Karla's Cottage

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 Fairies and other creations

It may be 90 degrees outside, but in the studio, autumn has arrived.  I’ve whipped up witches, crafted batches of brooms, stockpiled witchy hats, and have made a few fall fairies.

This girl’s scouting days were behind her, so I repurposed the uniform into a woodland outfit.

Complete with posy toes.

And this delicate(?) little sprite might not be as pretty as her sibling, but she deserved a lovely, whimsical gown just as much.

They have joined the rest of the flock at Juju for the next First Friday weekend (this week!).

I bring in fairies each month. They aren’t an item that sells out, but I do have some shoppers who enjoy them, so typically 1-4 sell each time.   


That is basically my formula there.  Bring in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, make a few different pieces, then choose a theme for the month and decorate with old stuff to complete that chosen idea.  I fill in around the vintage pieces with hand made items and a display or two of jewelry.

My little paintings are one of the many additions that mingle with the antiques.  Here, I have sorta broken my “keep to the monthly theme” rule.  This narrow wall is filled with springtime decor in the center of a booth filled with autumn.

Maybe my rule is more of a guideline.

Some other creations for this month are tiny wooden books covered in old paper.  Plus a few more crowns that I made extra blingy.

This formula works out okay for me.  I like making a variety of things, but don’t want to rely on just one craft.  If I had a booth full of say, just crowns, my sales would most likely be pretty dismal.  This way I can sell a few of each set of crafty items, and that adds up to supplement my overall sales. 

Next post, I’ll show you the rest of my booth. The non created pieces.

 

Fairy dolls

Last month, I made a few new fairies for Juju’ First Friday Weekend.

And I hope to make a few more for the summer.

I do love my soft colored, sweet, baby sprites.

And my sassy granny fae.

Aren’t they fun?

This is how they begin.  I bought a boxful of these handmade (from the 80s?) old biddies.  I think they have the potential to be something cool, but am not fond of their current style.  The rest of them will be witches for Halloween.  My crafty mind is already turning to fall and winter, I’ve started on a few things for spooky season and the Christmas holidays.  

I’m definately a holiday person when it comes to making stuff.  I am excited to get started filling my studio with goods for my two favorite holidays.

Dolly do overs and a fun day of gossip, griping, and laughter

Yesterday I had a craft day with Beth, it has been way too long since we did that.

She worked on vintage paper journals, and I pixied up some unloved dollies.

See what I mean?  Not the best.  They deserved a makeover.

 I worked on all four at once, going back and forth between them as I let glue dry.  My first step is always cutting away or pulling off clothes.  I try to salvage what I can.  In this case, the white dress received some trimming and overlays.  The green gown lost its skirt and the bodice was redone as a blouse.  And that wonderful, but too country-cutesy pink silk?  I used it to craft a dress for the tiniest doll.

Doesn’t she look pretty in it, with her matching pink hair? (It’s yarn)

This is a detail from the white gown.  It has sequined bridal satin glued onto it and a net overskirt.

You don’t see much of the original dress, but it made a good foundation for the new, more fairy princess frock. Typically, I don’t keep the hair as is, but I kinda liked this headful.  She only needed a posy crown to add a new look instead of ripping it all off (hair comes off easier if you use pliers) and starting fresh from a bald dome. 

The green, velvet gown felt like a good beginning for a flower fairy.  I had some vintage, velvet and sequined leaves to fashion a skirt for it.  I dyed her bloomers and glittered her shoes, then added teensy weensy velvet flowers.  She might look more like autumn than spring, but she does look more like a fairy than a faux Elizabethan  doll at least.

It was a happy day, chatting with a buddy and creating little sprites from discarded dolls.  And heck, I even got to play with some of my new beads too, it was quite a fruitful afternoon.  When I finished these gals, I made a dozen gemstone bracelets to finish off my time in the studio.  

I could use more days like this, it was good for me.  There doesn't seem to be enough hours to get done what needs to be tackled, so now I’m off to make price tags for Good Juju.  

Which is high on my list of most hated and put off chores - like taxes, which is also on my to do list for the next couple days.

Those fairies will be on my desk as I work, and I could lie to myself and say something uplifting like “their delightful spirits near me will make my chores more tolerable as I reminisce about our lovely crafting get together.” But that would be a whopper of a lie, because nothing makes taxes or price tagging not suck.

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!