Karla's Cottage

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.

A very special surprise

What a great trip I just had.  Even with a bad cold that got worse daily (I hope I wasn't sprinkling germs on everyone like fairy dust every place I went) and a trip delayed by weather that left me stranded one night.

The utterly delightful, Karen Hillman, wanted to do something extra nice for her pal, Judy, to celebrate her 50th birthday.  So she arranged a surprise arty party for her at the Cozy Cottage in Mt. Dora.

The place is a real life doll house!

It's full of air, and light, and joy, all designed by Karen.

All whites and pastels and filled with embellished sweetness.

It looked like Judy was certainly surprised by Karen's gift.  What a hard secret to keep for the months she and Judy's family had been planning this.

We were all touched to see how happy Judy was.

Not only did I get to make some new friends and have a lovely day at the cutest home on the planet, I got to visit my Great Aunt Caroline's former hometown, that had lots of special memories for me, and I was able to spend an entire weekend with Guncle Randy, and go to his home in Jacksonville before flying home.

Karen was kind to include my baby bro in the festivities. I knew he would hit it off with the ladies and fit right in for the classes. He's a lot of fun.

I'll have more pics of the class and the rest of the trip coming up.  Every where I turned was one photo op after another. Beautiful backgrounds and smiling faces galore!

Mt. Dora is a town that I used to visit with my sisters to go see our Great Aunt Caroline. So everywhere I looked, something reminded me of them.  And even the birthday cake was topped by the same fairy image that Sissy used for our Fairy Book Swap

Craft day with Carol Spinski, Debbie Dusenberry, and Amy Barickman, woo hoo!

Last Tuesday, Amy, Carol, and Debbie came over for a craft day and lunch.  It was a fun day of catching up, creating, and chatting.

  Amy's friend, Cindy, came by for a while, it was nice to meet a local Lawrence lady who was a big shot blogger (Skip to my Lou). I  had no idea. Wow, 2,000,000 hits a month?? Not only was she a big time blogger, she was sweet as can be, which is appropriate since she has a store called Sweet.

 

In the kitchen, my dining table was set with a drop cloth cover, white mismatched linens, cream plates, and white salad plates with tiny rosebuds. I added matt white pottery vases with bright roses (on Mondays, my local Kroger marks leftover flowers down to $1.99 so I snaf up armloads, then feel greedy and put back all but two to take up.  Happens every time.  I see the sale price and start grabbing, then stop myself).

The look of the room inspired me to get out some Valentiney themed and colored papers to add to the all neutral books we were making.  I loved the look so much, in the room and in the book I made that I thought it would be fun to have a workshop to create Valentine journals. The details are in the previous post and I'll have some photos coming up in a couple days with  more info.

Knowing that Carol and Debbie were both fans of "low color" style,I'd set out a studio table full of neutral ephemera so that we could sift through and pull together pages that we wanted to use in our books.

I'll be providing similar for the books we will make in class. As a matter of fact, I probably won't be putting these away, I'll leave the piles out for us to work with.

At a flea mkt last fall, I scored an 1800s receipt book stuffed with fantastic writing and logos.  We all used pages of it in our books that day.

Of course, an afternoon with these three ladies is pretty durn inspiring in and you know that they can put together something scrumptious no matter what supplies they have on hand!

I had some ticking stuck away and pulled it out knowing that Debbie would use it in an interesting way, and she did, fraying the edges of strips to make ribbon, and lining some pages. She generously left the book here to use for ideas during the workshop.

Amy's book is a sweet pink tone.

And she generously left some of her books behind too. These are copies of two of her latest books and she gave them to me to offer as giveaways.

Vintage Notions and Fabric Flowers.

While I am away in Hawaii, I'll have some fresh posts done up ahead of time for you, so please come back.  Leave a comment on any post between January 14 and 28th for a chance to win one of two books.

The third will be given away during my workshop on Saturday, Feb. 2nd to an attendee. 

 

Holiday parties galore!

We had a big weekend, with lots of holiday fun.  Friday night, our Hippy Chick and the two little grand fairies went with us to dinner and to see "Rise of the Guardians".  Dewdrop loved it, because the "night mares" that the Boogey Man created were horses.  She is a huge pony fan, and yelled out "go Honies!!" every time she saw one of these spooky creatures in the movie. To her, they were the heros.

Afterwards, we drove around to look at Christmas lights. One home here in Lawrence had an elaborate display set to music, complete with a video of a life size Santa eating milk and cookies in the upstairs window.  At first, we thought they actually had  Santa up there, it was realistic as can be.  Then, the video started to loop and we started to clue in on what was going on.  All of a sudden, the size of the picture changed and his whole head filled the window, that part was a bit creepy and unexpected.

Then, on Saturday, we had a holiday pitch in dinner and craft party. And on Sunday, we had breakfast with Santa at one of the clubs my husband works at.

For the craft party, a friend had a bagful of clear glass balls she wanted to use up and we were challenged to find ways to create with them. So, I experimented with a few ideas, and filled a couple of tabletops with supplies for everyone to play with.

Some became snowmen, some had fairies or family member's photos inside.

I also had boxes that everyone could decorate and either top with a snowman head, or leave as is. 

Another friend brought clothespins for the kids to make into toy soldiers.

Here is a snowman that Addie made.

Everyone's projects turned out quite different, which is one of the fun things about these kinds of parties.

Dinner was great too, pitch ins are my favorite. Every time I look into a pot or bowl someone else brought, it's like a little surprise party for my tummy. I love food that I didn't fix myself!

My studio didn't get much in the way of decor for the holidays this year.  I set out some of the things that I'd made for sale, which is an excellent way to decorate, because hopefully, when the season is over, the stuff is gone and there is nothing to put away.

Well, that is if things go as planned. But, these wings will still be in vogue for Valentine's Day, so I'm not worried if I have a couple left.

Our weather is once again freakishly un-winterlike this year.  So after making their projects, most of the kids played outside. Sugarwings soon turned her princess gown into something that looked like it had been dipped in Hershey's syrup, she had so much wet, gooey mud on herself. 

After she and her little friend got cleaned up, we settled them in front of Frosty the Snowman on TV and gave them some hot chocolate to warm themselves up. It might have been warm outside for winter, but not really warm enough to play in the water and mud.

The husbands watched the KU game and played pool, we made things in the studio, and kids divided up their evening by crafting and playing outdoors.  I think they even explored the Fairy Berry Trail in the dark.

Yep, it was a good weekend!  I even managed to get about 75% of my Christmas shopping done.

But please, don't mention wrapping. ugh.

 

I will be away from my computer till Sat. the 22nd.  Sorry, I can't get new orders from the Boutique or Etsy out in time for Christmas.  Next shipping date is Dec. 27th.  Wishing the happiest of holidays to you!!

Happiest Halloween

We had a Halloween party that kind of morphed into a multi-layered event.

At first it was going to be just our Gypsy and I making some masks.

But for  most holidays, I try to have a kid's craft day with my friends, so I decided to invite all of them too.

And we decided that maybe it would be fun to have a bonfire also, and invite husbands to hang out there while we made things. 

We figured that while we were all together that we should do a pitch in dinner and make a whole evening of it.

Complete with a late night, impromptu tea party in the gazebo with the little girls.

And of course, some puppy cuddling too!

So, I picked up a bunch of supplies for the kiddos.

And found these paper mache masks at Target for only $2 each.

Michaels had these wooden ones for $1.

After dinner, we worked out in the studio off and on between visits to the bonfire for s'mores, or having a game of flash light tag.

I'm always impressed at how hard the kids work when we have these craft parties.

There is a wide range of creativity, and you never know what they will come up with.

There were mini pumpkins for the kids to decorate too. The younger the kid, the more projects you need to have. Older kids and adults can spend all evening on one thing, but the more petite artists like to move from one piece to the next pretty quickly.

We had perfect weather for the night.  Wow, what luck!  It was nice enough to dine outside, but just chilly enough to enjoy the bonfire too.

And while I preach anti orange and purple for the holiday, its still fun to have some more obvious decor for the kids.

  I had plenty of traditional colors in the ribbons and stickers too.  As a matter of fact, I had more than enough, so I bagged up leftover stickers and took them to Sugarwing's kindergarten class to use.

I think the little ones had a good time.

I know I did!

 

I am finishing up my pages, Twinkle is finishing up her pups

This Faery Book Swap page is a done in a similar way to my other pages: slap down a vintage paper back ground, find a pretty lady or girl in my ephemera drawer, glue on some wings from the 1950s bug book that I got at a garage sale, sprinkle on some glitter, trim and done.

Well, basically at least.  All are different in that I used a variety of ladies or girls, papers and trims, but it boils down to all being the same sort of process. Each is unique, but I didn't use any ground breakingly creative skills in assembling them, as you might have noticed as I gave some "how to's" on most of the pages I made.

This one has some hand drawn vines around the wallpaper centerpiece.  And I used a sheer fabric, layered between the main decor and the background.

After finding my stride and figuring out shortcuts to make pages, I went a bit bannanas and made quite a few. I like to have extras for the swap, but if I don't need them, I'll be making up a seperate book for the Boutique.

I've also got some extra covers, so will make up some kits to sell too. In case you didn't get in the swap but would like to create your own fairy book.

The back is a pretty page from one of my old children's books, and a touch of lace at the bottom. But ooooh! what lace!  Its butterflies!

I used quite a bit of this trimming out the covers too.

Each cover was basically the same design and style too, but all were done with slightly different supplies. When you use vintage materials, you get unique results. My wings are all petals or leaves from old millinery blooms, and the wallpaper is matched up to my wing materials.   So are the ribbons and the little flower that I added to either her bodice or hair.

You can tell from this glimpse, that I used lots of different laces to trim the bottoms too.

I am so excited to be getting closer to assembly time!   There will be two more posts upcoming with photos of the rest of my pages.

If you are curious about how I pull together a big swap, here is a post from the last one I hosted.

This pic of Twinkle about to pop on Aug. 12th, before the puppies are even due.  Believe it or not, she is much bigger now, every day she seems to balloon up even more, and I feel so bad for her. Its hard to figure the due date, because she was over at her boy toy's house for ten days and I hear that they enjoyed every minute of the time together. 

The vet says to figure 63 days from the mid point of their romantic interlude. But if I calculate from the first weekend, the due date is now.

I think she might have the pups today, and its Sugarwing's birthday, wouldn't that be perfect?!  Her temperature has dropped to 98.5, she seems to be trying to nest under the deck, so we can't let her go out in the yard alone. I've barricaded the doggie door so she doesn't sneak out.  She barely fits through it anyway.  I might have to grease her belly if she continues to try to get in and out that little door.

Today Sugarwings is six years old. Tomorrow she goes to kindergarten.

For her birthday, I painted her new loft bed.  She helped me, its a razzelberry color, with glitter.   The ladder that goes up to the mattress is 5 steps, so I numbered them and did one fairy, two worms, 3 lady bugs, 4 butterflies, and 5 flowers on the coordinating rungs.

Sorry the photos suck, they were taken on my phone in a dark garage.

We've had a terrific birthday week, starting with her Mommie's party on Sunday, zoo on Monday, cupcake baking and decorating Wednesday, and a BBQ tonight.  We had thought about a water park visit today, but haven't mentioned it to her. I'm glad we didn't, the weather doesn't look great, and I want to stay near the expectant momma.

What's on the menu for the BBQ?  All of the birthday girl's favorites, of course!  Salmon, french fries, watermelon, chocolate milk, corn on the cob, and  spinach. Then, home made cupcakes mixed up by Dewdrop and Sugarwings. 

I'll let you know if we have a few extra guests for dinner.  I'm hoping to see six little tiny pups coming to the 6th birthday party!

Romantic Gothic Ghosts Workshop at Karla's Studio

Beth and I are planning some classes at my studio, a one day event, a bit more casual than Birdsong was.  She'll teach in the morning while I get lunch ready, then its my turn to have an afternoon class.  Both  will be very much in tune with the online Romantic Gothic Ghost online projects we did a couple of years ago.

That online class is still available for $25 or you can get it free when you come to our classes at my home.

Projects for the day are still to be announced, we are in the midst of prototypes. I can promise that they are going to be moody and romantic, a lovely piece to decorate your home with for Halloween, with no garish purple or orange to be seen.

Lunch, complete kits full of vintage goodness, dessert, and drinks will be included, as well as the bonus online class. And we'll schedule some time for coffee and muffins before the work day begins so everyone can get acquainted.

Saturday Oct. 6, 2012 from 9am-6pm

Cost is $100

Email me if you'd like to pay by check, or click here, and scroll to the bottom of the post to get to the pay pal button.

Classes at my home are very casual, tee shirt and jeans type things, not dressy at all. But feel free to be a little witchy for Halloween if you'd like. My Sissy is coming and she will be all witchied-up. I might be too.

Also, I've got to warn you, that we will be surrounded by werewolves. 1-2 lb ones, though, so not as dangerous as most.  Twinkle's puppies will be at the age where they will be scampering about underfoot all day.   Feel free to snuggle one on your lap while you work if it looks like its getting tired. Sometimes little werewolf cubs need more rest than they think, and should be encouraged to nap.

But only if you are strong willed enough to ignore the tempting price tags tied around their necks.  Yep, puppies will be for sale.....

It did my heart good to have some Birdsong friends sign up as soon as I announced this on Facebook Tuesday!!  It matters a lot to me that people who have been here before are looking forward to coming back.

This class will have limited seating, and will one day only.  If you are coming in town for it, its a great weekend to be in the KC area.  The Old West Bottoms area of Kansas City is opened up with tons of once a month junk and antique stores, and the Renfest is going on too. I LOVE both.  (Our class is on a Saturday, and I plan on being at Bottoms Up on Friday, and the Renfest on Sunday myself.) more info about both can be found here 
All food served will be homemade, with fresh ingredients.  I usually cook pretty healthy and low fat, but I make up for the calorie savings with some decadent desserts. 

Beth and I  would love to see you there.  Hope we do!

Happy Birthday to Beth

We got back from our trip just in time for me to celebrate Beth's birthday with her. 

She is notoriously hard to shop for, because she is the world's best shopper.  If she wants it, she'll find it.

So, I prettied a box up with vintage wallpapers, made her a necklace, and filled the box with tibbits I thought she'd enjoy working with.  Because its always fun to get new arty supplies!

I asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate and she said she was going to her regular, twice a month auction. Years ago, I used to go with her to this auction, but since I closed my antique mall booth, it became too dangerous for me to attend.   I have a history of always buying the heaviest thing in the whole place every time I go, and since I no longer drive a van, or have a booth to put big heavy pieces into, I just don't need to buy that kind of junk.  Even though I can't seem to stop myself.

This time, I proudly constrained my urges to buy big things, and just picked up a few smalls that I didn't need.

It helped that the auction goods that were offered that night kind of sucked.

Big time.

The auctioneer even seemed bored with the offerings and started playing games with it all, like seeing how high he could stack them.

This is a stack I couldn't resist, even though it wasn't very heavy. I paid $17 for all of these Oz books.  And I bought a flat of Oz dolls for Sugarwings. Beth mentioned that it wasn't complete, there was no Dorothy. But I assured her that we might have a couple around here to fill out the set.  Lil Sugarwings is a bit of a Dorothy fan.

While the goods for sale weren't all that good, the company was, and we laughed and chatted all night.  I packed a birthday picnic to feast on and pretty paper plates and napkins to serve it on.  It ended up being such fun, I was wishing I had a birthday coming up to spend there. 

Its good to be home, and I have plenty of vaca photos to show.  But for now, here is what greeted me when I returned, our new cat.  She was a stray that decided to adopt us, and Sugarwings has named her Sweet Sweet Sweety.   (that name is said really fast with some jumping up and down, each time it is said)

She is a pretty cat.  Or he is a handsome cat, I'm not sure yet which.

Twinkle is not around right now, she has gone to see her boyfreind for a week or so.  Looks like our vacation ended just in time to get her over to see him, so we'll be having some puppies in August!  Maybe about on Sugarwing's birthday, August 16th. 

Happy Birthday to my handsome husband

For my husband's birthday, I had some help whipping up homemade blueberry pies.

It was pretty exciting. But anytime Sugarwings does some baking, its a joy-fest.

I tried something a little different with the pies. We filled a shell with fresh berries, then topped it with a mixture of butter, organic brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour.  We drizzled a little water over it, added a heart cut out of pie dough, and baked it. The berries' juices mixed with the topping as it melted into the pie, and it was really yummy. It left a slight, crispy top, but not the same as a crumble, because I used very little flour in it.

Along with the pies, I made fried chicken,(catfish for the vegetarians too) mashed potatoes, gravy, corn (fresh from the cob) green beans, coleslaw and rolls.  Plus a strawberry cheesecake. 

whew. 

4 and a half hours in the kitchen, I made it all the old fashioned way, like my grandma and mom used to.  What a lot of work. How on earth did they cook like that on a regular bsis???

It was a good party, and the kids gave Pop Pop a book to read to his littlest grand fairy, plus he got plenty of hugs and cuddles, so he had a happy birthday.

They made him some flower pots, and he got a mint plant and lime tree to grow his own garnishes for cocktail hour. 

He's one hot grandpa, isn't he? 

ps- you can still enter the drawing to win this collage by leaving a comment

Special friends and a special day

Before I left for my North Carolina adventure, I had a little party for some special friends.  Kecia, who I met at Tiffanys in CA is on quite an adventure herself.  A two month plus trek across the country, hop scotching from one friend, family member, junk shop, to another. She stopped to see me here at the cottage on her way across I70.

And my beautiful friend, Angie, was having a birthday.  Two reasons to celebrate!

You know me, it doesn't take much to convince me its time for a party.  I love any excuse to set the table and invite friends over.

And with two special occasions, I was raring to go. 

I stole my buddy, Carol's tip about using vintage wallpaper as a table runner. And I just happened to have a few rolls to choose from...

Angie had another very important celebration, she is a first time grammie as of a few days ago! So, I broke out the extra special, hoarded, fairytale  wall paper from the 20s and made a frame for her to put a baby picture in.

Instead of just having a dinner party, I invited everyone to come for the afternoon and have craft day too, and friends dropped by here and there for whatever time they could make it.  Some just for craft day, some just for dinner. 

My favorite way to spend a day. Good friends, good conversation and stuff to make!!

I'm still hooked on slopping modelling paste on my collages. So, I made some books with covers all textured up. (this one is in the Boutique)

On this one, I collaged the back too, but instead of texture, I dry brushed paint over the collage, then inked it a bit.

This book needs a slight re-do. I've filled it with pages and pages of old papers, and they are too delicate to turn with ribbon ties. I have to add some rings instead.

Here is the back of this one.

IIt will be a while before I burn out on this technique, I'm super into smooshing the modelling paste around over pretty papers!

Dew Drop's mommy, our Gypsy, made a journal this way too, Beth worked on some stiitching, the other Karla was doing needlepoint, Shanna had some painting to do in an enamelling project, and Angie was foofing up vintage bottles with messages and trinkets. 

The great thing about craft day, is that everyone works at their own pace on whatever they feel like, and the conversation flows here, there, and everywhere.

Kecia arrived later in the day, and said she had not had a chance to create while on her trip, so I set her up with supplies to make a book too.  I love the layers she put on her cover.

After dinner, when the other guests had gone, she and I went back out to the studio and worked till after midnight finishing our books.

Twinkle bonded with her, and we will both miss her, the visit was much too short!