Karla's Cottage – Page 274

Part One of Silver Bella ( a mere taste of the gushing to come)

antiques/junking, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), Silver Bella, Travel

By Karla Nathan / November 11, 2007

Silver Bella was the BEST!

I had been looking forward to it, but had no idea it would be that much fun.

Beth and I drove up from KC and antiqued in St Joe, MO where we ran into a fellow Bella who happened to stop there too!

No, not this gal, but she does look ready for the event.

Carol is also from the KC area and happened to be at Jesse James Antique Mall at the same time as us.

The spending spree was just beginning. I hate to admit it, but since my husband doesn’t read this, I guess I can– I shopped all the way up to Omaha, and went to all the local antique stores, as well as buying things all the way home. And there was Silver Bella Vendor night in between!

At Jess James, Beth and I found a pile of ephemera at dirt cheap prices. Well, dirt cheap for an antique mall, but not estate sale cheap. About 50 cents each isn’t bad, though.

There were so many, we spread them out on the floor, sat down and relaxed as we went through them.

When I got to classes, I was so glad that I had I bought some of the vintage cards. They were an excellent addition to projects there.

And of course, the doll’s head I found in St Joe was a perfect tiara stand for the hotel room.

As soon as we arrived, we "decorated" our room and set out some pretties to enjoy.

Everyone at the event was so nice. Jack and Jenny Heid were sweeties.

I could go on forever, gushing about the glitter and the fun. And I probably will in my next post. But its time to get back to reality, unpack my bags, shake out the sparkles from my suitcase (those poor hotel maids, there was glitter everywhere!! I wonder how many people were like Beth and spent time sitting on the bed cutting, gluing and making little tiny confetti sprinkles with their hole punches?).

And I need to go and play with my little Dorkies and find out what they’ve been up to all weekend.

It always feels good to be back home and to know I was missed.

I’m outta here

Etsy Goodies, holiday decor, magazine pictures or articles, Silver Bella, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / November 7, 2007

The Lawrence Magazine is out now. It is local, so I’m sure that doesn’t mean much to most of you.

I had to have 3 rooms of my home decorated for Christmas by Sept 15 so they could shoot this, and what pictures do they use?? Two, both from the same room!!

Oh well, at least I have the upstairs decorated and ready for the Holiday Home Tour and can concentrate on other things. If I hadn’t had this early deadline, I’d be scrambling to get those rooms done now instead.

This year, the tour will feature a Kwanzaa home and a Hanukkah home too.

(I am in the top photo.) I wore jeans, not knowing I’d be in the pictures. Its lucky I don’t have paint smeared all over me!

These pictures are by Jason Dailey Photography

http://www.daileyimages.com
http://www.blackboook.com/jasondailey and he was kind enough to let me post them.

I took time to list a couple things on Etsy today. I made these boots for an article I wrote for Victorian Decorating. I am keeping a couple and selling the others.

Aren’t the old buttons great?

One already sold too! They are $7 and there is one left in the shop if you are interested.

I had Sugarwings most of yesterday. It was her first peek at our Christmas tree, I was waiting for her with the camera so I could capture her face.

I think the lights and decorations will mean every bit as much to her as they do to me! We walked all around the house and pointed at pretties and talked about the holiday.

This morning, I decorated my tiara. It was a store bought rhinestone one, pretty enough. But I thought that to be worn at Silver Bella, it needed more. I think it might have plenty now.

The scarf it is sitting on will be what I tie around my waist for "Junk Gypsy" night at Silver Bella. I am just wearing jeans and a tee shirt and this scarf (with the tiara of course! I might have that on all weekend!)

I think the scarf might be a Xmas tree skirt when I get home…

I’m not getting decked out like a lot of the attendees. But I also am a lot older than most of them too.

Which reminds me, I should go and pack my bags. My swaps and tools and goodies are ready to go but my clothes aren’t.

When you are about to turn 50, the clothes don’t seem as important. A few t-shirts and some jeans and my tennis shoes and I am set for anywhere. It took a lot longer to figure out which glue, which pretty rhinestone buttons, etc to take than what clothes to pack!!

Good bye, everyone- hope you have a good weekend too. I plan on having a spectacular one.

Presents, packages, and procrastination- a look at my October giveaway prize

Etsy Goodies, give away, paintings, swaps, Travel, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / November 6, 2007

Am I making any progress on the studio before the fairy grand baby gets here and I have to stop? Well, kind of.

I packed up my swaps and am taking them to the PO today. This ornament goes to Shirley, as my part of the swap that my Pretty Romantic Homes group on Ebay is having.

And my package, all wrapped up in vintage wallpaper, is ready to go to Natasha in Australia for the Deck the Halls swap hosted by Monica at:

monicaanderson.blogspot.com/

I won’t show Natasha’s gifts yet, so she’ll be surprised, but here is something I am sending to her son, Leroy. I doubt if he reads my blog.

KU is undefeated so far this year (that is a very big deal to my husband). Natasha is a football fan, so I thought it would be nice to send Leroy a football. Now my husband tells my that "Australian Rules" football is a different ball. Oh well, little boys have a good time with throwing balls around, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy it anyway.

I have a side swap at Silver Bella with Julie. Its funny, I listed 3 mini wallpaper,ephemera packs with an ATC as side swaps and Julie took me up on it.

The trouble is, that she was already in my ATC swap and I was including that same pack as part of it!!

So I told her I would bundle up some big pieces of wallpaper as a swap so she wouldn’t get the same thing twice.

I am hoping someone else takes me up on these ATC/ephemera packs. It would be sad to offer to trade and get no takers!!

I also made a gift for the winner of my OCTOBER GIVEAWAY– Jessi

She happens to be a Bella too, so I am taking the gift to her there.

You know you can enter my November drawing for a custom Christmas gift by leaving a comment, right? Any comment, any time , all month.

Lets see, what else did I do yesterday while avoiding cleaning the studio?

Well, as I did attempt to clean my work table, I came across a few things I wanted to finish, like this piece.

And I made up 6 of these little vintage ballerinas, so they could be fairies.

They are sweet little things. I guess you have to be pretty sweet when you have a face like that.

(oops, that was catty- but really, look at that face!)

I also framed this watercolor, but I just don’t like the vintage frame gold, it will have to be painted white. Well, I tried to get by with not painting it.

So, I am packed up and ready for Silver Bella at least, and all my swaps are done and ready to go to the PO, as well as all my Etsy sales for this week.

I am lucky to have 2 boxes to Australia and 2 to Canada on the same day! One trip to the PO for all, instead of going back for each. Out of country boxes have to go through the main PO here, I can’t just drop them off at the grocery store like most parcels.

OK, enough procrastinating. I have to go and clean the studio. Or I could go pick Sugarwings up early today……

Why do I have to be “Hex Goblinweb”????

fairies, holiday decor, paintings, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / November 5, 2007

My fairy is called Hex Goblinweb

"She is a bringer of riches and wealth.

She lives in places hexed and tainted by black magic.

She is only seen in the mist of an early morning.

She wears black feathers and rose petals. She has gentle green wings like a butterfly."

You can get your fairy name too, although, I hope yours is prettier than mine. Hex Goblinweb?? Why couldn’t I be "gossamer petals" or "blissful bella" or "glittered sparkle wings"

I saw this fairy name finder on Phyllis’ site, check it out and see if you get a pretty name: http://www.emmadavies.net/fairy/default.aspx

While I was going through the handmade greeting card drawer, I thought I’d show

another old Christmas card. Some years, I’d do a golfing themed card for my husband to send to his colleagues, I’d also do a pretty card with angels or fairies to send to family and friends.

I always loved this angel’s face, just don’t look at her poor hand. Ugh, that is badly done.

(this is the only one I don’t have extras of to sell, they are sold out till I copy more)

I am happy (and relieved) to say that my house is decorated for Christmas and ready for the local TV crew on the 15th!

I still have this mess to deal with before I leave for SILVER BELLA on Thursday.

I’d had the front third of my studio set up for the Holiday Home Tour and gift shop way early, back in Sept. so a local magazine could do photos of it. That was a great head start. Xmas_021

But now, all this mess is in front of the pretty stuff!!

I can’t seem to keep a clean work environment. It clutters up so fast, I am always shoving aside one mess to work on another.

At least I know I am 90% done inside the house, and the studio looks really bad right now, but I’ve seen it worse. I’ll have it whipped into shape in the 3 days I have before I leave.

Well, I will be babysitting Sugarwings over night on one of those days, so between watching her, and the recovery time I need to rest after keeping her out of the Christmas tree, I won’t have a full 3 days.

I’d better get busy.

Christmasses Past and what ever happened to those unicorns??

collections, fairies, paintings

By Karla Nathan / November 4, 2007

Don’t forget that every comment is an entry into my monthly giveaway. This month, it will be a hand made Christmas item.

After seeing Sugarwings dressed up like Dorothy, I got to thinking about this painting I did years ago.

I called it "Great Aunt Dorothy Reminiscing"

It is my vision of Dorothy in her 90s. With photos of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, Toto and a hot air balloon on the wall behind her, and a vase with poppy stem in it on the table next to her chair.

Her favorite color is emerald green, because it brings back such lovely memories. And no matter what, she’ll NEVER give up those ruby slippers.

While digging through the drawer to get to the Dorothy card (I made my old paintings into note cards) I came across some others and thought I’d show them today.

I am in the middle of decking the halls and my husband says "it looks like Christmas threw up all over our house!". It is a wreck, boxes, ornaments, garlands, branches,everywhere. I have nothing new made right now, except a mess.

Notice the rain drop hitting the unicorn? That is why there are no more unicorns today, the rain started before his mate arrived and he could get on the ark.

My husband runs some golf courses and I try to do a unique Christmas card for him to send out every year. (this one is wrapped up in plastic, I used to sell them by the 6 pack too).

This guy is a golfing Santy, done in ink.

This is one of my faves, Santa’s elves building sets of clubs.

And a golfing snowman.

One year, I did this painting of the front of my studio with Sparkle sitting on the porch and used it as the family Christmas card.

The Holiday Home Tour that I am a part of this year is using this image in its advertising now. That was so flattering!

This one is a little different, well no golf clubs, but also, it was done with watercolor pencils. I had never worked with them before and probably won’t again, they don’t have the range of color I wanted and I found them hard to use.

I do have a few cards left if anyone wants any, I can sell them for $1 each or 6 for $5. I’ll have to double check to see what is left if you want any.

Pure Luck

family, housework

By Karla Nathan / November 3, 2007

Boy do I have some good friends. And I know how lucky I am to have them.

See the peeling shutter on the top window? That is what all my shutters looked like before today.

Two of my craft night friends came over today and helped me scrape and repaint them!

We have done projects for each other, like helping Jen sand and prime her kitchen cabinets and doing a faux finish in Diane’s entryway.

But the biggest and toughest project of them all has been Lori’s shed.

We hauled all the junk out, then cleaned and painted the shed for her, as a group.

We rented a spray gun and just shot paint all over everything.

One of the group, Diane, is a photographer. She and I got to talking about how cool it would be to do a before and after story about the shed, so she snapped some shots before we got started.

I fetched a "few" of my pretties from my studio and staged the room, and got out my paint brush to foof things up a bit, so Diane could take these shots.

I wrote up a little article to go along with the photos and we sent the package into Romantic Homes, and it was published last summer.

I am lucky to be a part of a group of such giving, talented, and HELPFUL friends!

I think our buddy, Shanna, is next for a redo project, she is house shopping, so is saving up her turn for something in the new home.

I was so relieved to have this eyesore taken care of today. My Holiday Open House is less than a month away and those ragged shutters were one of the things that were making my eyes pop open at 3am with worry.

Thanks to my pals, I can start worrying about something else now.

But not about the eyesore that the yard had become, that is handled today too!

Sugarwings, my husband and I started the big fall clean up.

He had taken down a 30 foot tall cedar tree that needed cut up and burned, along with sticks and leaves around the farm that were cluttering up the yard.

Our friends saw the tree laying out by the driveway, and commented "Karla is going all out for Christmas again, huh?" Apparently, I am known for my excess and no one was surprised to see a 30 foot Christmas tree in my drive way.

But in a matter of hours, that tree was kindling and burned away in the bon fire pit behind the garden.

After climbing up and down ladders and scraping old paint all day, I was ready to relax by the warm fire and watch the last of the tree go up in flames while I sat back and sipped a glass of wine.

There is nothing like a crisp fall day when you can accomplish a lot of needed yard work and home repairs, enjoy the company of your friends, and then relax by a bonfire at the end of it all.

I think I have mentioned it before, I am pretty lucky!!

If I only had a brain!

Uncategorized

By Karla Nathan / November 2, 2007

My little Sugarwings is such a Kansas girl! She made a perfect teeny Dorothy.

We had some of the nicest weather this year, seems like it usually rains or is chilly on Halloween.

I hope the weather holds for next week in Omaha for SILVER BELLA!!!

I have my swaps done and ready to go.

I took my 12 glittering ATCs and packaged them up with some wallpaper and added the recipient’s names in glitter to vintage wallpaper tags embellished with millinery flowers.

I have 3 extra so I signed up for side swaps that weekend. I am open to ANY trade, so I hope I get some takers.

(NEXT DAY) EDIT- BETH TOLD ME HOW TO LOAD THE BANNER! I DID IT!!!!

I’ve been working on a new banner tonight, after the baby went to bed. (Yes I got to keep her overnight TWICE this week! and no, I am not getting any closer to being ready for my sale, or the TV shoot!)

I copied and added color with pastels and glitter to the sepia water color I did of my fairy grand baby.

Then I cut out a piece of vintage fairy wallpaper.

At first, I thought I’d be techy and do it all digitally, with the scanner, but I had to resort to scissors and glue after my dismal failure.

So I snipped and clipped and glued and glittered and made this.

I will pretend that my cottage is that castle!

Trouble is, now I can’t load it into a new banner. Geez, what is so hard about it???? I seemed to have it resized correctly. but NO.

If Sugarwings is Dorothy, I must be the Scarecrow. I am brainless when it comes to changing banners, or adding buttons to my blog.

So, I give up for now. Its 1am and the baby will be up in about 6 hours and a grandmother needs plenty of sleep if she expects to keep up with a one year old. As if sleep is enough to keep me going when she is here! It requires heavy duty cafienne, running shoes, and a helper to hold her down when I change her pants.

So I’m off to bed, after announcing October’s winner:

It’s a fellow Bella!!! Jessi gets the choice of a vintage wallpaper and ephemera Cottage Collage Kit or a hand made item from the kit.

Thanks to all of you who commented and entered. I enjoy hearing from you and will be bribing for more comments in November. Every comment counts as an entry into the drawing. I will make a custom Christmas ornament for November’s winner.

What Is Lurking out in the Pet Cemetery behind my cottage????

family, Food and Drink, I've been tagged, Sugarwings, We're having a party

By Karla Nathan / October 31, 2007

Ghouls just wanna have fun!

Welcome to the Halloween Blog Party!! It is sponsored by a group here and they have their scary tunes going, I have them playing in the back ground while I write to get me in the mood.

My niece, Shelli, made this ghostly cake. Enjoy a piece while you mingle at the party!

And Sissy has been crafting again! Look at this creation, I just want to move right into this cottage.

There is even a crystal ball waiting for me on the table. Have I ever mentioned my fortune telling hobby? I call myself Madame Karkina and wrap the nearest table cloth around my shoulders like a shawl and pretend to read palms. (It is usually after a couple of glasses of wine.)

That is a picture of Sissy as a witch next to the black cat.

And speaking of familiars- oops, I mean pets-

did I ever mention this?

Yep, I have a pet cemetery on my 10 acres, right along I70. It used to be a bit of a land mark around here, but as it rusts and the trees grow up around it, you don’t notice it along the highway any more.

Yesterday was such a pretty fall day that Sugarwings and I got dressed up and went back to the punkin patch for another visit.

I went as a princess and she was a pink butterfly. (I am wearing big sunglasses to hide from the paparazzi and trying to teach her the princess wave- also known as the beauty queen wave: ELBOW ELBOW WRIST WRIST WRIST).

Her grandfather didn’t wear a costume. As usual, he just dressed as a handsome husband.

Aren’t they so cute together? This might be my favorite photo of the two of them.

Tonight for trick or treat, she will be dressed as Dorothy and Twinkle will be Toto. I have a feeling I will be posting photos…. Sweet2btreat2bread

I was tagged by Michelle to name 3 blogs I like to read. That is HARD to do, I am a blog-aholic and love to peruse the boundless bounty of blogs.

So, I’ll just list who I looked at this morning, these are some good ones:

Bethany has hand made felt goodie bags for Halloween

Heather always has some of the prettiest photos around, and she is showing some Silver Bella themed kits she will be selling

the queen always has great photos too, and right now there is a wonderful vintage Halloween masked ball print to see.

And of course, I always check out my buddy, Beth to see what wry and witty things she has to say or what fab finds she got at the last estate sale. Right now, she has an infestation of creatures creeping around her place and hiding in all the nooks and crannies.

One last Halloween Witch, looking really really scary before I remind you this is the last day of the

October Drawing. I will wait till the 2nd to announce the winner so you can leave comments on THIS POST till then. (COMMENTS FROM ALL MONTH COUNT TOO)

The prize is a Cottage College Kit with vintage wallpaper OR a hand made item from one of my kits.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Of course, you know what that means tomorrow is?? The biggest candy bargain day of the year! I will fill my shopping cart with 75% off chocolate and start the count down to Christmas weight gain early.

Feeling the JOY

Etsy Goodies, holiday decor, how to's, vintage paper/collage art

By Karla Nathan / October 30, 2007

I had a good studio day yesterday after unpacking from my trip to the Ozarks. Well, I am half unpacked. And the laundry isn’t quite done yet. And the bags of non-refrigerated foodstuffs are still sitting around in the kitchen.

Maybe I am not quite half way unpacked. But I had a great day in the studio avoiding it all!

I made a few banners for Christmas from vintage wallpaper, millinery flowers, sheet music, tulle, and purchased letters.

Here is a close up of this colorful one.

But this is the one I will keep in my living room to use this season. (it says MERRY)

It is made with all gold and white wallpapers and I added some chandelier drops to the tulle the banner is strung on.

This is similar to the first one, same wallpapers, but instead of the bright colors, I accented it with pages from an old book and vintage buttons with pearls and rhinestones.

This is actually a cleaned up corner of the studio. I might be in trouble- I have a local TV show shooting here in 13 days. 4 of those days, I’ll be at SILVER BELLA!! and a few others,(like today) I’ll have Sugarwings.

But, yet, I let my unpacked weekend getaway things pile up in the house and trash my studio while I string letters on tulle.

Well, actually, here are some not even strung yet.

Aren’t these pearl letters cool? They are at Michaels for $1 each. I bought enough to spell out a few words,

‘Merry’

‘Joy’

‘Snow’

‘Noel’

I fell hard for this wallpaper, wish I had more of it!! It was one page of a 1930s wallpaper sample book.

I could have used a whole roll! The sample book comes with an order form where you can get the paper for 39 cents a roll. But, since the book is more than 70 years old, I doubt if there is much of it available. If wishes were horses, I’d need a really big barn.

Are you seeing a pattern here? JOY is a favorite word of mine. It sums up the holiday season so well. It is short, concise and just says it all.

Plus, I’d say this sign would be pretty in a little girl’s room year round. Or in my kitchen. I love that word and don’t limit it only to Christmas.

I also framed some vintage doll clothes. I’d bought a cute wooden box at an antique shop for $8. Then, I found as a bonus- a bunch of these old clothes.

I sold quite a few of them on Etsy (pictured here), but saved my favorites, knowing I wanted to do something with them eventually.

This little pink dress is hand beaded and has a matching necklace to go with it.

I painted a small frame white, distressed it, then glued down a piece of vintage wallpaper.

The dress is attached with double sided tape.

I glued a bundle of millinery flowers tied up in a faded ribbon to the wallpaper, and then glued the beads to the wallpaper too.

The dress is removable if I ever want to. But then, I wonder, why would I? Maybe I should just glue it down too?

I glued another old, pink ribbon to the back to hang the piece from. It was a very easy project.

This little dress was even easier.

I cut an oval of the old wallpaper to fit this antique pewter frame (hard to believe I didn’t paint over it, huh?), then used double sided tape to lay out this aqua dress, and put it into the frame.

These old doll clothes are art in themselves, but I still needed me some foof.

So I gathered a scrap of vintage lace into a bow, and glued it to the top of the frame and added some old jewelry to it with another dot of glue.

All of these projects will be for sale on Etsy, or contact me here if you are interested. I might not list them, since I have a sale coming up at my house. But if you want one, I’d be happy to sell it from the blog. Heck, I am always happy (and JOYful) to sell anything!!

You can still enter my October drawing by leaving a comment on this post. I’ll annouce the winner on the 1st.

An Ozark weekend at Great Cedar Lodge

Travel

By Karla Nathan / October 28, 2007

We just got home from a beautiful weekend, fun friends, delicious food, and perfect weather in the Ozarks.

It was a great time of year to go, there hasn’t been a frost so all the flowers are still colorful, but the leaves were turning too.

Our cabin was cute as a button.

And the attention to detail there is really outstanding. Everywhere you look, there is something special to see.

I do think that the stuffed heads in our cabin could have used a tiara or some sort of glam. But the resort keeps pretty tight to their theme, it is all rustic and outdoorsy.

See our visitor? A little bird came in for the evening and perched on this deer. We called him Wally.

See what I mean about detail? Check out this decor-

The iron work on this headboard-

Soap dispensers shaped like lanterns-

The stripes painted on the roads are fish shaped instead of plain stripes-

Custom made iron trash and recycling cans by the lake-

Old photographs blown up and framed as artwork hanging in the cabin-

(but I think the grinning little girl and her sis could use fairy wings)

Plus original artwork on the walls too-

Most of the work had a wilderness theme, but I fell for this colorful cottage painting.

We also spent a few hours in Eureka Springs.

Where I bought a sparkly tiara.

And a pair of PINK camouflage pants!

But it is good to be back home in KS with my little dogs. Twinks insists on sitting in my lap here at the computer. I’d better go play with her and tell her I missed her.