Karla's Cottage

Easter Eggs

Ahhhh, Spring!

The Bridal Wreath Spirea is blooming like crazy in front of my house. Sugarwings and I took advantage of it and picked armfuls to bring in the house.

For most of the year, they are not the prettiest of shrubs, but for a few weeks, these bushes are heart stopping.

We are also getting all Eastery around here.

I've been covering paper mache eggs in vintage papers and old flowers.  This paper is over 100 years old and is gold leaf.

This little egg is wrapped in a pearl finish gift wrap, then sugared.

This one really is prettier in person, its wonderfully gaudy with lots of gold trim and tons of flowers over one of my favorite rose pattern wall papers.

I wanted to list it for sale in the Boutique, but  I think I need to get better photos first.

Beth found a big bag full of paper mache eggs at an estate sale and gave them to me, knowing that I'd love covering them.  Some are egg shaped boxes like this one others are just plain eggs.  I've been making some for Birdsong, where I 'll use them for decor and drawing prizes, but a few just shout Easter, so those I'll go ahead and sell now, or as soon as I get better pictures that is.

Some are listed now, if you are interested.

Binding the book

The round robin books are all packed up and sent to Somerset. It will be interesting to see what they will chose to print from these four books full of art. 

My own has a front and back hard cover, taken from a large vintage book and embellished. I wanted a sturdy cover for my own, and also wanted to bind it with rings, so it would be easy to flip through.   I tied a bundle of soft ribbons to the top ring to soften the look.

When I bind a book, I first punch the holes in the top cover.  Next, I line each page up, one by one, with the top cover, and draw a dot of ink onto the page through the punched holes of the cover.

Usually that works pretty well for making all the holes even.

The other artists' books are not bound.  For now, they are simply stacked, bundled in lace and tied with a ribbon.  I just wanted mine finished as an example.

 They would be pretty as wall art too, so leaving them unbound is a good idea.  But I think I'll love flipping through my book when the round robin flies back home to me again!

Packing my saddlebags and I'm off to be a Paper Cowgirl.

I've packed my boxes and my cow gal hat and am on my way to Texas!  I'll have new posts scheduled to pop up while I am away, but all purchases from the Boutique will be mailed on Monday after I get home and settled.

There are some digital images added to the Wire Workshops tutorial. They can be used to print and use if you want to make tags or image backed crystals to dangle from the ribbons on the wreath.  I think I like the wreath better with some cute dangly things on it, so I was making collage sheets for the class in Texas, and thought the online students would like them too.

Kind of like these.

When I return, I plan on having a fresh, green salad made with a mix of baby lettuce.  My son has built a cold frame to grow early greens and they are starting to sprout!

Hatching some ideas

As I promised when I put the Twining andTwirling Wire Workshop up for sale, I've added a bit more to it for Easter.

What's new is a how to on covering and decorating these eggs.

And some simple painting tips for some other ones.

Right now, I'm kind of stuck on the nests, they are so much fun to make!  But I whipped up a dozen eggs or so too. 

While playing with nest ideas, I made up a flock of fairies too, and will add directions and downloadable pictures to use to the site later on, after Paper Cowgirl.  All included in the $20 price for the entire class along with the wire wreath class I am teaching in Texas this week, and the fairy crowns too.

Collage business cards

Recently, we dropped our home phone and switched to only cell service. So far, its worked out great. And since its been cold, and I live in hoodies, I've had a pocket to carry a phone around in.

But with spring coming, and jackets going back to the closet, I hope I don't lose track of the phone. 

Since my phone number changed, I needed to make new business cards.  I reused the collage sheet I'd made before, some are simply updated, some are tweaked, and others are all redone. 

If you are interested in one of my wire wreath kits, in an ephemera covered box, please contact me.

I might have some left after Paper Cowgirls The ones I listed in the Boutique are sold out. 

All come with the online tutoral to make the wreaths, the nests, decorate the eggs, and  create the crowns.

And a fresh new business card too, of course.

Wire Wreath Kits

All of my kits are done and packed up, ready to hit the road next week and take them to Paper Cowgirls.

Before I put all of the supplies away, I made up a couple custom kits, this one is for  my Sissy.  I used the very old, pure silk, French ribbon that Carol Spinski gave to me.

And topped some of my favorite wallpapers with an old advertising card and lots of millinery.

The inside lid is covered with text from a 1940s  book about roses and a Victorian calling card.  Then, the box is filled with all the pretties she needs to make a wreath.

While Sissy's kit is special, I think all of the other kits are too, and I hope the students enjoy them.  Each includes:

• written directions plus an online how to, that includes this wreath as well as a fairy crown, and bird nests, also made of wire
• patterns
• millinery flowers
• 3 gauges of wire
• vintage beads and crystals
• feathers
• bird
• ephemera to cover the bird and make the leaves
• lace for leaves
• ribbons and vintage lace
• shredded paper, moss, and a turquoise egg to make the nest

The wreath in the class I'm teaching is in aqua tones, but I made up some pink kits too, just because I love pink.

No two are just alike, if they had to be, I'd never have made soooo many of them, I get bored.  So, I had  some fun with the decor.  When I get to my (small) class, there will be plenty for the students to chose from.

I have a couple listed in the Boutique right now. Please email me if you would rather have pink, instead of the aqua kit, when you order.

Edit- well, those 5 went fast!  If I have any more left after Paper Cowgirls, I'll let you know.  Please email me if you are interested

Next, it will be time to work on the kits for Birdsong.  I hope to get them done WAY ahead of time. Trouble is, I am still waiting for some elements I ordered for the necklace we'll be doing!  I hate to make up the example necklace till I have all the materials in front of me. Don't you hate taking a class and finding out that the best items in the project have been subsituted for something different?

The event is fast approaching, and if my order doesn't come in, I'll have to try elsewhere for the pieces.  But I do promise to come up with something pretty!

There are a couple of openings left, if you would like to come.

And I promise, there really are FOUR classes, my necklace will be done and ready by the time all of my peeps arrive!

Birdie Bed Banner

Everyday, I am loving our new, plush, lush, cozy bed more and more.  Its hard to pull myself out of it every morning and I find that its pretty nice to lay there, sip my coffee and check emails on my IPad instead of heading over to the cold studio, turning on the heat and reading my emails while waiting for the room to warm up. Especially this week, I've had a kidney infection and that extra laying around time in the morning has been welcome.

As a matter of fact, I stayed tucked in all day on the 29th, and got good and rested up.  At least it was an extra bonus day on the calander so, I don't consider it a real day off.

(years and years ago, from Country Almanac- by the way, the stylist pulled pillows from all over the house to pile into this picture and I never thought they matched)

We've never had a head board that we could actually lean against while sitting up in bed and reading or watching TV before. I've always gone for found objects, cool junk, or vintage iron headboards in the past. 

(before this new bed, I used a mantel as a head board)

Even with a stack of pillows, all of  my previous beds were not good for leaning against.

Our padded head board with soft pillows against it has completely won me over.  But I thought the vast expanse of linen was a little too plain for my taste, no matter how nice it was to lean on.

It kind of reminded me of an inspiration board, so I thought I'd turn it into one.  But I didn't want anything to ruin its comfiness factor.

 I decided to print some vintage pictures onto some soft, old, lawn hankies, and simply pin them up with pearl topped pins.  The linen covered padding is nice and tight, and deep, so the pins went straight down in, and I don't have to worry about them poking into my skull.  That would certainly have taken away most of the comfiness.

I pinned a few soft flowers and some lace up between the pictures to make it look like a banner.

In my stash, I have zillions of old pictures and books, but I wasn't in the mood to sift through it all till I found just the right ones.  So, I made a quick visit to the Graphics Fairy and grabbed a couple of pretty drawings of birds and roses.  I had to do a little bit of editing to get them just as I liked, but not much. This is two pieces that I edited together.  As the kids from Glee would say, its a "mash up" of images.

Beth prints on fabric all the time, I'd never tried it this way. I've used purchased sheets of canvas, but its expensive and I didn't want it stiff like the stuff I've bought before.  She sent me home with the materials I needed and it was every bit as easy as she said it would be. I practiced on a couple of other pieces before I pulled out the vintage, embroidered hankies. 

First, I ironed the hankies, then pressed one onto a full page Avery label, and smoothed it out.  A hankie isn't quite the same shape, so I trimmed the edges really good. My worry was that something would tangle up inside the printer and it would be all screwed up like the bobbin part of my sewing machine is right now.  But that is another project story and one that didn't turn out as nice as this one did.  You don't want to hear about it, and I don't want to think about it.  I'm avoiding that sewing machine, with its giant web of thread.

Anyway, I smoothed the hankie onto the sticky backing of the label, trimmed it up, and slid it through the printer, no problems.

You can't really tell from the photos, but the cloth has some pretty little hand done touches to it.

So far, they seem to stay in place, even with pillows bunched up against them while I'm reading and enjoying my coffee.  I purposely hung them a little tousled and messy, so if they ended up that way it would look natural.

And the whole room feels serene, not busy like previous incarnations of the space.

PS- thanks to all of you who have purchased my Three Wire Workshops!  (nest, crown, and wreath) Its selling well, and I appreciate that. 

 

and another PS- notice the Google Friend Connector is missing from my side bar? Yep, they are no longer working on Typepad blogs as of March 1st. If you want more information on how to follow a blog, Marianne has done some homework and explains it all very well here.

She also has a good tutorial on using Google Reader here

and here.

I have asked Hope, who designed my blog, to add a connect button for all of these various ways to follow a blog for me.  She'll be doing that soon.

Cartons, Kidneys, and Kits

This week, I've been knee deep in ephemera scraps, covering these boxes in bits of old paper, with a flower and bird theme.

After they got foofed, I started filling them up with goodies to make the wire wreath for the class at Paper Cowgirls.   I've not got very far on the kits themselves yet, I came down with a kidney infection and being on my feet was starting to get to me, so after making the boxes, I quit for the day.

When I do kits, I spread everything out and take up a few table tops.  As soon as my antibiotics kick in, I need to get this finished so that I can have use of the room again. Beth is coming over to help me assemble our Round Robin Swap books to mail to Somerset and I need the space.

Really, I'm not that sick. I went to see my Dr. as soon as I started to feel bad.  I'm old enough and wise enough (finally, something good about getting old! Learning from the past) now that I don't wait till I'm so sick I can't get out of bed to go to the doctor, if I feel a twinge of something coming on, I get an appointment that afternoon and start feeling better fast.  In my youth, I would wait and wait, thinking whatever I had would soon get better, but instead I'd just end up more and more sick. 

The boxes started out not really all that bad in the first place, but they were too shiny and new looking for me.  I found them for $1 each, and liked the size and shape, so I bought a whole carton full of them. 20 cute boxes for $20 is not bad. I saw something kind of like them at Tuesday Morning for $8 each. 

Here they are with a coat of tan spray paint misted over them.  I used it to tone down the apple green interior so I wouldn't have to cover it too, and also to soften the bright colors so they wouldn't show through the old paper I was covering them with.

While I was papering them, I started to feel crappy, and thought it was the lingering smell of the spray paint, and didn't realize I was getting a fever and a kidney infection until later.

No two are alike, but that is how things go when you use vintage goodies. And I'd get bored if I had to make a stack of clones, anyway.

Each one is covered in a similar manner, then tied shut with ribbon and a bird cage charm.

My class didn't come close to filling.  But its not in my nature to do just a few of something.... And these boxes were fun to make, so it was hard for me to stop.  After Paper Cowgirls, I'll have some kits left over if anyone is interested. Each will come with the new tutorial that I am doing now too.

It includes the wreath (with supplies in the kit), a nest, and a crown, all made of twisted and twining wires.

 

PS- notice the Google Friend Connector is missing from my side bar? Yep, they are no longer working on Typepad blogs as of March 1st. If you want more information on how to follow a blog, Marianne has done some homework and explains it all very well here.

She also has a good tutorial on using Google Reader here

and here.

I have asked Hope, who designed my blog, to add a connect button for all of these for me.  She'll be doing that soon.

Finishing up my Round Robin Pages

Most of the pages I made for our Round Robin book, are "low color".  But every now and then, I slipped in some floral tones, just because I thought it needed a little something. This page for Beth, is a  tissue pattern paper background, glued down nice and wrinkly, then rubbed with an ink pad.

                    A ruffle of pattern paper was glued across the top, and a swath of lace was added near the bottom of the page.   The B for Beth is drawn in glitter, onto a very old, hand written letter in French.  I centered it inside a post card, with a circle cut out, layered it onto text from an old sewing magazine from the 20s that I'd covered a tag with. 

The ribbons hanging down have glass buttons tied to a couple of their ends.

The theme of the Round Robin was "Her Life in Stitches", and I simply don't sew.  All of my pages are glued, while the other women spent time doing lovely stitch work. I tried to use the theme by incorporating some sort of sewing item on each page. I tended to rely on buttons, lace, and ribbons quite a bit, I'm afraid.

Beth is one of the few people I've known who uses both sides of her brain to the fullest. How many ultra artistic accountants do you know? Her head is quite ambidextrous.

So, I thought I'd show both sides of her in her pages, creative and pretty stuff along with the business side.

This one has an envelope and report cards from a business college and is dated 1918. The background is a great old, gold leaf wallpaper.

There are layers of lace, ruffled ribbon, and a bejeweled hem from an old dress, along with a selection of buttons.

The back is kind of plain. Grey wallpaper, with a strip of the gold leaf paper, some lace and a pretty Victorian card.

Since the books all need to be sent off to Somerset soon, (how exciting!!) I hurried and made a few pages up for each person in the swap. All the pages were done in the same day, so a lot of the ideas and supplies were duplicated, but none were exactly the same.  Everyone got an initial, Sandra's is done in pearls.

Lisa's too.

My own initials went on the inside of the back cover of my book.  Since I'm not a sewer, my book is dedicated to my Mom, who was. Her photo is on both the front and back covers.  Under her picture, I layered a page from a journal that I'd found that was signed, "Martha something Downey".

Mom's name was Martha Downey! Not that common of a name, especially with the "e" in Downey.  I used the bottom of her photo to cover up the incorrect middle name.

Another unifying element in the pages I made the other day, is this jeweled and beaded fabric. I bought a flapper style dress that was encrusted with beads and rhinestone trim for only 12 bucks!  I think everyone who was shopping at the antique mall heard my squeal when I came across that gem.  It was tattered and falling apart, so that took all the guilt out of chopping it to pieces.

For this pocket, I cut around the beading pattern, then glued it to a matching piece of card stock.

Its attached to a background of white, flocked wallpaper.  When I make a pocket, I always run a bead of  glue along the bottom and sides, right at the edges, then slightly bunch it up, before pressing it into place.  The bunching gives it a bit of a pouch effect, so that you can put items into it easier. Its not all that noticeable, just enough to be useful.

To fit the stitches theme, I slipped a dress form tag into the pocket.  The tag is one that I made for my dress form tutorial, the class is about making a miniature dress form to decorate, but I also included patterns for collage too.

Sandra got a similar pocket from the glorious, gemstone encrusted, dazzling dress.

The tag I added to this pocket is a regular shipping tag, spritzed with two shades of Glimmer Mist, then inked around the edges. I glued a high fashion lady cut from a very old magazine onto it, added some ribbons.

Its been such fun to be a part of this swap and have a different book arrive each month in the mail. I'll miss being a part of it.

Other fun stuff has been coming in the mail too.  Laurie Jackson offered to be a Birdsong Two sponsor, not just once,

but twice!

Two boxes full of goodies for my "Peeps" attending our workshop/party in April came from her this week.

Laurie took the time to actually create little gifts for all of the women, plus gave them some vintage goodies to work with, and packaged them up really cute.

But that wasn't the end of it, she also asked the author of this book, that she collaborated on, to send a copy for each lady!  I can't wait to peek into one. I can always use some selling tips. I wonder if one of them, is to get off your behind and get busy and do it, not just talk about filling the shop up?

If you'd like to be a sponsor, please let me know, the ladies will be thrilled to open their gift bags.

Or if you'd like to attend, we have three spaces open. There were only two, but due to an illness, one chick had to leave the nest.

 

Arietty is so Pretty

My friend, Lisa, told me that she was so excited about a movie coming out about the Borrowers, her favorite book from childhood.  I vaguely remembered the book, and took another look at it, she was right, its such a fantastic story. I think it spoke to me more as an adult than it did as a kid.  I'm trying to read it to Sugarwings, but the fact that it is based in England years ago, makes the language a little too difficult for her.

She held up all of her fingers and told me to read it to her again when she was that many. 

But I took her to the movie as soon as it opened and now she rates Arietty right up there with Ariel and Dorothy as her favorite heroines.  And I agree. The movie was so beautifully done, I couldn't get enough of the artwork.  Even Sugarwings, as lost in the story as she was, kept pointing out how pretty everything was and was asking me the names of the painted flowers.

The  next morning after seeing the show, I surprised my fairy grand baby by leaving a pearl topped pin on the breakfast table (after snipping the sharp end off with wire cutters).  Arietty sports a pin she found and tucked into her dress, as a sword, and even uses it to save her Mother's life at one point.

We are now writing a series of notes with little gifts to leave for the Borrowers who live in our own walls and have been making up stories about Sugarwings and Arietty playing with the kitties in our garden.

As a thank you to Lisa for sparking my interest in this story that my little one and I both love so much, I made this page for the Round Robin Swap that we are both in, to add to her book.

I took the ideas from the novel, about the teeny people "borrowing" ordinary things from the human beans in the house and re-purposing them for use in the walls to make a cozy place to live.   The book describes letters hung sideways on the wall to make vertical striped wallpaper, and pictures of the queen (stamps) hung on the wall along with a ladies watch as a clock.

  Arietty's mom adored a picture of the ocean taken from a card, and I came as close as I could by cutting out a picture from an old postcard that featured water.

The dining table is made from a playing card box, the vase is a thimble, and the table cloth is a lace scrap.  On the table is a letter written with a quill pen and Arietty's sword/pin.

Popsicle sticks, rubbed with ink make up the floor.  When it came to seating at the table, i was stumped because I wanted to use spools like in the book, but was also trying to keep the page flat enough to fit in the book, so I drew some spools on card stock, cut them out and wrapped thread around them.

I had some trouble finding just the right stamps, so I asked Beth if she had any I could use.  Here is a sample of her pile of stamps I had to chose from!  I was able to pick out not only the perfect pictures, but I love the colors they were too, I think they compliment the other colors I already had in the page.

The other thing I was lacking was a thimble.  Not a single one, anywhere in my studio.  So, of course, i asked Beth, who has everything.

Not only did she have a selection of regular sized thimbles, she brought out a Monopoly game piece one that is what I ended up using.

While I was in KC visiting Beth, we hit a few estate sales.  I bought this old jewelry box for its faded pink interior.  At the same sale, I found a pile of keys for a good price and bought a bagful.  Beth bought was what left, I hadn't realized she was interested, or I'd have offered to split them.

But while I was looking for stamps at her house, I saw all of these, so didn't feel so bad about not sharing.  I envy her piles of goodies!

It was an okay estate sale day, I've seen better. But we had such a good time, I told her she could take me to the Dollar Store instead and I'd enjoy it just as much.  It was the company that counted.

Besides the keys and box, and a few other little tidbits, I bought at set of vintage cut glass drinking glasses for $12 and this other new stuff for my kitchen.  Sugarwings and Dewdrop will enjoy the little white pitchers at our next tea party. Its time to start showing that littlest fairy how to pour her own cream!

Beth and I worked on bagging up her kits for Paper Cowgirls. I still have mine to do yet. I probably should not have taken the day off to go and play in KC, that was one more thing that was NOT on my list of what I need to be getting done.

But it will all get done somehow. I'm sure of it. Or at least that is what I tell myself...

I'll have some more round robin pages to show you this week. I made quite a few of them this week.  The books are being sent to Somerset, so this week, I'll need to label all the pages and pack them up.  I'll snap a few more photos as I do.