Karla's Cottage

Birdsong Eve

We've gotten the nicest gifts for Birdsong! Hope made these felted nests with sparkling, sugared birds and even included bags of mica flakes for everyone too.

Karen sent this lushly embellished train case for a door prize.

Not only is it made with sweet birdie details, she has also filled it up with "tweets" too. 

In the box were some birdie beverage napkins to use for our weekend, and a big ass bag of candy. Sadly, it came a week before the party, so the bag isn't quite as full as it was when it arrived, and my ass is the big one now.

Terri has sent these ephemera packs, and I spy a bird theme in the packages.

Look at the sweet details she added to the label!  A touch of glitter is an elegant touch.

I've been whipping up more samples for my class, because these three were shipped off to Jewelry Affaire.  I was very pleased to share our Birdsong weekend project with Somerset.When the magazine comes out in October, it will be fun to reminisce while looking at the photos. 

Our party starts soon, I'm all tingly just thinking about it.  This year, I've promised myself to be done and ready plenty early.  I want to relax and enjoy my family and friend's visits. We are doing a dinner party on Thursday night and calling it "Birdsong Eve".  There are 26 of us meeting at a restaurant downtown to kick off the weekend. 

I'll be preposting to my blog, but will not be checking emails much, so please forgive me for not answering comments.  I'll be back next week with pictures of our gathering.

Projects from An Enchanted Affaire

My friend, Lesa Daily, makes the cutest birds!  Her class at Enchanted was something I'd been anxiously awaiting, and it was every bit as wonderful as I'd known it would be.

Don't her little birdies just peep with personality?  These are some from her vendor night table.  I fell hard for that first one, it's a beauty.

Lesa's kits were cute as a bug too.  The rose is a brooch made from coffee filters and I've enjoyed wearing it on my white denim jacket for a pop of spring color.

Her class was a birdy crown, but I made mine in two pieces. I wanted the crown to be out at the holidays, but the blue bird was to be year round. 

There he is on my shoulder.  Isn't there a song about that?? Zippity Do Dah Zippity Yay... somehow that is not quite right.  But I'll be humming it all day anyway.

I could get hooked on making these lil guys.

Mine is foofed up with lots of tulle that I'd brought along.  And a wreath of flowers on it's neck.

My pal, Natalie had a fun class too. Her pendant was one of my inspirations for the Birdsong necklace we will be making.  Hers is the one in the instructions, mine is the one lying on top.

And here is how I'm doing our Birdsong piece.

And oh my, this was a fun class too!  Julie Nutting
  had us painting a background then crafting a paper doll from strips of torn paper. I used my own wallpaper and changed it up a bit by adding a mirror behind our Snow White.

Mine lost some of the whimsical charm of the original when I painted a face on her.  But I still like it.  And had a blast during the class. All three classes were delightful! (that is my new favorite word, Sugarwings and I have been using it nonstop).

 

Carol Spinski was the photographer for the event and she provided us with hundreds of free photos to download!  I snagged a few of my faves and will share a few with here.

The rest of these photos are all done by Carol.

A Book of Enchantments

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

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

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

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

And tables full of new people to get to know. 

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

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

Good idea!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some completed covers by the students.

Here is another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gloating in my Early Birdness

Well, I still don't have the piles of extra wallpaper photographed and listed for sale in my Boutique. But the KITS ARE DONE!!!

  As I was cutting up hundreds upon hundreds of pages, I thought it was going to seriously deplete my supply.  But, I think I'm safe there... (I have two more storage places for papers too)

The fairy tale books that I have been buying went up on top of the Treat Cabinet for storage.  I like having them separate from my other hoarded piles of old books, so that I don't accidentally use the pages for wrapping paper.   These are special! 

My poor, poor studio, still has not recovered from kit making for an Enchanted Affaire.  But look! The kits are DONE.  Two giant boxes are filled up and ready to mail when the time comes. What a nice feeling to have it all packed up a month early.

Well, mostly all of it.  I still have to box up examples, extras, etc to take along.  I'll probably add those to  my suitcase.  These boxes are heavy...  what makes me decide to make such elaborate, complicated, heavy kits to ship all the way across the country??? I tend to get carried away by what would be exciting to do, not by what is practical to do.

The kits are wrapped in papers and ribbons that can be used when creating the project. And what is fun about these packets of goodies, is that no two are just alike. It would be impossible for two people to make the same book.  And they are chock full of The Good Stuff. Yummy!

Fairy Cup Cakes

My trip to Florida to see Guncle Randy and do a mini class is also a surprise birthday party.  I'm writing this ahead of time, so I'm not mentioning details about who will be at the party.

Since the class is about fairies, and it was a party, I decided to make fairy cupcakes.

A kind swapper, Wendy, who was in my Fairy Book Swap, had given me a cupcake she made as a hostess gift and I've always admired it.

I hope that she doesn't mind me making some myself.  These were done with Styrofoam balls in cupcake papers. Hers are a bit different.

I made a special, little boy sprite for Guncle Randy.

And an extra large serving of cup cake for the birthday girl.

When I get all unpacked and settled back in at home, I'll have some photos of the weekend for you.

Fluttery Florida Fairies

For the little class I am doing in Florida while hanging out with Guncle Randy, I'm packing plenty of pixie making materials.

Some will be free standing, others will perch in cages. 

Instead of making up kits for each person, I decided to bring piles of supplies for everyone to chose from.  They will make a cage/cloche thingy, then pick a fairy to add to it.

Everyone can make multilple fairies, which should be nice.  Fairies probably don't like to be all alone.

Sugarwings says that they won't stay in the cages any way, the holes are too big and the little guys can crawl right out.

I hope everyone enjoys all the goodies I'm bringing to play with!! I know I am looking forward to delving in and making some more myself.

Caged Fairies

While I am in Florida, I'll be doing a mini class with friends.  Details later, I don't want to ruin the surprise.

The wire cage/cloche thingy has been in development and I think I've mastered a simple way to build them, that will be fun to share. 

These little round frames were at Michaels in the Dollar Bins. But have you noticed that some of those bins are now $2 or $3, not just a dollar any more? Still, for $2 each, these were a good deal.

A couple were kept as is, in the bright color they were purchased. The rest were sprayed with Zinsser Bullseye Primer, then washed with color.

Which is much more my style than the bright plastic look.

But I kind of liked the original style too. All I did with this one was add text from an old school book.

There is only so much time in the day, so I try to make the most of it!

There is not much new around here, I'm still wading through piles of Snow White books and items to stuff into the kits.

See what I mean?  Every table in the studio is heaped up with carefully sorted (even though it doesn't look like it) goodies to do with the kits.  I even set up two extra tables, and also filled tubs. 

But hey, there is HOPE! Look at the stack of wrapped kits on the far table, in front of the window. Yep, the packaging is almost done.  The rest of the room is just littered with the detritis of making the kits.

Those stacks of cut wallpaper on the table?  Some of those are sorted into piles, ready to photograph and add to the shop.  My son and I got just a tad carried away on those chopping and ironing days we had.

But the truth about why nothing else is happening around here, is that I am soooo hooked on the books themselves.   I've made up four examples for the class, including one that I'm am keeping for myself and personalizing with family fairy tale photos.

On this page, I've taken a page from one of the children's story books, and cut Black Beauty from it, with another page behind the horse as I cut it out so that I ended up with a second animal shape.  (it was an accident, but one that I am glad that I did!)   I added a unicorn horn to each, flipped one over, layered them on the paper, and tinted them with glitter markers.

Dewdrop adores "honies" above all things.  She is a "My Little Pony" addict, and calls them honies.   So, this page is for her.

There are other things I could be doing, but this is more fun.  Plus, I thought the students  might appreciate having samples in different stages to look through.  This one will be almost complete, but I am saving space in it to add pictures from the event itself.

There has also been some Birdsong3 behind the scenes details to tend to.  It's funny how much time such things take up, even when the event in months away.  Oh, but how worth it! I'm really excited to know that I have both of these fun weekends to look forward to.

Hopefully, once I get all of these kits boxed and ready to mail, I can concentrate on making Birdsong projects and kits.  And selling that pile of wallpaper. And doing my taxes (Beth offered to help!! Yay, there is nothing better than having an accountant buddy at tax time. And all I have to do for her is redo her antique mall booth.  Heck, that is a pleasure to do, not a hair pulling, tear inducing, fork in the eye, task like tax prep).

There are also extra kits from last year's Birdsong that I forgot about. And need to add to the Boutique. I'd planned on listing them last year and haven't yet. I also found a stack of surplus Fairy Book covers that I'd planned to sell too. 

But there is only so much time in the day.  You know what I have noticed?  I can keep going full tilt and workiing my backside off (not really, it actually seems to grow, not diminish) and never really get ahead.  Because there is always more to do, and only so much time in a day.

I've noticed that my income seems to level out, no matter what I am working on, because nothing is "extra", it ends up taking the place of something else.  So, if I do shows, I am ignoring my shop.  If I concentrate on the shops, I am not having time to make things.  And on and on.

You just can't do it all. At least not at the same time. But that is what is such fun about my so called job.

I can switch it up, go from classes, events, creating, selling, shows, one to the next.  It certainly never gets boring!  When I focus on one area, it does very well, especially the Boutique. But my life would be very dull if all I did was photograph and list and ship every day.  So, I'm glad I can stretch out and try different venues and take breaks from the online shop.  It's still there, still selling, but not as much when I'm not adding to it reguarly.

Yes, changing my focus might not be getting me ahead financially, but it sure keeps me hopping and happy!

 

The Love keeps going after Valentines Day!

My Valentine Journal is still under construction. What is fun about these books, is that you can just keep adding and layering as much as you'd like. 

When the postman delivered some beyond beautiful mail to me, I saw that all the cards that came were  perfect additions to my book.

This heart shaped collage was from my pal, Lori.  It's meant to hang, and I had it hanging up till the holiday was over, then I decided to glue it into my journal as a pocket.  The slight over hang to the side is nice, because she has used pretty papers on the back of the heart too and I'm glad that they peek out.

I've always admired Lori's work and am excited to have a special example of it in my Book of Love.  

What's in the pocket?  Love notes from Sugarwings.  She wanted her artwork included in the book too, so she made some hearts and notes for me to slip into pockets and envelopes.

Guncle Randy made this card for me. He is a thoughtful guy who whips up cards for every occasion to send to everyone he loves.   That, plus working 60-70 hours a week as an award winning, top salesman for his employer. And taking care of his family of 4 pooches, cultivating a floral fairy garden, and making gourmet dinners with his husband, Guncle Kevin. 

He is a guy who seems to be able to do it all.  And who always thinks`` of surprising others with special treats in the little spare time he has. Which makes the cards he sends even more special.

Hope sent me a card from her company, Paper Relics, and after gluing it onto a page, I added the words:

Hope

Love

Faith

All three of these sweet cards came from friends who I don't see nearly often enough, and that I enjoy so much when I do.  My Valentine Journal started out as a love note to my husband, but as I worked on it, the pages became filled with family and friends.  And puppies. Even a chicken.  There is just toooo much love out there to limit the pages. 

Its good to know that there is room for the book to grow too.  When I think its done and full, there is still space for more heartfelt sentiments, the more I layer and add, the better it looks and the more meaningful it becomes.

ps- if you are into journalling and are sometimes stumped for the ideal quote to add to your pages, Hope has an app for that now!! I purchased it and it's a fun one. 

Vintage Fairy Tales

Right now, my world is filled with up with fairy tales! Yep, I'm getting kits made for the April shindig that Kim is throwing. (she has had a cancellation and has TWO spots open if you'd like to join us there!!)

My project is a journal, called the Book of Enchantments.   I decided to do a journalling page for it.  Here is a snippet. It's  a drawing, with the words and doodles, over a page from a 1940s Snow White book.  I'm copying it before adding the markers and inks, so the guests can either glue it into their books and tint it as they wish, or they can use it for ideas to create their own doodles.

I've colored in about 6 or 7 so far, its kind of addicting. I sent one to Beth too, and she said that coloring books for adults would be fun to have. I agree, its soothing to do.

For the last few months, I've been collecting old, old, fairy tale books to use for this class. I've been lucky to find lots of Snow White and Rose Red in them, so that each student will get originals from those stories.  I'm also including other fairy tale and princess pages in the kits.  Everyone will get an assortment along with the old wallpaper, lace, ribbon, and trims.

So far, I've torn out and stacked up hundreds of pages.  As I go through the books, I'm setting aside the Cinderella pages, since there are so many. I'd like to do some thing special with those later on. (a class, a swap book with kits, not sure what, but something lovely and princessy)

I've also saved all of the Jorenda and Joringle stories.  My sister named her youngest daughter JoRenda, after this tale.  I thought I'd save those pages for a family craft project next time I get together with my sisses.

Okay, back to work.  Or maybe to do some more coloring....