Karla's Cottage

The chickens made some friends and my mushrooms went to a new home

My friend, Mindy, came by to purchase some mushrooms for her online shop, Myrtle and Mo. 

Since I believe that most occasions should be parties whenever possible, I told her to bring the kids with her for a spooky cocoa party.

Instead of having the inventory packed up in the studio, I used it as a centerpiece, and Sugarwings set the table with our Halloween themed cups and teapot.

We were ready to welcome a couple of adorable guests.

Dessert was scary cherry pies.

Their mom was a good sport about all of the sweet treats before dinner time.  We also had fruit skewered onto witch leg picks, and a cauldron full of guacamole to dip pretzels in.  So, maybe that counter acted some of the decadence.

The tarts were in silicone teacups made to bake in, lined with crust, cherry pie filling, then topped with a circle of pie dough that I cut faces into with a knife.  I added noses and eyebrows from the trimmings.

But the big hit of the party was the henhouse.

The ladies are some of the sweetest chickens we have ever had, and seemed happy with the attention.

There was plenty of snuggles to go around, and those birds got lots of attention.

Mindy went home with kids filled up with sweets, tired from chasing chickens, and a nice selection of mushrooms.

If you are one of the people who have been asking me to list schroomies in my poor, neglected boutique to sell online, uhm, you might be better off checking out my pal’s store.  I do not seem to be filling that shop up, am I?  

It’s still open, and I’m paying fees for it, although I  sure haven’t used it much this year.   But Mindy has a full shop, with a few dozen mushrooms along with her fantastic vintage goods.  

You can find her (and my velvet mushie creations) here:

https://www.myrtleandmo.com/shop-1/artist-spotlight/karla-nathan

 

 

Sometimes ya gotta break a few rules

Sugarwings and I have a strict rule. 


You can drink cocoa any time at all.  But you cannot have a cocoa party unless you sit in front of a glowing Christmas tree.

Then I saw this teapot at Homegoods, and our rule loosened up.

It inspired a Halloween themed cocoa display.

Complete with a glass cauldron to hold our spoons and rat poison additives for deliciousness. (We did not use the jar to hold any foodstuffs, it’s just for fun)

We got some skelly cups to drink our potions from.

With skelly napkins to mop up drips of blood.  I mean, chocolate.

We invited a little witch to join us.

Then added some mood lighting.

The new rule, in addition to the Christmas tree rule, is that cocoa parties can only be held with the proper ambient lighting, ghostly paraphernalia, and a scary movie on the tv.  

Skeleton fairies at the cottage

This fall, I hadn’t planned on going full tilt Halloween around the house.

But I’d enjoyed spookifying my Good Juju booth so much, and I had family coming, so I indulged in ghoulishing up a few corners of my cottage.

Most is pretty simple, white pumpkins and crowns, a few glass pumpkins with lighting.

But we have some skellies too.  This fairy skeleton is glittered and perched onto a poison toadstool.  Her wings were harvested from a cicada and then laminated  I think they have a bit of a skeletal look themselves.

I have a good time making decorations for any holiday, but I have to admit that I seriously LOVE the lit, glass punkins from Homegoods  I only allowed myself a couple.  I’d love to have a roomful.

Of course, you always need witches too.

And funky witch boots.

I’ve sprinkled some glittered crows around too.

This candle was from a garage sale.  It isn’t my style exactly, but I liked it.  So I guess that means it is my style for spooky season?

Talk about a change of looks for me- get ahold of that shower curtain.

My first seasonal curtain switch, ever.  My sister, Bobbie, changed hers out for each holiday.  Things like that made her happy, and she had collections for all seasons.  On her birthday this year, I decided to honor her tradition by starting one of my own.  Typically, I prefer vintage fabric, but I have to admit this makes a statement. And is a lot of fun.

I just might find myself shopping for a Xmas one too.

It looks good in person, you never know for sure when shopping online, but I really like it.

Angels made with vintage half dolls

Last winter, I’d made a tree topper fairy for Guncle Randy, using a pin cushion doll.  He had a collection of those and brought them to share with me and make some more. 

Some we crafted onto empty tp rolls covered in vintage paper to make into tree toppers again, the rest were simply built to hang.  Probably on a tree at the holidays?

But not necessarily. We took our bounty of beauties and hung them onto my chandelier to decorate for a birthday luncheon.  They aren’t exactly Christmas ornies, they’d just look exquisite on a tree at the holidays.

This one, this queen of all pin cushion royalty, she would rule wherever she was placed.  Oh my, what a gorgeous doll she is, no matter what I do with her or how she got jazzed up.  

The day before, I’d found this onyx lamp base at a garage sale, it cost under a dollar.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, til Randy sat this woman onto the top of the stone.  

Oh my, she found her home!

I started to deck her out for the holidays, but soon realized she needed to be a daily part of my life, so no golden tinsel or shiny brites got added after all.

Thank you, baby bro, I love her!

Fall family and farm stuff

We had such a nice time with the Guncles!  Randy and I even got a full day in the studio together to make angels with the pin cushion dolls he brought to use.

We had a couple of dog walks, enjoying the mellow weather that came with the beginning of September.

Terry and Dale swang by on the way home from their long Florida to Canada drive.  It was almost becoming an accidental family reunion.  At least a mini one, Rich has a huge family. 

We hadn’t planned it out this way, it just luckily happened that Terry and Dale were driving through while Guncles were visiting.  

Little Dorothy got plenty of snuggles.  She loves it when these guys come to town.

The visit wasnt all just about strolling around, chatting, and cutting up old lace, though.  Stuff got done!  Rich and Kevin cleaned the chicken coop, then picked apples and green beans from the garden. We peeled until late into the night, cooking and freezing apples for pie.

Rich brought in the honey comb from the hives and we got it bottled up.  There wasn’t a big harvest this year, but that doesn’t change the amount of cleanup afterwards.  Whether you get one gallon or five, you are still left with a kitchen full of sticky equipment.  But also delicious honey to share, so all is good.  I made up a charcuterie board that included a bowl of gooey honey comb that was worth all of the wiping down with warm soapy water that the kitchen required.

Speaking of honeycomb, check out this sky we were treated to after finishing the bee job!  A sky filled with glowing honeycomb.

We might not be in Florida with fresh seafood, but the Guncles still worked their butts off feeding us great meals.  One night was Kevin’s famous grilled turkey burgers, next was Randy’s signature lemon chicken, and then on my night to cook, Kevin took over and made fresh marinara sauce with chicken parm.   All I did while they were here was a little bit of bread.

On our final night, Sugarwings hosted a Hocus Pocus cocoa party.

Complete with eyeballs on the cobbler made with the apples from our tree.  I might not enjoy the time it takes to cut up all of that fruit, but it was made easier by so many hands, and I loved having loved ones here to share “the fruits of our labor” with.  

These two couples who came to see us might technically be Rich’s family, but they each own huge chunks of real estate in my heart and I consider them my sibs too.  Thanks for the visit, everyone!

Spring cleaning for the soul

Rich took good care of everything while I was away.  And that is with a poor, tiny Yorkie who was sick for weeks and had to go to the ER vet, Sugarwings got Covid, then he got it while caring for the poor kid.

Yet, I still returned home to a clean house.

But it was a slightly neglected house.  I still had winter decor up, and gift wrap out since Christmas.  It was swept and picked up, but not fresh.

I spent my first day back de-winterizing the cottage.  I did one of those deep spring cleanings where you pick up things and wash them down, not simply dust them off.  The velvet curtains came down, and the florals went up.

Is it rude that I rearranged flower arrangements that came to me at the funeral? These were from the Guncles, I brought them home and redid them into different containers.  I think it gives the blooms more longevity, by trimming the stems and changing the water.  Plus I like to see the flowers in various vessels.

My deep cleaning is usually when I take down the holiday decor.  This year, we had a foundation emergency that forced me to rush to get all the trees put away, and I didn’t quite finish before we left on our Florida camping trip.  Then, I heard Bobbie was going on hospice, and we zipped home quickly so I could be by her side.  

More floral arrangements have arrived since I took these pics and my home feels even more springlike.  I appreciate the kindness and cheer these bring, it makes the cottage welcoming.

Next up?  My studio.  My poor, lovely, new studio has been trashed since everything I’ve done in the last few months has been a quick in and out.  Not taking time to return anything to its proper place, just creating piles, then shoving those piles aside to make room for more. Before I feel like I am truly “home” after months of back and forth traveling, I need to be comfy in my surroundings by getting everything tidied up and attractive again.

As I always tell Sugarwings- A clean, pretty environment is good for your soul.

My soul needs some of that right now.

How I Spent my Christmas Vacation

It’s that time again, I am set up for the First Friday weekend at Good Juju.

And I am ready for Valentine’s Day, with a booth full of hearts, roses, crowns, and cherubs.

Being in retail causes a twisty relationship with holidays.

In the midst of Christmas week, I was cutting out hearts.

You have to be a couple jumps ahead to sell holiday decor, so here I am, still chomping on candy canes and sipping cocoa while I create romantic crafts.

That’s okay.  I love holidays  and I very much enjoyed my Merry Valentine craft afternoons between Xmas movies with the grand fairies.

Not the whole week was as much fun as time with the grand fairies or with my craft supplies.  We discovered a major, hidden water leak that had rotted out the whole back wall’s support system in the hearth room.  

Luckily, my talented son was here to carpenter it all back to normal.  In the meantime, we had three days of chaotic mess, door open (or off) in the cold, and expensive Home Depot runs while the guys worked their frozen little bottoms off to get things fixed. 



The hens thought it was great fun to have an open door to wander in whenever they liked.  And I zipped through taking down all of the Christmas decorations in record time to make space for the guys to work.

It was pretty bad.  Did I mention the words, rotten, chaos, and expensive? 
Yep, those sum it up.

But I also have to throw in “blessed”.  

Because, while it was cold, it wasn’t horrible or icy, and the guys could work on the outside. And our boy was willing to extend his vacation to do the emergency repairs.  Who knows how many months it would take to get this fixed if we waited on setting up a contractor?

But with Adam here- 3 days and DONE! 

I was able to keep right on with my Valentine Christmastime crafting.

 

 

2023 Book Club Christmas Party

One of our bookclub members, Margie Carr, wrote a well received book about early, influential leaders of Kansas City who lived in a one block area. 


 I fell in love with the cover’s photo of two of the girls from that street.

Margie gave me permission to surprise our members with hand crafted ornies using this picture.  The gifts were part of my centerpiece, and everyone got to choose their favorite one to keep.

With my trips to Indiana to be with my family while my sister is ill, I’d originally had to cancel the party,  but was able to reschedule.

 After a lot of last minute shuffling around, and voting on what dates the most of us were available, we managed to get a good chunk of us together on one night just a week before Christmas.

For a bit, it didn’t look like it would come together, that is such a hectic time of year.

Luckily, a date worked out, and I even had time to go to the grocery store for supplies and make pot pies to serve.

The Christmas tree pie didn’t turn out as good as the snow guy.  You could kinda tell what it was, but the crust sunk in a little as it baked.

I’d even made a grid behind it for support and it still sank a little.  You could still tell it was a tree, and actually, bubbly gravy over the crust is pretty dang tasty, so no problem.

This is a night I look forward to each year, and I was so happy that we all were able to get together.

Our club is filled with funny, informed people who make interesting dinner guests.  Plus, it’s a great excuse for me to set the table!

And they brought beautiful desserts.

I had such a nice evening, thanks for coming, to all who were able to make it.

 

 

 

Fall at the Cottage

With this week’s trip to a Florida, I’ll be missing some Halloween time, so I figured that I’d take advantage of friends visiting to spook up my house a bit.


The black and white violins that Guncle Randy and I made on his visit are still on the table, so I used them as part of the decor, added pumpkins, ravens, and then hung the ballerina bats above it all on the chandelier.

And anything looks better under glass. I love to fill my cloches with seasonal things.

The mushrooms have been renamed “poison toadstools” for October.

And OMG, look at the gourd shaped like a swan!  It’s a dark, almost black green that I’ll keep for now.  Next month, I’ll paint her pearl white and add a crown for winter.

My decorations were pretty easy.  I have one drawer that holds my autumn stuff, plus a few pumpkins I also use to give my Good Juju booth some fall flair.

Just enough to give the house a little pick me up.  That helps on these days that are getting a little chilly and shorter so that I’m inside more.  

Don’t try this at home-

Well, the floor is a bit dirty now, as it seems to typically be.  Four dogs with a big yard to run (and dig) in, constantly in and out in all types of weather tends to add a layer of dust and dullness to the wood.

But it looks soooooooooooooooo much better than it did before I did some touch ups to it.

This is what it had become, in many places.  Especially in all areas where the dog wrestling matches took place and of course, those were in the most prominent, big, open areas.  There were also marks from moving a piece of furniture with a rough spot on its leg that left multiple scratches, wear and tear under the dining table from the chairs, and just plain old tired looking spots.

It hadn’t been all that long since the floor was completely refinished either.  The hearth room we’d added is only a few years old, but like I said-

Dogs.  

And lots of them.

The kitchen is a mix of many woods, the living room, yellow pine.  Both are over 100 years old.  The hearth room is pine that my husband and sons put in, then we had all three rooms sanded, stained and sealed to match.  Which was a big undertaking and we couldn’t use the house for most of the week.  We had been living through construction anyway, and this was the tail end of it, so it didn’t seem too bad at the time.

But the thought of the mess, expense, smell, and time it would take to do it over again was not tempting.

Or in my budget.

Here is the after, while still shiny and new.  I love it!  But I was so lucky it worked.

As a do-it-yourselfer, I figured I’d handle it. And luckily it all came out okay.  It could have very easily gone very, very wrong, because I broke a lot of rules.

After cleaning the floor, and shoving some things out of the way (the floor was fine under most of the furniture, except the dining table, so why redo those places?) I opened all the windows, turned on the fans, expelled the dogs outside to the fence to enjoy a beautiful autumn day, then got to work.  Husband was out of town, grandkid was at their mom’s most of the week, nothing to stop me.

I mixed a little bit of Jacobean stain (leftover from the professional’s redo) with a satin poly/stain in espresso, because I wanted the raw scratch marks to be covered well and dark.

Then started right in, dead center, highest visibility spot in the room.

Why? Stupidity.

Seriously, I should’ve tried an inconspicuous corner and waited a couple of days to see if it dried well.  Nope, just started brushing on the concoction, and wiping it off with a rag.  I feathered and buffed the edges to blend with the existing stain, and redid giant swaths of flooring, not just patches.

About halfway in, I started to wonder how well I’d stirred the poly blend.  By then it was too late.  But visions of a gummy, never drying floor stayed with me as I worked.

Did I stop working? Nope.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  I figured I might as well keep it going till the end, because if I’d ruined it, the entire room would have to be redone by a pro, not just my messed up areas.

My home is an old, far from perfect, farmhouse.  So I don’t mind if if the wood floors don’t look perfect.  Things wear over time and I appreciate that.  I just hated the obvious scratches and dog destruction.   This was a good solution for that problem and cost me under $10 to do.  

Some areas dried faster than others, and I was feeling a little worried about a couple spots, but kept a fan on them and they started to slowly lose their stickiness.

 It really could’ve gone either way, this is not how you are supposed to stain a floor.  Dumping leftover stain a few years old into a different brand and color of poly/stain, and then trying to remember if I’d stirred the poly up first before mixing? No sanding or tsp, or much prep at all?  Rubbing the mixture right over the existing floor as is? Going around furniture still in the room?

Nope, none of it was done correctly.  But I am so glad I did it, and love the results!