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 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!

A craft day to crow about

Guncle Randy and I had an excellent craft day together.

We both worked on crowns, I painted some of my book page drawings, and helped him with a base coat on a violin he wants to embellish.

He had a couple bridal gowns to share, so I cut those up.  He is using some of that on his violin too.

It was a lot for one day, but we jammed in as much fun as we could, and made time to take pictures of our hand crafted crowns on the heads of his many garden friends.

On our furry friends too.

So many heads to fill with royal toppers.

This guy looks like he is ready for his kiss.

So does this tiny guy.

It was a joy to be outside, with sunshine and flowers.

And very joyful to have a day with my baby bro to crank out crafts.  I think we had about 13-14 crowns between us.

To thank him, I painted a crowned crow.

Yep, it was a day to “crow” about.  

 

Christmas finery at the Guncles’ home

We are getting close to Valentine’s Day but I have Christmas pictures to show you from the Guncles.

We were there to stay with them in January, and they were leaving it all up to make us and some other guests coming soon feel festive and soak in some of that warmth and joy filling the house.

There were trees everywhere and at first I was worried about 8 dogs at once admist the fragile forest, but we had a door to close on the ruffians when needed.

And this treasure trove of Shiny Brites had a fence around it.

Of course, sweet Bella and our tiny Dorothy weren’t trouble makers.

Bella was very busy caretaking, poor, sick Zacky.

Itty bitty Perry couldn’t knock a tree over if he tried.  But he’d never try.  He knows they make a great backdrop for his handsome poses.

It was an honor to see how many of my handmade pieces were in the space.

One of his trees was devoted to all handcrafted items that he and I had made over the years.

Including my painted ones.

When family is spread all across the country, and we rarely are together at the holidays, it’s a special treat to get to see the Christmas decor in their homes.

And the Guncles’ home? It’s a treat no matter how it is decorated, or what season it is.

 

 

 

While I was with Mickey

While I was exploring the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, and visiting the Evil Queen with her nemisis, Snow White at the enchanted forest, the guys were wrangling 8 dogs while ripping out the Guncles’ back fence wall and rebuilding it.

We have a tradition of staying with our bros during part of our camping adventures in Florida and helping with a project.

One year it was redoing a deck, then another was the other side of the fence. 
I might have been a little more helpful with those than I was this time.  I skeedaddled my way to Orlando to meet up with two grand fairies and my boy for some Disney fun.  It was MLK weekend, so the kiddos had an extra day off.  

Sugarwings flew in (Barely. With the country wide weather problems, this was an iffy enterprise and some flight shuffling was required).  Dewdrop rode down from NC with her daddy.  They were delayed due to weather, but made it eventually.

The guys were nice about letting me off the hook for the big job, but I did come straight back from Epcot to help with finishing touches while the kids had some time together with their dad to go meandering in Daytona Beach.

I was happy to give the kids time together while I arranged flower pots and garden furniture. Look at how we are fed while working in the yard!  Never ending fresh seafood prepared by first class cooks  - those  Guncles both are experts in the kitchen.

The only trouble is that we have completed most of the rebuild at this point.  Only one more side of the fence to go.  If we want to be invited back to the paradise of Guncleness seafood dinners, my husband is going to have to learn a few new building skills beyond patios and fences!

Heck for the special treatment they show us, maybe I’ll learn how to build something.

Guncle time craft day

On my recent getaway to the sunshine state, my first stop was Guncleland on Sweet Cherry Lane.

We had one night to make enough ornaments to fill a small tree, but well, we got a little side tracked.

In a fun way of course.

There were doggies to snuggle, interesting neighbors to meet, and fresh, delicious piles of shrimp to savor.  Oh and wine, there was of course, wine to drink as we chatted, caught up, and giggled.

But serious crafting too!  We’d worked on embellishing old violins when the boys came to KS in September, but Randy wasn’t pleased with his.  He liked the wood grain, and was glad he hadn’t painted it, but felt that it wasn’t pulled together.  

We gave it a quick makeover by removing some of the decor, and adding sheet music.  Over that we stuck to a wings and roses theme to make it feel more cohesive.  

There was a broken German figure on his desk, and some wings, and well, lots and lots of intriguing bits and pieces to sift through.  I gathered what was in front of me and made it into this fairy to hang on his tree.

Then we moved onto some more traditional holiday goodies.  I’d brought a few vintage card scrap pages from an album, he had wooden discs from Hobby Lobby.

We didn’t talk about a color theme or style, we just started making ornies.

I’d also brought some of my Nutcracker images that I’d been using for my Good Juju display.  So their tree will have quite a mix match of hand made pretties, won’t it?

We could’ve used a few more days of this, I love crafting with my baby bro and being with his sweet family in Jax.  Our time was way too short.  But I had more adventures to come all jammed into one, way too short, week.

 

 

A musical interlude

A few years back, Guncle Randy and I redid a couple violins and fell in love with the process.  He has been on the search for more instruments for us to recreate.

After finding another violin for himself, he came across TWO  more that his brother, Mark had.  Mark and his partner, Allie had found them tossed away and snatched them out of a landfill.

 How nice that they offered them to us to use. Allie wanted us to Halloween one up for her, and we were thrilled to have THREE to play with.  

The one Randy wanted for himself had glowing wood grain that he didn’t want covered up, so his stayed natural.

Mine got painted white. (Big surprise)

With a crackle finish here and there.

I used crackle on the black one for Allie too.  It didn’t show up much til it was accented with silver wax.

We used lace as texture too.  


I didn’t get a full photo of mine, but will show one when I get it hung in the house with my previous creation.  Allie says hers will go onto her mantel.  And Randy’s will be wired into his Xmas tree.

This was our work space.
we moved all of the furniture to one side of the room to have it ready for my son to install the new floor.  Randy and I had a small table hidden in the forest of cabinets.  And we were lucky to have the guys here to help move stuff so the room was ready when Adam arrived to start on it. 


 I’ll leave you with some close ups of the musical trio. 

 

 

Guncles in Kansas

We had a Guncle-riffic visit last week.  They spent half the time with us, the other half with close friends in KC.  Their last night in Lawrence included a birthday party for that couple, who are family to the guys.

Now, down on Sweet Cherry Lane in Jax, the tablescapes and delicious food are legendary.  Randy keeps his dining table set on a regular basis and then goes even more all out when guests arrive.

 And the food, oh my.

So while they were visiting, I had Randy help me set my table.  

Our big craft project had been to restyle some violins.

So we incorporated those along with some violin sheet music.

We had a small group at a large table, and only needed to decorate half of it.  Kevin makes the best German chocolate cake, so that got center stage on the other half.

Dinner was a luscious lemon chicken.  And the company?  The best!

I’ll have some close ups of the violins in my next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magic at the Hawk and Hawthorn

Hawk and Hawthorn (about 20 min north of Asheville on top of a scenic mountain) is my new favorite vacation spot.

The Airbnb is set upstairs of a newly renovated, charming old house and the patio over looks the farm.

Bonus- the view includes the barn/event center.

Double bonus for me- my son lives there.

He is their onsite trim carpenter.

He and his buddy just built this outdoor kitchen for tent campers.  Spaces are available through Hipcamp, and campers have access to the barn for yoga, bathrooms, cooking, and more.  

I think how much you can hang out in the barn depends on scheduled events.  They had just held one, and this mushroom display from it was still set up.  I spy a couple of my schroomies in there too!

They host workshops, festivals, retreats, music, etc.  Our visit was Sunday thru Friday, so it was pretty low key.

We had full use of the facilities and after harvesting our food to fix in the apartment kitchen, we walked it across the field and up the hill to dine in the beautiful barn.

It had just started to rain and was getting dark.  We ate while listening to the drops on the metal roof and the curtains swayed in the breeze.

 

I am not sure how many times I used the word “magical”, probably way too many, but it was justified.

Our meal was trout that the kids caught with their grandfather that day and deliciousness we gathered from the vast gardens.

I would say that the term, “magical”, had to be correct.  There had to be some magic in the head grower’s touch.  Look at the size of this corn! All the veggies were lush and vibrant, over the top with health and vitality.  

It made me think that my Kansas garden back home was a sad comparison.  

We picked fresh produce daily.  And had flowers in our salads, and even cooked into chewy brownies.

And I got to forage for chanterelles!  It was my first successful mushroom hunt. 

We walked through what felt like an enchanted land of moss and streams to find them. While on the hunt, my boy taught me tricks about different types and what to look for.

He is always on the lookout and you never know when he will abruptly pull over the car to spring out and return with a handful of berries to share.  He spots tasty treats everywhere he goes.

At the farm, there are baby bunnies to hold and goats to visit.  There is a fresh mountain spring set up with pipes to fill your containers.

Pretty and rustic areas to enjoy, trails to explore, and vistas so lovely, all you want to do is sit back, sip a glass of wine and take it all in.

Plus-NO CHIGGERS! It felt oddly uncomfortable to walk through tall grass without bug spray.  In the back of my mind, I kept worrying that I’d be up all night itchy and miserable.

But I got used to not needing a thorough spritz before going outside.  And I was not homesick for any midwestern bugs that typically torture me all summer long.

There is cool art everywhere, including on these shirts.

The dragon was by our front door.

I don’t know why I didn’t get any photos inside our cozy studio apartment, maybe because there was so much to see and do outside.

The tranquility was just what we needed, the rest of the trip was so stressful.  Serious family illnesses, an auto wreck, all were overwhelming.  

Thank goodness for the peace and welcome we found at the Hawk and Hawthorn.

 It was MAGICAL. 

The Guncles’ Christmas Gift

Guncle Randy has been wanting to make a jewel tree but hasn’t had time to do it. So, I decided to surprise him and Kevin with a special, Pet Butler tree.

In my decades of collecting jewelry from flea markets and estate sales, I have always been drawn to animal pins  and to initials.  

So, I just happened to have the perfect ingredients to make this animal lovers’ tree, adding in KS for Kev and RN for Randy.

Besides pets, there is a snowflake for Xmas…

A starfish for Florida…

A fairy, and lots of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies to represent their garden.

 And a goldendoodle for the trunk of the tree for my grand puppy, Olivia Ryan.