Sugarwings – Page 14 – Karla's Cottage

Upcycled crayons

By Karla Nathan / July 15, 2014

Our summer of projects and experiments got off to a fine start. This one really turned out good.

We made some new crayons in fun shapes. Those two grand fairies had an unmanageable amount of art supplies, and way too many open boxes of "color crins" (what I always called them as a kid, and still think of them as. I really thought that was the name of them and Crayon was the name brand. Like the whole tissue/Kleenex thing- it was crins/Crayons)

We decided to melt them down into a new look and share them with friends.

It was also a good excuse to clean out the craft drawers, and along the way we tested each marker to see if they still worked, threw away the duds, and got all the supplies sorted.

Here are a couple of things I learned in the process:

1- The papers come off easier if you soak the crins in hot water for a bit.

2- Name brands matter! Crayola's are the BEST. The cheap knock off crayons were not as easy to work with, they got all mooshy in the water, the papers stick and don't want to come off. On the Crayolas, the papers just fall away, and the crayon itself still is perfect. I know that with my own art supplies, especially paints, cheapos aren't worth buying. I'll remember that for the kids too.

3- Unwrapping crayons is a hideously monotonous job and you should either find a partner with an extended attention span to help, or plan on doing it alone while she entertains herself.

4- One of the most fun parts of the job is shaking the glitter out of the table cloth when you are done.

My partner isn't one of those people with an extended attention span. She decided to entertain herself choreographing the project and taking my photos while I worked away on the monotonous part of the job.

She has some directorial skills and coached me into being a better actress for the camera. (I wish she had directed me to the make up trailer before my closeups…)

Once we got to the part where she could break and sort the colors, then add glitter, she became involved again. I'll spare you the photos of her toothbrush, closeups of the trash can, and the other items she took pics of while I unwrapped and unwrapped and unwrapped til I gave up and decided we had PLENTY of crayons to work with.

The directions I'd seen for making these, said to use a silicone baking pan. We started to use this one, then decided other shapes would be more interesting. So, we went for flowers and hearts. But, I discovered when we were done, that the wax doesn't all come out. I'm glad I didn't follow Sugarwings' advice and make a few of each shape. I'm wishing now that I'd stuck with just one pan, not two. Because both are ruined. But I guess that means that they are now craft pans.

We will use them for home made side walk chalk and salt sculptures. Those are some of projects we have lined up. I filled a shopping cart at Walmart with summertime supplies, here is what we are keeping on hand for various activities:

2 boxes of rock salt
1 gallon of vinegar
4 boxes of baking soda
food coloring
6 boxes of corn starch
2 squirt guns
6 cans of shaving cream
Pink, purple, and white tempura paint
1 large box of plaster of paris
Tons of pink and silver and purple GLITTER!
100 pounds of play sand

The crayon shapes turned out cute. I don't know that the glitter will actually transpose onto paper when you draw with them.

But we enjoy dumping it into everything we do.

Here is how you make the shaped colors:

Soak and peel off crayon wrappers
Break crayons into silicone baking pans
Sprinkle on glitter (just for the fun of it, I doubt if it stays on the paper when you color)
Bake at 350 for 5 minutes, check every minute after that till all are melted.
Leave pans alone for an hour or so. If you try to get the wax out too soon, the crayons break.
Bake some bread or cookies right after so the house smells better. Hot crayons stink.

Silly projects

Dew Drop, Food and Drink, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 7, 2014

Last week, the grand fairies and I made salt sculptures to paint. I really see no point whatsoever in making them… except that they were fun to do.

Basically, it is a bowl of salt, a ton of glitter, and enough water to moisten. Then, you press it in a mold to let it dry, supposedly rock hard so you can paint them and use them for blocks. Ours didn't get rock hard, they were a bit crumbly still. But fun to paint anyway.

Heck, anything you can smear paint around on, is good for a bit of entertainment.

Afterward, we played "dinner theater". I set their table up in front of the tv, which is a giant treat here. The TV is supposed to be off during meals and we sit together to eat.

But this is summer vacation, so everything is a treat!

And Dumbo was on, how could any of us be expected to turn that off to go have lunch????

After lunch was served, the littles had some tea, and were given menus featuring all the M&M colors I had to chose from. I figured I'd sneak in some learning during the fun. Reading for Sugarwings, and colors and counting for Dewdrop. Sugarwings read the menu to her little sis, and then they counted out their order as they sorted the colors together.

And of course, anything tastes better when served with antique silver tongs from a crystal dish.

ps- I'm having a Summer Clearance sale in the Boutique. I've neglected that poor little shoppette too long, I need to clean up, clear out, and refresh it all. You are welcome to soak up some summertime savings and help me get a fresh start, by using this link and getting 50% off everything in the store:

http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=Summersale

(You must use that address to get the special price. Going to the regular address does NOT take you to the 50% discount)

Happy 4th!

Dew Drop, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / July 4, 2014

I hope your holiday is a peachy one.

The grand fairies and I celebrated a little early by trying to create our own fireworks. Not with explosives, though, with paint.

We made red, white, and blue glitter paint bombs by filling eggs with paint.

We sealed up the holes with tissue paper. First, we damped the tissue with a bit of paint, and it stuck right on.

I tacked a poster board to the garage wall and they let loose with the paint bombs, hoping to create big, spattery, fire works on the paper.

A lot of power went into the tossing, but the eggs didn't make as much of a spectacular splat as we thought they might.

But a lot of fun was had in the process. The eggs kind of landed on the poster with a wet thump, and then just hung there like a blob. Maybe we should have added water to the paint for a more dramatic effect? It could have been too thick.

They soon discovered it was a good consistency for finger painting.

I wouldn't say the result we got was what we were led to expect from Pinterest, but it was still a happy experiment.

http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=Summersale

(You must use that address to get the special price. Going to the regular address does NOT take you to the 50% discount)

Roots and Bliss

Dew Drop, dogs, fairies, family, Sugarwings, Travel

By Karla Nathan / June 27, 2014

For the solstice, we drove to the Ozarks to go to the Roots and Bliss festival hosted at a campground on the river.

I'm not much of a camper, or a festival goer. But I knew that my littles would be there, and that their dad was a major contributor to the event, he'd been working on the venue for the whole previous year.

It was really quite nice to see him in action, and to see the respect and caring that he was shown by the attendees.

I didn't attend any of the workshops, but I liked listening.

And of course, playing with the grand fairies.

And splashing around down in the river.

My only regret is that we didn't bring dogs with us. We might have been the only people there without a pup. Well, not quite, but there were lots of furry friends around.

Funny, many of the dogs had at least one blue eye.

In the last few years, I've started a habit of making fairies on beaches I visit. At this beach, there wasn't much in the way of shells, so I didn't think about it, til I saw that mossy green, heart shaped rock and knew it had to be a bodice for a fairy dress.

Then, saw a skirt shaped rock to match. The head was easy too, then I was stumped with no rock wings or appendages. (oh, maybe "stumped" was a rude way to put it)

So, I cheated, and tucked the beach stones into my pocket for later. When I got back up to the camp, I poked around and found some sticks, and dead leaves that worked out pretty good and I was able to finish my little sprite.

The weekend was visually quite lovely, pretty lights, a winding, candlelit pathway, happy faces every where. Yep, we were very proud of our boy for his part in it all.

There was yoga, from the talented Miss Tree, who has travelled the world to become a master class teacher, and who thought up and started the whole Roots and Bliss idea. I'm glad they were blessed with beautiful weather and a good crowd after all the hard work that they put into the planning.

Sugarwings' mom was a fire dancer, and I was so mesmerized, I didn't even think of taking a photo. But here is the fam before the show started…

Did I mention that we were proud of our boy? And I'm a bit proud of myself for going. I had no intention of doing it. This sort of thing isn't my typical weekend, but sometimes you do need to get out of your regular routine and try something different, don't you?

I prefer books and TV or movies to live music, and get plenty of out door life in my own yard and have never felt the need to camp. So, the weekend was going to be a stretch for me.

At the last minute, I offered to join my husband (he wouldn't have missed it for anything, he'd been out of town and hadn't seen the girls all week. That man would have driven anywhere to see his grand daughters after a week without them). So I gathered my courage and decided I'd sleep in a tent in the wilderness.

Luckily, we got there and found a very nice, air conditioned, cabin to rent for the night and I didn't even have to unroll a sleeping bag.

But I would have done it! I was willing to give it a try.

And trying something different is kind of nice. Especially, when you are surrounded by such nice people.

http://www.karlascottage.com/?code=Summersale

(You must use that address to get the special price. Going to the regular address does NOT take you to the 50% discount)

And please know, I will refund excess postage after boxingup your purchase and weighing it.

Summer Fun with Dewdrop and Sugarwings

Dew Drop, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 23, 2014

The grand fairies and I have big plans for summer. We are going to make chalk, play dough, and all sorts of things. I've been busy pinning lots of fun ideas for us to experiment with.

We've tried this one already. But it got a bit out of hand… The Pinterest Recipe was for a few cups of sand, some glitter, cornstarch, and water.

We used 50 lbs of sand, and probably too much water. Plus a bunch of food coloring. It was FUN!

I saved the sand in a tub with a lid so it could be revisited later for more fun, but it got smelly after a few really hot days. Oh well, that is why its called an experiment, you try things, you learn something about it, you try again.

Instead of 'moon sand' we got a sparkling swamp. And girls that sparkled too. Someone dunked their hair in the glitter swamp and I think it might still be washing out.

And I seriously wonder if the silver glitter will ever be completely be gone from the hot tub… maybe I shouldn't have let them go for a "hot pool" swim after this experiment.

And so it begins

Books, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / June 2, 2014

School is out, and Sugarwings was sorry to see it end. I've decided to do what I did last summer and take some time off with the girls for summer activities. Lots of painting, zoo time, movies, etc.

Before first grade was over, we were invited to an Author's Tea Party in the classroom to see the books each kid had written and illustrated. Since Sugarwings' illustrations are always unique (like her self portrait, above), I knew her book would be a fun one.

It was. You could see the influence Disney had on her topic too. Princess Leandra was the title of her book.

We decided to honor the occasion by dressing up for the tea party.

I wore my tea party hat and good dress.

After I saw this photo, I realized just how big that child has become. I'm trying to break the habit of carrying her everywhere, now that I see that soon, it will be her turn to carry me.

She already misses school. For now, she has offered to help me prep for our big party and the family reunion that goes along with it. After Birdsong ends, we are having a family dinner with relatives that are in town, and the grand fairies have a Fairy Tea Party Breakfast for their great grandmother while she is visiting from Wyoming.

It's starting out to be an exciting summer! Swimming, zoos, walks in the woods, arts and crafts, movies, and most likely, more tea parties. I've been collecting ideas from Pinterest for things to make, and Sugarwings and I have compiled a shopping list of ingredients to have on hand for them.

I can't wait.

More Disneyland

Sugarwings, Travel

By Karla Nathan / May 20, 2014

When you are at Disney on your birthday, you get enough wishes for a happy day to last a lifetime! I don't think I've ever been told, Happy Birthday, that many times.

Even the numerous Facebook well wishes aren't any comparison to the ones from the park employees.

We had my birthday lunch with Ariel.

And Cinderella, among other royalty.

The food at Ariel's Grotto was spectacular, and they were very helpful in fixing Sugarwings a gluten/dairy free meal. There was no problem at all throughout the park, especially since she is only sensitive, not allergic. We can go gluten/dairy careful, not avoid it completely. We made sure she had solid, healthy meals, then let her have treats and dessert that are usually not allowed.

Heck, it was vacation!!

My husband doesn't care much for Disney, but he does enjoy watching his girl smile and then drown him with hugs. So he is happy to go. Especially since I don't mind him leaving for a few hours to get a break, Sugarwings and I were fine on our own for a bit.

And he made it back in plenty of time to meet us for the parade. In off season, the parade is smaller, but I swear, the crowd to watch it is NOT. We planned ahead, and found a spot on a bench for me, and my husband sat in the stroller with Sugarwings on his lap. (I am not allowed to post that photo)

Maybe we should have planned a little further ahead to actually get a whole bench… But at least we were down front and could see the whole show.

I think that if we go back, I'd plan a picnic dinner, get a to-go meal, find a bench and take our time waiting for the parade to begin.

There are plenty of to-go restaurants that are good, but we sure liked our sit down meals. We ended up doing two character dinners, by accident. We'd planned to meet the royalty at Ariel's Grotto, and paid for it in advance along with our room, and shuttle transport.

(by the way, that is so much better than renting a car, since we only go from the airport to the park and don't leave, $90 for all of us, round trip, cheaper than a car too. Plus it was adorable to hear every little girl on the bus start singing along to Frozen as we watched the movie on monitors.)

We had so much fun, mingling with the princesses, that I forgot about our meal vouchers. Untill a couple hours later when it struck me, with a sick feeling that I'd paid cash for a meal that had already been paid for and thought I was out about a hundred bucks!

A very sick feeling. Visting Walt is expensive enough without paying for the same thing twice.

Which is why it is great to have a cell phone. I called customer service to get their advice and was set up with reservations at Goofy's Kitchen that night where I could use the vouchers. Even though they were for lunch price at the mermaid restaurant, for about $30 each, and Goofy's Kitchen's dinner was $47 each. We were able to use them and not pay a difference.

The phone call itself wasn't as carefree as the results. My battery was running low, and I was trying to hurry, but the park was so loud, the operator couldn't hear me. Sugarwings took advantage of me being on the phone and distracted and climbed a light pole. Really high.

Park employees told her all day that the rule was: One Foot on the Ground at ALL Times. But that is not an easy rule to follow.

And my poor husband had to sit through another endless parade of characters interrupting his meal! Sugarwings and I loved it. He just wanted to eat without a giant headed creature bothering him.

Not everyone is born to love Disneyland. But he tolerates it okay for us.

He's a keeper.

Okay, I promise, this is the last vacation post.

It was a great trip, I just wish our whole family could've came. Sugarwings spent a great deal of time picking out gifts to take home and talking about the people who couldn't join us.

She's a keeper too.

Avoiding stress at Disneyland and keeping it fun

Sugarwings, Travel

By Karla Nathan / May 18, 2014

Traveling to Disney with Sugarwings was a trip into the world of her imagination.
She is a kid who prefers pretending to playing with toys, and there was a lot of props for her to back up her stories at Disneyland.

Walking through the gardens from the Disney Hotel to the secret entrance to California Adventure, our kiddo had so much fun becoming Cinderella, that I didn't think we were going to make it to the park that day. We could have saved a lot of money by just playing in the gazebo all day. She loved running from it and losing a shoe along the way.

And before that, I didn't think we'd ever get out of the hotel room, because she had an apple for breakfast and every bite put her to sleep.

Once we got in the park, our first stop was stroller rental. Yes, the fairy child is 7, not a baby, but it was more for containment than because she was too little too walk. It made the trip much easier to have her riding instead of running. And she loved the "chariot". (the cotton candy is our traditional splurge at the end of the trip, her treat for staying in the stroller most of the time)

Every once in a while, she'd spy something that caused her to leap from her ride to get a closer look. It was the little details around the park that caught her eye. Like this statue.

First, the dancing royalty needed cooling off with her fan.

Then, she needed to act out the dance, with her own prince.

Ending with True Love's Kiss.

I'm afraid this encounter with Olaf was as close as she got to seeing anyone from Frozen. The line to see the two princesses was

FIVE HOURS LONG.

Seriously????

Who waits in those lines? We made a deal not to get in any line that was more than 40 minutes and she was happy with that. Not that we rode many rides that way, even in off season. But we have fun looking around, watching shows and being silly. And the older, less popular rides are pretty durn cool too.

Tarzan's tree house had interactive things to do, so we climbed it twice.

And the shows at the Royal Theater were so cute, we watched them 4 times. Sugarwings sat in front by the stage and at each performance, made a new friend. When I went to check on her, and asked what they were talking about, she said, "Princesses" in a way that implied I was deranged for even wondering what they might be talking about besides that.

Side note: The Royal Theater has a park employee at the entrance, no one goes in or out during the show. It's a small room, and you can see your kids down in front just fine. When the ushers asked all of us to slide down and make room on the benches, the lady next to us got volatile, flames shot from her eyes, smoke from her ears. She refused to move, said that she had to keep "eyes on her kids" the entire show. Well, it wasn't the sentiment so much as the way she said it. She yelled and stated that she is happy to "be a B" if it means keeping her kids safe.

First of all, her kids were safe. Second, all she had to say, was something polite, like "can I please remain in this seat so I can watch my kids?" The Disney employees didn't deserve her anger and pride in 'being a B". What was the chip on her shoulder about? I think that so many people go to the parks thinking that they have to squeeze in so much, be here, there, everywhere, that they forget to slow down and enjoy it. If you try to do it all, and fight the crowds, you will burn out. She was already stressed beyond her limits and it wasn't even noon yet.

In my mind, the trick to getting your money's worth from Disney, is just to slow down. Chose a couple things that matter to you, then just explore and take your time.

We also made use of the play ground in Toontown. Free time to frolic was important for us.

And finding lines to wait in, like the one for the show at BugsLife, where you could mill about, not zig zag back and forth in roped lines was good too.

At California Adventure, there is a room with giant screens that plays movie clips. It's nice on hot days because of the air conditioning and the comfy sofas. There is plenty of space to twirl and stretch too. The only downfall was that they repeated the life and love cycle montage from UP that breaks my heart every time I see it, and I got teary eyed over and over.

The room is an excellent break for a child who becomes overwhelmed with the park. The activities in that building are pretty low key, with no lines. but every bit as fun. I also recommend Tom Sawyer Island as a break from the hectic-ness of the park. It has green spaces and caves, plus a play ground and fort.

The hardest part for us, was simply getting back and forth to the park itself. I really really really love that you can walk from the hotels to the parks, unlike Disneyworld where it's a major undertaking to get back to your room.

But, we had to make our way through Downtown Disney, and that is nothing but one temptation after another. Between the Legos, fountains, live music, shops, it tries to trap you at every step!

I discovered that making it a game to get from one end to the other worked to keep her going. There were no strollers, so we had to keep her focused all the way through this wonderland. They play music from various Disney shows, and when the Beauty and the Beast theme began, I had an idea.

We decided to dance walk the route and pretend we were in a movie. We lip synced and danced the whole length (well except the Legos, who can resist those?) of the shopping district. We ran, twirled, jumped up on benches, leaped into the air, and made it all the way to the park with very little stopping.

After arriving, panting and tired, at the park, we found out that you can take a monorail and avoid the Downtown Disney trap! But when we went to take it home that night, it was broken down.

My brave, strong, husband, who was very ready to get back to the hotel for a glass of wine and to put his feet up, hefted our girl up on his shoulders and did his own version of the dance walk all the way back. Until they reached the bandstand. And had to stop for a grandfather/granddaughter dance.

Those are the moments we will treasure much more than any of the rides.

Painted Butterflies

Dew Drop, paintings, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 28, 2014

I've been in a painting mood lately. Years ago, I painted almost every day, so much that when I awoke, I'd just dress in old paint clothes. Because if I didn't, I'd end up getting paint on whatever I was wearing because I'd sneak in some painting that day even if I hadn't planned on doing it.

I kind of like wearing real clothes now, I guess I didn't even realize what a slob I looked like all the time, in my ratty old clothes. Even worse, I had a bad habit of wiping my brush on myself, and the clothes would get such a heavy build up of paint, they were stiff.

Which is how I discovered that paint is permanent on tee shirts, and I started painting shirts to sell in the 80s. One year, I sold over 1,000 hand painted shirts.

Painting rarely happens around here any more, but when I get in the groove, I go with it. I've had the big, Downton banner to paint for Kim, and since I was decked out in paint clothes, I kept thinking of other things I'd like to set my brushes to.

There were a couple of new babies I wanted to gift with some painted onesies, but I didn't care for the bright white of the shirts, so I hand dyed them first. I liked the mottled color that I got from wadding up the shirts before dipping in the dye. I used Rit, wet the shirts, dipped in one color, rinsed, wadded it up and dipped it in another color. I know this isn't the way you are supposed to dye, but it works for me.

After they dried, I slipped a piece of cardboard inside to stretch them flat to make a good painting surface and to keep the color from soaking through to the back of the shirt.

The onesies were so much fun, I started looking around for another shirt to add a butterfly to, and found a plain, stained one of Sugarwings', and put the butterfly right over the stain.

When my boys were little, I used to paint their tee shirts. Here is a photo of them in their matching ET shirts. I'd have portraits of the kids eating ice cream with Big Bird, or flying with Superman, or just pictures of thier favorite things.

I've painted very few for Sugarwings and Dewdrop, though. Sugarwings liked it so much, I really should do some more.

Nowadays, I tend to paint more with photo editing. Here is a picture I "painted" with Picmonkey, from Easter, the original is in this post.

I've turned the egg Sugarwings found into a magical orb. And I wish my backyard really did look like this fairy land! Of course, the little girl is beautiful in any circumstance.

Little Dewdrop saw the picture of her sis with pink hair and wanted to know where her pink hair was. So, of course, I had to tint another one just for her.

Easter at the cottage

family, holiday decor, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 21, 2014

I hope you had a good Easter? Ours was so nice, it was great to have wonderful weather and to be outside enjoying it.

Sugarwings takes after me and doesn't bother with the silly, wire egg dipper. We both end up with dyed fingers, even more colorful than our eggs.

Sugarwings had a friend over to dye and hunt for eggs. Around here, we use dress up clothes instead of aprons for messy work, so the girls dug through the princess dresses to find something festive and to keep the dye off their regular clothes.

I should have put on a royal costume too, because my brand new, pale blue jeans ended up with more than a few smatterings of purple on them.

I love the snow boots with the pink dress! She chose those because they are the boots she was shopping for the day she met her best friend at Famous Footwear. They have been buddies since then.

Lee Lee and La La, forever friends.

After the eggs were dipped, we moved on to decorating cupcakes. Normally, we are very careful to keep food coloring out of Sugarwing's diet, but we figured a few sprinkles on a holiday wasn't going to hurt. I did bake gluten and dairy free cupcakes, otherwise known as bricks, and purchase organic, natural colored jelly beans to fill the plastic eggs.

Oh my god, those were the most expensive jelly beans I've ever seen! I filled a bag at the bulk food aisle, and am still in sticker shock at the price tag. My bagful of beans was over $20. And to think of all of those bags of regular jelly beans going on sale the day after Easter for a quarter, really puts it into perspective.

But when your little one has difficulties, any price or amount of trouble is, of course, worth it to help them.

I would spend my last penny to see this smile.

Sadly, we didn't have a crowd this year for our annual egg hunt. We are doing a bit of out door remodelling and our patio is ripped out, and the yard is a wreck, so we didn't have a big party. Dewdrop was with her other siblings and mom for the day and they weren't able to attend.

We were glad that her friend was able to spend the day with us, and even more special was that this was La La's first ever, egg hunt. She'd never dyed eggs either.

Sugarwings also got to meet up with an old friend at the egg hunt the nursing home her mom works at held on Saturday.

Many of the residents delighted were by the party.

This bunny's face might seem a bit creepy, but I can promise the kids loved her! It was a cute event at the nursing home. I'm all about cute, I possibly enjoyed the day even more than the kids.

I was just kind of wishing I had my own bunny costume. And I'd probably rather have vintage one that was slightly creepy. I love this one.