Karla's Cottage

The Plaza Lights- from a very special viewing point

Our pal, Angie lives in an apartment overlooking the KC Plaza with a glorious view of the holiday lights.

The view inside is pretty dang great too. Angie arranged a delectable feast of loveliness for us after a day out together, lunching, shopping, and laughing. 

The city looked magical from her window.

It was a day filled with pretty things.  

And fun photo ops.

With some silliness thrown in.

I wore my favorite, new Santa shirt (AGAIN, it seems to be my uniform for December along with my decade old, red velvet coat), and found a set of placemats to match it.  But since they cost more than the shirt did, I didn't buy them.  Actually, besides lunch, and a bag of old fashioned, hard candies, I didn't do much purchasing. Just browsing and enjoying the over the top, holiday displays the stores had out.

We went to the Kaufman center to see the trees and flowers, which are a major mood enhancer this time of year.  When the Kansas landscapes are grey, brown, dreary, and dead, it is heartening to see flowers in bloom. I bent over and got some deep whiffs from the pots of white stock and the sweetness of the blooming plants really made me happy inside.

I'm rarely a red or green person, and don't decorate my home in these colors for the season, but I do love pops of these festive shades in jewelry or clothing in December.  So, I made myself some silver earrings with red and green semi-precious gemstones. While I was at it, I made enough to pass out to friends too, and took some to lunch that day for Beth, Karla, and Angie to choose from.

In the past, I've painted ornaments as little gifties for friends, and it was nice to see that Angie has some of them on her sparkling tree.

Her home is perfectly coordinated, and she has such a gentle touch with decorating, it is always an honor to see something I'd made in her home.

She crafted gift bags filled with everything we'd need for a winter's night of relaxation at home. (Wine, chocolate, and a good book!) and topped the package with this sweet collaged image. 

It was a special day, ending with an even more special evening. I'm blessed to  have good friends who could take a day off to simply enjoy the season with me. 

 

 

An ugly little tree gets a makeover

Beyond ugly, huh?  I saw this at the flea market and couldn't  walk away, because under the hideousness, there was good stuff lurking. 

First of all, this is big time, VINTAGE.

Second, lookie at the OLD tinsel!! I love that stuff and it is becoming hard to find some this ancient to work with.  

And of course, tiny, shiny brites cannot ever be ignored, right????

Yep, I bought and stripped the monstrosity.  It was only $15, and in my guesstimate, there was that much on it in pretty bits to reuse.

Not to mention the faded, old tree itself.  It is so old, the branches have become a taupe color, which you can see through to the original dark green here and there.

The tree itself is such a cutie, that I kept the decor on it simple.  I plopped it into a white McCoy pot, and left the star on the top as is, then draped it in vintage pearl necklaces. A glass bird is clipped to a branch to coordinate with the flock of feathered birdies I've added to the mantle where the tree is sitting.

In the last couple of years, I've covered the paintings that hang over the mantle because they were too springlike for Christmas. This year, I left them up and incorporated the bird and roses of the artwork as a theme in the garland draped below.

 Because I was too lazy to go to the effort of getting out a tall ladder and tacking up the burlap over the paintings.  Because I wanted a new look.  

Here  is how the room looks with the burlap and wings up.

The pink mercury glass beads look nice with the pink roses in the paintings. And I'm always happy to have some birdies flitting about.

A better photo of the mantel itself would have been a good idea, huh? You can see the fireplace in the background of this kitchen picture, though.

Kinda.

 

 

 

The King and Queen of Hearts

My sister, Bobbie Sue just celebrated her 50th anniversary with her husband and their darling daughters threw them a party, that truly surprised them.

Their last name is Valentine, and my silly sis LOVES goofy photo ops. So, I painted these cut outs for them to pose in as the King and Queen of Hearts.

Other party-ers had some fun with them too.

After measuring my largest suitcase, I cut plastic, corrugated poster board to fit the bag and primed them before painting the royalty with holes cut out for faces.  Then, I flipped them over and painted the other side for double the fun.

The fairy and gypsy were done with lots of glitter and metallic paints for a sparkly effect.

The entire evening was a sparkling night of fun!  My nieces rented a limo to pick their folks up at their farmhouse, and we all piled in for the ride "out to dinner".  But instead of dinner, we went to greet the room full of family and friends ready to jump up and yell, "SURPRISE!!!"

It was all pretty cute, and the kids pulled it off with an amazing skill of twisting the truth around so no one guessed what was coming.

Personally, I was quite impressed with my own ability to spin tales.  I possess a super power that until now, has lain dormant.  Wow, I am a very, very good liar!!!!!  I even had them pull up the online menu of the restaurant we were pretending to go to.  And faked plans to visit old friends so I could sneak out and deliver the painted photo op boards.

The twisted untruth about meeting up with old friends, ended up turning around and becoming the real truth, and I got to visit some high school buddies I hadn't seen in years.  That was the icing on the cake for this wonderful, but too quick trip to Indiana.

Well, not all  of the icing.  There was some delectable cake too.

And cousin time, that included seeing a long lost stepsister.

And of course, I never get enough sister time.

Yes, it was a beautiful weekend, and I was thrilled to be a part of the celebration of this love. These two are truly the King and Queen of Hearts.

 

Elfing around with pinecone pixies

My pal, Tami, once again invited a group of local Peeps to her lovely home for a holiday crafting day. She is always generous with supplies and ideas to share with friends.  This time, we were elfing around and making pinecone pixies.

Here are a few of the ones that I made. She provided a basket full of pine cones, and plenty of felt, along with the little wooden balls for heads and other tidbits to put together.

I'd brought this chunk of firewood, deer, and tree to make this display.  

But this character looks more like a Yorkie than Santa's helper, doesn't he?

See what I mean?

Or maybe more like this?

We had a holly jolly time making these, and soon the room was filled with the fun lil guys.

It was hard to stop, even though all of mine didn't turn out as good as I would've liked. This poor sprite looks like she has smoker's wrinkles around her mouth where the ink ran. I can almost hear her throaty voice saying, Ho HO, Ho, between coughs....

Her sis turned out a little better. She is sitting on a spool.

Tami's halls were decked, her home is always so tastefully and vintagely festive.  I do not know why I didn't get more pictures, dang it.  But at least I took this pic, look at this unique and fashionable tree.

Between eating a yummy, pitch in lunch and assembling elves, we also worked on a few other projects.  There were some butter pat plates available to work with.

I'm afraid my finished product is rather plain, but the plate itself was so simply sweet, I wanted to keep it pretty much as is.

 

I also made a little doggie ornie.

And a bottle brush tree snowflake too.

With all of the laughter, warm conversations, and of course- treat snacking, I don't know how I managed to get so many things made.  

What a nice day! Thanks, Tami!!

A mermaid book for Dewdrop's mama

I got to spend some time with Dewdrop's mother in North Carolina on our trip to pick up our snuggle fairy for Thanksgiving.

We went out for a lunch in Asheville and took our time, chatting and catching up.

Before leaving home, I made this book for her.

The covers are an acrylic paint pour. This is the back.

And this is one inside cover.

And this is the other.

Art from the past

While in North Carolina, we visited my husband's mom. She had some artwork I'd done years ago, framed and hung on her walls.

This is a painting of the house she grew up in.

And this is the home her husband grew up in.

A watercolor iris.

And a butt.