Sugarwings – Page 25 – Karla's Cottage

Happy birthday happy birthday – cha cha cha (as Sugarwings sings it)

celebrations, flowers, Food and Drink, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / May 6, 2011

What a great birthday I had yesterday! Carol and Debbie treated me to lunch at Julian's in Brookside, owned and operated by one of the cheftestants on Top Chef Masters. And I am such a TV junkie, that I'll eat up anything served by someone on one of my "stories".

Luckily, this place was cute as a button and over the top delicious.

Friendly, casual, and affordable too. Celina Tio, from the show (and formerly on Iron Chef) greets everyone at the door and is nice as can be. Pretty too. The TV show doesn't do her justice, she's much cuter in person.

I had some things to deliver to Carol and Debbie and we decided to meet for lunch. I said, why not Thursday, since it was my birthday, so the poor girls might have got a party ambush. But I love birthdays and am upfront about telling everyone its my day.

Thanks for all the happy birthday wishes! I had some prime baby holding time too, so it was a good day.

I'll leave you with some photos of what's new in Boutique. I've added a few millinery blooms, and have photos taken of more to add.

For the whole month of May, I'm giving you free shipping (United States) for all millinery. Pay as normal, and when I pack up and ship the item, I'll refund your shipping fees.

There will be more blooms added next week too.

I'm just out of time today, we get Sugarwings tonight. So, no more working, time to play!

Blessings

bird song art event, Sugarwings, Workshops

By Karla Nathan / May 4, 2011

Clover update: I answered so many emails about Clover and posted on Facebook about her, but I forgot to mention here, that she was OK. She had an abscessed tooth that got so bad, her tonsil got an abscess that grew so large it was cutting off her breathing and she needed emergency surgery to drain the swelling.

She woke up feeling "super" as she told the nurse. She's on antibiotics for now and is home from the hospital and back in school.

Its terrifying to think that a tooth ache can become life threatening!

Now that my little chicks have flown the coop and my studio is empty once again, I've been reflecting on just how lucky I am to have such a wonderful group of ladies come to see me.

Here is a before photo, taken while I was waiting for the group to arrive. Who knew my studio could clean up that well?? I was able to comfortably (at least everyone assured me, they were okay and comfy) seat 25 ladies.

To save space, I didn't do centerpieces, instead I simply drew on the plastic table cloths to foof them up a bit. At first, I was going to do a seating chart and write their names on the table (my pal, Lori's idea) but Beth told me that I should let them chose their own seats and I think she was right. Lori meant that I needed a personal touch, not just a seating chart.

I went with inspirational quotes featuring birds instead and added some quickie pictures. It was about a 15 minute project to do all five tables, so not the greatest art, but it was just "atmosphere".

Each table had a roll of paper towels and a box of baby wipes. Not so fancy, but necessary. I was going for practical and comfortable instead of gorgeous. And every inch of space counts when you are trying to create at a full table!

(I snitched this photo from Beth's blog- its taken before the table cloth got put on the garden tables)

Luckily the weather mostly cooperated and we could have meals outdoors. On Sunday, things got chillier, so I decided to build a bonfire for everyone to warm up by if they didn't want to stay indoors during lunch break. You should have seen me scurrying through the woods grabbing fallen branches and twigs for kindling! But by the time lunch was ready, I had a roaring fire going and was pretty proud of myself.

But its not easy to build bonfires while setting out lunch and I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something. And yep, in my fridge sits a neglected vat of homemade coleslaw. It looks like a lifetime supply, but coleslaw does not quite last a lifetime.

My studio feels so empty with everyone gone.

About half way through Sunday afternoon, I was already starting to miss them and they hadn't even left yet. Luckily, the ones who weren't too worn out and those who weren't travelling that night or early the next day started making plans to go out to dinner and I was able to join in. I wasn't ready to say goodbye!

And the next day, I still had Sherry and Lisa at the house. Sherry treated me to lunch downtown before she flew home, and that helped.

But today? I miss them all!!!

Over the weekend, it was just too hard to express how much the weekend meant to me. I tried a few times, and would start to cry when I attempted to tell the girls.

So maybe I can say it here, in writing. Where you can't see my nose turning red and my eyes welling up.

When I cry, my nose goes all Rudolph on me.

You know I love blogworld, right? I've met some wonderful people online. And at various events around the country, that I've been lucky enough to attend. There is such a feeling of community, and creativity in the air at these places.

Silver Bella was the first that I attended and it got me hooked. I'll miss going there and am sad about its demise. But it wasn't the event itself, it was the people I met that mattered. (That place had its flaws, which I was able to overlook till this year.) Now, after flying out to Kim's weekends in CA, hosting my own, and making plans to go to Jenn's and to Paper Cowgirls, I see that we don't have to go to Omaha to capture the feeling. We can snatch it no matter where we gather, and honestly, I think that these smaller, more intimate gatherings are even more chock full of that glittery glow than the giant affairs are.

It meant the world to me that these women travelled from all over to be HERE, with me, that they trusted me with their precious time off from work and family and would come all the way to Kansas (a place not exactly in the top ten of vacation hot spots) to play in my studio with me.

Life has not always been golden for me, and I think it takes some really bad times to know just how blessed the good ones are. But having gone through rough periods, it can also be hard to have a healthy sense of worth, being beaten down can always leave a person doubting themselves no matter how hard they have worked to build up a new and positive life over the ruins of an old one.

So, I have to say that at some points during Birdsong, I was overwhelmed thinking that all these kind ladies flocked in from all over the country to come to my cottage in Kansas. And that caused some verklempt-ness. I felt a bit like Sally Field at the Oscars when she said, "you like me, you really like me!"

But luckily, I just got weepy instead of embarrassing myself with dopey words. Oops, I just wrote them for thousands of people instead of saying them in front of a couple dozen.

Am I a little too worked up over such a small gathering? Well, it wasn't 200 people that is for sure. But I know how hard it is to budget time and incomes and to pull off a girl's weekend for most busy moms or grandmas. So whether it was 5 people or 500 people, it touched my heart that these ladies each chose to come here.

I hope they know how much I appreciate that choice they made with their vacation time.

But now, its back to my every day life, with no big weekend to plan for. I thought I'd feel let down and lonely, but with this little fairy friend to keep me company, how could I? Plus, the weekend was just too good to feel down now.

Happy Easter!

celebrations, family, holiday decor, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 24, 2011

We are having a quiet Easter this year. Well, quiet meaning that we aren't having a big family gathering and dinner for dozens this time. Sugarwings spent the weekend and that isn't exactly quiet.

Saturday morning started with egg coloring. And I guess you'd have to say that she and I aren't what you'd call tong users when it comes to dying eggs. We prefer getting our fingers in the colors instead of using the dippers that come with the kit, and we like to use paint brushes to spiff up the shells.

Not just the eggs get colored either. When you have all those lovely dyes in front of you, and only a couple dozen eggs to dip, it hurts to waste it all. So we did some experimenting and found that the egg dye is beautiful on the unfinished wood of a bird house. (We had picked up this princess castle bird house at Michaels)

And it makes stuffed rabbits pretty too.

Not to mention Dorky heads. Yep, little Agnes Rosebud started it. She jumped up on my lap and put her nose in the dye to see what it was. Of course, how could we resist painting the top of her head with a paint brush dipped in purple?

Hope your holiday is a Hoppy one too.

Sorry I won't be answering emails or comments, but I will be taking time to read them. And I'll chose a name from commenters to give a Birdsong memento to later on.

The fairie’s surprise

family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / April 21, 2011

Recently I discovered the gardening junk at the Dollar Store and filled the Fairy Berry Trail with a gaudy cartful of rainbow-ey things.

Sugarwings was coming to spend the day with me, so I hurried out and filled the trail with the decor to surprise her. She thinks that the fairies decorated it for her. I never get the credit, but I don't mind.

What on earth would my life be like without my grands? I'd be doing something yucky like actually getting some work done instead of hanging rainbow wind socks out in the woods.

I'll be busy getting ready for BirdSong this week, please forgive me for not answering comments. I'll be taking the time to read them, tho!

Being Real

family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / March 18, 2011

Sugarwings and Pixie Pie spent the evening with us Monday night and like all evenings do when they get together, it ended in playing dress up. I'm always looking for fun princess, fairy, or other costume accessories and dresses for them at garage sales and thrifts.

This time, the dogs got involved too. I think that Agnes Rosebud was born to wear a boa, don't you? This is the one I am packing to take to Moulin Rouge, but I think she looks much cuter in it than I will.

Twinks got into it too. She could use a smaller size fairy crown, though, this one falls around her neck.

By the way, does anyone know what the term for these things is????? I've been wracking my brain for it, and I KNOW that there just has to be a name for them.

I love to see what costumes the girls pull together. You never know what will be coming down the stairs to curtsy and show off. It could be a bumble bee, a witch, a fairy, or a conglomeration of all of them at once.

Sugarwings often falls back on the Dorothy look. Although she puts her own spin on it, and is wearing two different shoes, not ruby slippers.

But her first outfit was the best. She hadn't been part of the parade down the stairs yet, and I went up to see if she needed zipped or buttoned, or helped out in any way. But there she stood, completely naked wearing her two mismatched heels, a crown, and pretending to drink a cup of tea.

I asked why she wasn't dressed up, and she said she wanted to be "real". She's real funny alright.

Sugarwing’s Low Sugar Freezer Jam, otherwise known as a strawberry spread type thing

family, Food and Drink, how to's, how-to projects, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / March 3, 2011

For not having a recipe and having never made jam before, we did okay last night when we gave it a try. What we ended up with was a unique strawberry spread type thing, and we really like it. So, I guess that is what counts. Whether anyone would ever call it "jam" when they ate it, doesn't really matter to us.

We were going rogue.

While I've never made jam myself, I knew a bit about it. Like you need a LOT of sugar for it to set up. And if you aren't canning it, you need to make freezer jam instead.

We used very little sugar, because I was making the jam myself so I could purposely cut back on it, since Sugarwings has a little bit of a jelly addiction. Well, with a name like Sugarwings, you might expect her to have a sweet tooth…

Here's how we did it, if you want to make some strawberry spread type thing for yourself:

First you need a good berry scrubber with skills in pulling off the "green parts".
After the green parts are gone, cut off the top, and toss the fruit into a blender. We used 2 quarts of organic berries.
We squeezed half of a lime over the berries in the blender and then purreed them. To get the most juice out of the lime, we played with it a while, and got it good and smashy before I cut it in half.
To the berry/lime mix, we added a 3/4 cup of organic sugar and about three good sized squirts of agave nectar syrup, and blended them all together. Have the lid on the blender before your helper pushes any buttons, or else be ready to wipe berry globs off your forehead.
We opened a packet of pectin (found on the jello isle at the grocery store) and disolved it in a 1/4 cup of boiling water. I have a feeling that the jam might have been thicker if my helper hadn't spilled quite a bit of the pectic powder when she poured it into the bowl. If all your pectin makes it into the hot water, you might have a better end product than we did.
Mix the pectin/water with the berries and sugar, then pour into jars. Leave space at the top of the jar for the jam to expand when it freezes.
Let set at room temperature for a couple hours before cooling in the fridge (or freezer if you want to save it for later)
Make labels while the jars set up.

The whole endeavor might have just been an excuse to make labels. Our yeild was small, only three partial jars, so we decorated the lids, too. We had looked forward to making labels too much to stop at three.

For our labels, we used some fruit rub ons and paint markers on water color paper shapes cut out with our punches.

My kitchen might still be a little sticky, but we sure had fun. And our so called jam really is tasty. And good for you too!

To me, it tastes a bit like a Margarita. Sugarwings thinks it tastes like jelly, but she's never had a margy. This spread has more of a fresh berry flavor than a jelly flavor. And I don't think it ended up costing any more than if I'd bought three jars of All Fruit spread. Sometimes, kitchen experiments can go a bit crazy in the budget department, but this one did okay financially.

Plus, its something we will really enjoy eating, and it wasn't hard to make. We also whipped up some home made yogurt, and for breakfast today, we swirled some of our "jam" into the plain yogurt, and it was heavenly.

My funny Valentine

family, Food and Drink, holiday decor, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / February 16, 2011

Did you have a good Valentines Day? We sure did, we had Sugarwings for the night and my husband whisked us away to see a romantic chick flick. Gnomeo and Juliet. And it was really pretty cute. First of all, I have a thing for yard gnomes. No, not a romantic thing, I just like them.

And second, the music was all Elton John. Can't beat that.

On the way home we scooped up some to-go food and served it on the good dishes when we got back to the cottage. After, Sugarwings and I whipped up a quick, festive dessert.

We skewered mini marshmallows onto red toothpicks, melted a hand full of Belgian chocolate chips in the microwave for a minute, then dipped the marshmallows in and quickly rolled them in sprinkles.

It took minutes to do, and she could do most of it all by herself. Plus they were tasty! The trick is to use the good chips. What a difference it makes to upgrade from Toll House chips.

In the last year, I switched over to the Belgian chips and they are make any thing I bake better. They cost a bit more, but are such better quality. If I am making cookies, I put the chips in a blender and chop them up, so they go further. I only use half as much that way.

I hope your Valentines Day was a sweet one too!

Snot, Elbows, and some Vintage Valentines for you (the images are for you, that is, not the snot and elbows)

celebrations, family, free images, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / February 14, 2011

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope that you are having a day filled with love. Around here, this year's holiday is more about tissues and Nyquil than chocolates and champagne.

My husband and I usually celebrate Valentines Day as a family because it is the anniversary of him adopting our boys. So, we take the kids out to a nice restaurant and toast each other. Because of everyone's busy schedules we weren't able to do our dinner on the 14th, we spent Sunday evening at our favorite Italian place instead.

The food was so good and the company so wonderful, I was able to forget about this nasty cold I have, and had a spectacular time. The only bad part was that I was trying to avoid holding the baby, so I wouldn't spread my germs to her.

Can you imagine how hard that was for me??? Look at that face! Don't you just want to scoop her up and squeeze her?

She was being extra cute too, giving everyone big smiles. Usually, she is very serious, so seeing all those grins made it even harder for me to stay away.

When we got to the restaurant, I asked the hostess to seat us out of the way, so my nose blowing wouldn't gross out the rest of the guests. It all worked out fine, I timed my cold medicine to be at its peak through the meal and I was glad I didn't cancel to stay home and blow my nose in bed, like I almost did.

The cold hit me extra hard because I'm just getting over the flu. And on Saturday night I got no sleep at all. Poor little Sugarwings was in pain, and I had her sleep with me to take care of her. She cried out in her sleep from a sore arm, and I felt so bad for her that I didn't get much rest myself.

Finally, the next morning we took her to the ER and found out that she had a dislocated elbow. You have no idea how bad I felt by making her wait over night to go to the Dr. But her daddy had thought she should wait till the next morning to see how she was, and her mom was tied up. Its hard to be the grandparents sometimes. You have to respect the parent's wishes, and try to follow their guidelines and rules for raising the kids, even if it goes against your own ideas on what to do.

But luckily, all was settled on Sunday morning and we got our little one to the hospital where she was fixed up so quickly that it was like flipping a switch. Once that elbow got twisted back in place, she perked up and was her old self again, bouncing around like Tigger.

The whole time she was in pain, she was so brave and so sweet. I have to say, that she is the happiest kid I've ever met, even when suffering.

Have you ever heard of nursemaid's elbow? Apparently, its very common for kids under 4 to dislocate their elbow when someone is holding their hand and they twist away from them. She had happened to be holding her mom's hand and threw herself to the floor, and pop! There it went. We were told that once it happens, it can recur quite often for a couple of years.

At least we'll know next time to get her to the Dr. immediately!! Since she waited over 12 hours to get treatment, it wasn't easy to fix due to swelling. The nurse tried a couple of times, but no luck. So, a Dr. was called in to do it, and she had to give the arm a good wrench. My husband, Sugarwing's Hippy Chick Mommy, and I all had tears on our cheeks when we heard our fairy baby cry out in pain.

It just hurts so much more to see a little one in pain than to be hurt yourself.

She put it all behind her quickly, and then proceeded to let loose all that pent up energy that she had felt too bad to use since the day before. If only I could recover that fast! This cold is kicking my butt. Too bad they don't make chocolate truffle cough drops for people who are sick on Valentines Day.

Somehow this holiday mostly got away from me. I didn't make a single thing for it, or do any kind of romantic decor in my house. There is not a heart to be seen, except these few bits of jewelry that I found in my supplies to show you.

Between illnesses, injuries, and just plain old being busy, I seem to have missed out on getting all geared up for Valentines Day.

But, its not all about the hearts and flowers, is it? I might not have decorated or created anything with a Valentine theme, but there has been plenty of love in the household. And while dinner out with the kids and a big box of Kleenex, while I had a nose that looks like Rudolf's and eyes that are glowing red like a demon's, doesn't sound so romantic- my sweet husband still took my hand, looked into my runny red eyes and asked me to be his Valentine. And our dinner out with the kids was so much fun, that we laughed and talked for over 2 hours.

Yep, its not been a traditional holiday. But its a good one. Even with the snot.

I'll leave you with a couple of Valentines from the 1930's. You can click on them to pop up in a larger window, then save them to your own computer to print.

Battling the mid-winter blues and dreaming of Spring!

bird song art event, family, Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / February 7, 2011

The other day, I was cleaning my studio and doing some rearranging, with my spring time art event in mind, and just decided that I couldn't take it anymore, I had to MAKE something. Something quick and simple, but something. This weather has had me down, and not feeling very creative, so I needed a boost and forced myself to create.

Since I'd been cleaning up, there was a pile of papers I'd gathered up on the desk, so I used them up instead of putting them away, and turned them into a mini ephemera book.

I felt a little better about winter after doing something pretty.

Sugarwings came to spend the weekend with me, and both of us are feeling that mid-winter pinch. That cooped up, sick of being inside the same four walls dread. To beat the blues, we built a fort with blankets and curtains over the dining room table.

We discussed building strategy and felt like all white was the way to go, and that we'd call it a snow fort.

The floor got covered with a couple of thick, soft comforters, and we brought in pillows, a flash light, and art supplies.

And treats, of course! We snacked away all day and didn't even have lunch.

Yes, I did say all day. We were in that fort for hours.

We spent some of the time doing cave paintings. We used markers to draw fairies, clouds, hearts, and stars above our heads on the underside of the table.

Hopefully, she'll take my warning about never drawing on anyone's furniture unless an adult says Okay, seriously.

Hopefully, I haven't created an urge in her to marker up every table she sees… But I think that she understood that this was a special place and a special time.

After a couple hours of stories, drawing and snacking, she still wasn't ready to leave the fort. So I snuck out and got a book for myself and a DVD player for her.

This is our book for Monday night's book club and I hadn't had a chance to open it till Sunday afternoon.

So, I borrowed Sugarwing's flashlight and started to read while she watched Ariel. After a while my handsome husband got home, and he crawled in to hang out, and discovered just how cozy the spot was. He ended up taking a nice long nap in the fort while Sugarwings watched another movie.

Her Hippy Chick Mommy came over for Sunday dinner, and we made some Valentines, then the two of them crawled in the fort to watch a 3rd movie. I think that if she had her way, that kid would still be in that fort right now. She did eat breakfast in there this morning.

Thanks for all the sign ups for Bird Song! There are still spots left, if you are interested please email me for a pay-pal invoice. I can't promise you a snow fort while you are here, but please feel free to climb under the tables and draw on the undersides if you'd like.

Details about the event can be found HERE.

And if you'd like to win one of my bargain bag rhinestone bracelets, leave a comment here or on the previous post. I bought a ton of them for dirt cheap and will draw a few names to share them.

Pheobe in Wonderland

Sugarwings

By Karla Nathan / January 29, 2011

Have you ever seen this movie? Its a couple years old, but I just heard about it recently. The tiny actress who plays Phoebe is Dakota Fanning's sister, Elle and she reminded me so much of Sugarwings that I teared up many times while watching it.

Do you see the resemblance? But mostly it was an attitude and the mesmerized, happy look on her face when she was watching something she loved. My little Fairy Grand Baby has that look. And the ability to be totally lost in the wonderland of her imagination. Also, the tousled hair, and mis-matched clothes. Just adorable.

But sadly, Sugarwings also has a hard time dealing with others sometimes. Not OCD and Tourettes like the girl in the movie, but still some problems that are getting harder for her as she gets older.

The other day, she broke my heart by telling me that she is different from everyone else, and can't do anything right. At four years old??? With all the love and attention and understanding that we surround her with, she is already feeling like this before she has even started kindergarten?

Yes, my heart still hurts from hearing her words and knowing that life isn't going to be a breeze for her. Luckily, the very things that make her different will also be what makes her strong and will get her through.

She has an amazing imagination and overflows with joy and boundless energy. Her emotions are strong, she is loyal, artistic, smart, and loving.

It will be up to her extended family to make sure that she finds the right learning environment that takes advantage of her skills and lets her be her own wonderful self.

Sorry, first I write a post about cleaning a closet and now I tell you how sad this movie made me, these aren't the kind of posts you come here for, huh? I promise to come up with some pretty pictures and a happy tale soon.

But honestly, life with Sugarwings, while it might be a roller coaster, is a happy tale. I have faith that she is going to be spectacular. And I want her to know that too and believe in herself.

Someday, when she is grown up, I hope she reads my archives and knows that Grams always believed in her.