Karla's Cottage

Venice Beach seashell fairy

My trip to Florida was just the best.  It was broken up into segments, a Guncle visit with crafting, Disney with Terry and Holly, then beach time with Sissies, Aunties, and sweet nieces.

We stayed at Turtle Beach on Siesta Key, and while I loved the company, I wasn’t thrilled with the beach, my shelling was limited until we took a day trip to Venice to hunt for shark teeth.

Hey, I do not mean to sound down on Turtle Beach, it is a lovely spot.  I had just never stayed there, and expected a similar experience from further north on the island where we usually stay.  It was so nice to be directly on the water and to walk right out on the sand.

Venice just happened to have more shells.  And Shark Teeth, too!  I found a couple but was more interested in making my beach fairy there.

And I found a treasure trove of broken shells to use.  I think the wings are some of the nicest I have ever found.  I was tempted to pocket them, but I like to leave my Faye behind as a thank you to nature, and pulling off her wings did not feel right at all.

Lots of shells do come home with me, but those haven’t been used to create my little friends yet.  I did gather up a lot of potential fairy shells last year to make resin shell fairies at home, but they are still packed away, waiting their turn to get Pinocchio-ed into being.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nutcracker Ballet Creations

Over the years, I’ve collected ballet slippers, and this overflowing box of daintiness inspired a theme for one corner of my booth.

So I kept my eyes open to other items to fit in with a Nutcracker Ballet design.

I was thrilled to come across this toy solider outfit!

Then came across wooden nutcracker cut outs, perfect to embellish with vintage, sparkly bits, paint, and even white mink.

My grand fairies have out grown (in size and desire) all of their little pink tutus and dance costumes, so I felt like this display was a fitting farewell to the items.

One garage sale I visited this summer had these ballerina prints.  I added paint, glitter, and gemstones to them for a new life.

I made sweet, candy colored trees and sugarplum fairies, gathered up crowns and crafted some of my own crowns too.

My booth is SMALL. So the ballet goodies are all cozied up in a cabinet together with a little table in front.  Sugary sweetness is pouring out of every inch.

To pull it together, I copied sheet music from the show to use as back drops.

There are hand painted and embellished little nutcrackers too, but I don’t think I got photos.  Here are some ornaments I made with character images, glitter, and vintage paper.

This was such a fun idea to take and run with for the holiday.  I’ll let you know how it goes over at our First Friday weekend (which is still going on today). And I’ll leave you with a few more pics.

KC Renfest and unique hearts from Ryan

Renfest season is here!  Sugarwings and I snagged a little getaway time and spent a couple of hours wandering around the grounds.

The kiddo isn’t such a kid now (17) but still my partner in adventures.

Both of us are more into exploring the sights than being fairies now.

There are still plenty of laughs and silliness though.

I have always loved the art and architecture that makes this place special.

The details, big and small.

And the characters.

We even saw a couple of the Sanderson Sisters.

It’s the first year that Sugarwings wasn’t into dancing around the maypole with the fairies.  Although we did do a dance together along the sidelines.

We were nostalgic, talking about when Kya worked as a henna artist, when Sugarwings’ daddy participated in building the stone castle and sold his art there, when we’d come as a big family group, all fairied up in glitter and wings.

And we talked about the year Ry Guy came along to help me when I was on my own with two tiny grandfairies.  He was never a person who did well among hoards of people, but he loved those little princesses and was a trouper that day.  

It was extremely crowded, and extra hot that afternoon.  The kids were great, we did have fun, but it was past nap time and past Ryan’s crowd quota.  So we headed out before we became too overrun with heat and frayed nerves, leaving at just the perfect point, when everyone was still in good moods.

But then, oops.

Where on Middle Earth did we park?

Years ago, I had a car that I simply never recognized. I lost it quite often.  Once even getting into the driver’s seat of someone else’s car as they were loading a baby into the back.  We both screamed like that scene in ET when Drew Barrymore saw the alien for the first time.

Anyway, my car was lost in the over full, giant parking lot, and we slowly slid past the time when everyone was “still in a good mood.”

After 40 minutes of trudging through heat and dust, pushing a stroller and wanting to leave, we realized we’d walked right on by that car many, many times.  Over the years, that became one of those jokes Ryan and I had between ourselves that we would reference and laugh about.  Uhm, not that day, though.

Sugarwings didn’t remember that part of it, but we laughed together when I told the story.

Then my little sprite, who is always looking for glimmers from Ryan, pointed out these hearts.  My horror story loving boy would have loved those!  

Playing with dolls

Luckily, my fairies do okay at Juju sales.  Not GREAT, but enough that I can indulge myself in making more.  I do love crafting a sweet, winged sprite from a dilapidated doll no one wants. Friends have been passing along dollies that their customers haven’t picked up, so that I can play with feathers and lace to recreate the dolls into my winged girls.

This babe in blue has an ocean theme and is decked out in vintage seashell flower jewelry.

I use lots of different kinds of dolls, this pink petal girl was a storybook doll with open and closing eyes. But now, she has a different story.  

This one is porcelain, and is draped in French net lace.  Redoing her mostly meant cutting away her costume and adding lace, feathers, and flowers.  She was basically in good shape.  Some are not and often need major repairs.

 I collect odds and ends of legs and arms too, in case I come across a doll missing pieces.  I don’t try to be a doll doctor and put them back together as they were.  I just use a lot of glue to hold them in place.  Same with the clothing.  I’m not a seamstress, these dresses are fabricated with adhesive.

My very, very favorites are Nancy Anns. I love everything about these and try to save as much of their original look as I can.  This one even still had good hair.  It’s rare that I get to salvage the hairstyle.  Sometimes I can remake the locks by gluing the hair and adding flowers to cover bald spots.  Most often, I just pull it off and glue goats hair or dyed wool fluff over the heads.

This lilac dragonfly fairy has wool roving for hair.

This golden fairy’s hair is made from the goat hair “curly locks”.  Her wings are feathers painted gold and she has gold glitter polka dots on her gown.  I like to add vintage millinery to the back of each to embellish the wings.

Even if I use similar materials, no two turn out the same.  Each has her own, sweet personality.  And love them all.

 

 

Karlas Cottages

On Thursdays, my glass artist friend opens her studio for our mosaic group.  I cannot get into cutting glass but I do enjoy gluing pieces of glass, ceramic, or rock onto stuff.  Lately, I’ve been crafting stone cottages.

I’ve been adding porcelaine flowers too.

Some houses are made with broken china, some are painted, a few are mossy.  None got good photos taken. 

See what I mean?  I’m getting into a bad habit of not getting pictures as I finish things, let alone before or during shots, then taking them directly into Good Juju.    

I’ll try to get some better pictures because I really like these fairy cottages.  And honestly, a LOT of work went into them. 

More fairies? I cannot help myself.

Recently, I found a few more old dolls to redo.  They were not exactly the best, so I completely repainted their faces.

They all got new hair too.  And clothes pieced together from vintage bits and pieces.

One became a St Paddy’s Gal.   She wears a vintage shamrock dress and her crown holds a green top hat snapped off of an antique stir stick.  Her hair is a pale green.

And her bodice is a vintage, tatted butterfly.

One of her arms was upside down.  I thought about cutting it off and trying to reattach it, but decided to camouflage it with a big bouquet instead. 

Making these dolls is an indulgence for me, they really are not something most people have in mind when shopping at Good Juju.  If I were smart, I’d be working on something that fits in at the venue better.  Or stockpiling these for Christmas, when people are excited about frilly angels.

I am trying to adjust my likes to what my customers like.  But I sure do loooove fairies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Treacherous Journey

Before our January sale at Good Juju, I made some Sweetheart Fairies.

I’d found a boxful of vintage, handmade heads a few years ago and had just been waiting for inspiration to figure out what to do with them.

I had absolutely loved making angels from old dolls at Christmas, but was out of the vintage dolls, so couldn’t make more.  Then I remembered the big glass bowl of doll heads in my studio.

Since I have been vending at an antique mall, I’ve started collecting furniture to fix up.  Which meant I needed storage.  I had to give up a corner of my studio to stack the pieces until needed, and to camouflage the area, I cordoned it off with hinged together doors.

 Well, I hate it. But it was needed. And worked out okay, even though it ruins the natural light from the big window and is an eyesore.  I have covered the doors with gowns, but it kinda feels even bulkier this way.  I should take these down and paint or wallpaper the doors to make the room feel less crowded.

The cluster of tables and dressers behind the barricade also blocks everything back in the corner behind the stacked junk furniture.  

And that is where the heads were.

 Getting to them was quite the scramble, and I could only squeeze through and grab a handful at a time.

Making the Sweetheart Fairies has become a slight obsession, so I find myself navigating the maze and reaching my way too short arm through a gap to snag another handful of heads on a regular basis.  I should just move some furniture, get the bowlful of doll parts and keep them in a more convenient place.

But that would be too easy.

The bodies are wire and wool roving, and I dress them up in bits and pieces of vintagey goodness.  Most of these sold at the last sale, but I braved the treacherous trail through mountains of precarious piles and snatched another handful of heads.  

More to come! 

 

 

 

Sweetheart Gnomes

I learned a new cell phone trick!  I’m still not quite sure how to use it, but somehow or another you can cut the background out of a photo while texting.  Why while texting?  That seems odd, why not just in  edit photos?  

I plan on playing with the function a bit more, even though I am not sure I need it.  It’s fun to manipulate pictures, so I guess I do need it? One more toy?

Speaking of toys, these little guys look playful, don’t they?  I’ve been on a gnome kick.

Sweetheart Gnomes, for Valentine’s.  

Although I am not sure about this one’s vintage earring nose.  I go back and forth between thinking it’s cute or that he has a medical condition.

I have always been a gnome fan.  I figure they are probably good friends with fairies, even if they can act a little gruff, they are probably very loving toward the little sprites.  

Any any friend of a fairy is a friend of mine.

 

 

 

The elves are drunk

Some of these elves are from my childhood, others have been collected over time. I’ve always loved the little sprites and one of my favorite memories at the holidays was being allowed to play with the three mouse head elves on the tree.  

Why were the elves mice? That wasn’t a question that I ever thought of back then.

When the Elf on a Shelf craze started a few years back, I bought the grand fairies a couple new ones.  We didn’t really play the spy game with them, they were mostly cuddled, loved, and included in holiday activities.  Like a favorite stuffy.

Now that Sugarwings is a teenager, the elves are getting into trouble  that kid surprises me with various drunken elf scenes and messes.

I bought some of those chocolate liqueur candies and the elves think I purchased those just for them.

I never know where I’ll find a drunken elf getting into trouble.

One seems to be the instigator.

They try to make up for it by doing something sweet.

Sugarplum Fairies

I have been a busy little elf.

Not just making more Sugarplum Fairies, but also making some tiny, itty bitty, snow globes for some of them to hold.

Seriously, I cannot get enough of them!

Well, I just love fairies and angels of all kinds.  Anyone with wings is special to me.

Throw in vintage bits of fabric, lace, and baubles, and I never want to stop crafting.

Slowly but surely, I am restocking my Boutique.  But there are issues with changes in the programs that I use that have made it more slowly than surely.

I’m a big girl, I’ll figure it out.  It’s just annoying and takes more time than it used to.  A few steps have been added to my process, but it works fine.  At my age learning new steps slows me down more than it should.

If you’ve seen my Sugarplum Fairies or Witchy girls before, you might recognize some faces.  I do reuse the old photos that I have scanned and printed, but I can promise that no two ever turn out exactly  the same.

Because, what fun would that be?