee and cream. I probably should have named the brown ones cocoa since they are a holiday item, but I dipped them in coffee, so just went literal.

I have lots of other colors too, wreaths and trees as well. If you don't see what you want here feel free to ask me, karlanathan@sbcglobal.net

I probably have it, just haven't taken a picture yet!

And in the Boutique, its Cameotown.

They are everywhere.

Along with a few other pretties.

You can't have too much sparkle for the holidays!

Some free Thanksgiving Images

free images, holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / November 21, 2012

While on our trip to NC, the guncles and I had some flea market fun together. We always try to fit in a junkin day when we get to hang out, and the Raleigh Flea Market was a great choice!

One booth had a stack of old books, for $1 each. I've scanned some of the pages for your projects. Just click on the image to open it in a larger window before you save it to your computer to print.

We are having our turkey a day early, the best time we could scramble the most of us together at once. So, I'd better go and get busy, there is a ton to do. We want to keep it simple this year and not make it an all day food fest with nothing but hard work. I'm taking everyone to see Wreck it Ralph, then having a later dinner. So the key, is prepping ahead of time!

Which means, I'd better get preppin.

I hope your holiday is a blessed one!

Sparkles is purdy

celebrations, holiday decor, Tutorials, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / November 19, 2012

When I did a little make and take of Christmas stars at my friend, Angie's, store, I had a lovely evening. Her place was so festive and pretty for the upcoming holidays. I got there just as the sun was deciding to set and there was a soft glow of lights coming from the shop windows. Yep, just lovely.

See the flowers on her doors? Years ago, when she first rented the place, I surprised her with little rosebuds on the door panels. I came by when the place was closed and whipped out a few roses as a welcome to the new place. There aren't many people you could do that for, just randomly show up unannounced and start painting on their building, but I knew her well enough to know she would like it.

We used to work together on projects in the past, she'd hire me to paint for her, and I'd invite her to be a part of the antique shows I used to have at my house. It had been a while since we'd done a project together, so I was really looking forward to being at her open house.

There wasn't much traffic at all for my little make and take, but I still had a great evening. Its nice just to have a reason to hang out with good friends and pretend that its "work" so that you have to be there. And she is a nice person to hang out with.

The same day, I meet up with some other friends that a good to spend time with, Debbie, Carol, and Amy. We are all going to speak at Carol's workshop for creative businesses.

They are some seriously fun and friendly people, who are also very successful in what they do. I was a bit overwhelmed after our discussion about what we were going to say during our talks. Amy has written many books, owns a couple of businesses, Debbie is a nationally known stylist among other things, and Carol's store and photography business are gorgeously done. All are quite knowledgeable.

There was lots of talk of business practices, employees, and other professionally sounding things like power point and publishers and such.

What was my contribution? It kind of sounded like this:

"Me like purdy stuff"

Yep, a bit out of my league with these ladies.

The talk is sold out, and Carol has a long waiting list of people who want to come. I certainly don't want to disappoint anyone. I'm better at making things than talking about my so called business.

So, what do you think? If you were attending, what would you like to hear?

Carol is letting me do a small craft along project, that will later be used as props for her photography styling talk. I'll be happy to have that to do, but I'm also talking about blogging and tutorials as we work on our sparkly make and take doodad.

If you were coming, what would you like to hear about blogging or business from me?

Besides, "Me like sparkles. Them is purdy"

A rainbow of trees

holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / November 13, 2012

It certainly tis the tree season around here! I'm on a roll with these pastel sweeties. Hopefully, I'll get some listed in the Boutique or on Etsy, before I go out of town. But I don't know if I will or not, I've got a list as long as my arm full of things to do, so adding more pretties to the shops might have to wait.

We are headed to North Carolina for a nephew's wedding. If you are kind enough to buy something from me while I'm away, I'll be mailing it on Tuesday the 20th, when I return.

The holiday season is fast approaching. If I had a lick of sense, I'd have all my Christmas sales items prepped and ready to go early in the year.

But, for me, my job is more than just working and I run my business in a way that makes me happy and keeps me entertained. I enjoy making holiday things AFTER Halloween. Not way in advance like a smart business person would. I love the feeling of Christmas on its way, and the anticipation of getting out my baubles and tinsels to play with is the best part!

I do my holiday retailing in real time. Not way ahead like I should. I don't always get done as much as I should that way, but I love doing it.

So, here I am mid November, taking a trip for almost a week, getting ready for Thanksgiving, I have an article due for a magazine, a workshop to prepare for, and I have a table top full of mini trees to finish glittering up, photographing, and marketing.

Uhm, I did say that I enjoy this, right??

Well, honestly, I do. Like I said, this is more than just a job to me, its a lifestyle. I love what I do, and making Christmas things during the season is an activity that makes me happy. I might always be a few steps behind in getting them done, but those are delightful, little skippy steps, not trudging, drudgery type steps.

Sugarwings agrees. Every year, she helps with the mini trees. This year, she was big enough to mix all of her own colors and dip them by herself. This is her pile that she is keeping to make into Christmas presents for her family.

She did say that maybe I could sell a few for her, but only if they were $10,000 a piece. I let her know that if she gave them as gifts, they would be priceless to her family, and that we didn't need to sell them.

The paper towels that we dried the trees on will be cut up and used in a project too. The dyes made a pretty watercolor effect on the paper.

I do have some more holiday goodies listed and for sale in the Boutique and promise to soon have more in the Etsy shop. I have a million or so trees to add to it, as soon as they are glittered and sorted. Some I will set aside to top off more decorated spools too.

What I added to the shop over the weekend are some star ornaments.

And a few kits if you'd rather make your own. These come with everything you need, including glitter and mica flakes.

Each kit contains the materials to make 2 stars complete with vintage Christmas card cut outs for $8.

A day off

holiday decor

By Karla Nathan / November 11, 2012

At a garage sale this summer, I bought a baggie full of hand crocheted snowflakes.

They would have been sweet on a Christmas tree as is, but I thought they'd be even better foofed up. Plus, I was in the mood for a day of plain old gluing and playing with pretties.

First, I stiffened them with a mix of liquid starch and glue. Then, I glittered them up with a sprinkling of mica flakes.

Over that, each one got a centerpiece of something vintage and precious.

Next, came dangling ribbons and lace.

Some, I have kept for my own tree, the rest are available in my Boutique and on Etsy.

While I was in a gluing frame of mind, I added some trees to old spools and prettied them up too.

There are days when a having a simple project that has no goal other than being lovely, can be calming to the soul. I didn't want to have to think much, or plan, just let my fingers rifle through my dishes of jewels and flowers randomly adding dainties to some sparkly Christmas things.

It was just what I needed. A day to be alone with myself and my thoughts, to work out some worries. I always think better when my hands are busy.

By the time I was done, I had a full table of delicate pastel pretties. And a happier outlook.