Karla's Cottage

Puppy Snuggles

These puppies are growing so fast! Dewdrop is their biggest fan, and her mommy says that she wants to see photos on Facebook of them all the time.  She calls them Puppeesh.

Dewdrop is a gentle child and can sit quietly and just snuggle a baby pup.

Of course, being on her loving Pop Pop's lap makes snuggle time even more special.

The babies decided to learn how to play on Saturday and are starting to wrassle with each other. Mostly, it involves chewing on a brother's nose for a minute, putting paws around each other, then napping.

For now, they reside in the living room, inside the wading pool.  I keep a box with their (ever changing throughout the day) blanket or towel in the pool, line the pool with newspapers and pee pads, and they have learned how to waddle out to the pads to tinkle. A LOT. Those pads get changed all day long too, buy stock in pee pads NOW. 

Usually, the pups live in the pool this way for 5 weeks or so, but with this many, there just won't be space. They will need room to run and play.

I'm thinking about moving my car outside and turning the whole garage into a nursery for when we aren't with the dogs.  When we are hanging out with them, they can be in the house, or taking over the studio like a pack of hooligans. 

At night, I can bring them back in the house to their pool.

I'm treasuring this time of them being tiny, bottle feedings, and babyhood.

It goes by so fast. Just look at Dewdrop, she's a big girl now.

Or at least SHE thinks so! She and her Gypsy mommy have picked out a pup to keep. They are renting a new home that allows pets, and has a small fenced yard.  And a passle of little kids ready to cuddle the baby!

Happy birthday Sugarwings!

Sugarwings' birthday was such a fun day for us.  We went to lunch at T. Rex to see the dinosaurs, but at first, Dewdrop wasn't sure if we should go in. Once she realized that there were cute little baby dinosaurs there, she was fine.( I don't know why the restaurant keeps the biggest, scariest one of all right inside the door to greet everyone.  I guess they want to test the kids right up front to see if they can withstand the atmosphere before they waste table space incase the little ones have to leave before the food comes?  If the kids can get past the giant monster at the door, they must be brave enough to sit and eat there.)

  Sugarwings has always loved it there.  Dewdrop took some convincing, but not much, She was careful to not look at the bigger ones, but was happy to give hugs and kisses to the colorful, cartoony beasts.

We walked around the shopping center, and let the kids run around on the Yellow Brick Road sidewalks.  It was a favorite pastime for Sugarwings when she was little. Now that she is turning 6, I wanted to take her there again before she was too big to enjoy it.  

Hopefully, she'll never be too old to be silly with Grams. 

And honestly, she is happy anywhere she goes.  Her idea of fun is just exploring. It can be along a yellow sidewalk that takes her imagination to Oz. or just sitting in the grass meeting whatever bug crawls by.  It all entertains her.

Dewdrop had a good time on our day out too. And I was pleased to spend time with my boy, remembering when he was a little guy and running way ahead of me wherever we went, just like his daughter does now.

 A pretty table cloth, a pitcher of Chocolate milk so that the kiddos could pour their own refills, and letting the baby join the big kids table all made a special meal for the birthday girl that night for dinner.

We also covered a big chair and tied balloons to it, creating a birthday throne when cake and ice cream time came.   Then, her cupcake was served on a musical, wind up cake plate that plays "Happy Birthday", but not very good. Its kind of old and wonky, but still a fun tradition for us. 

It was all I could do, to not be teary all day.  I can't believe she is six now.

The last few years have zoomed by!

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment HERE.

Cuff bracelet tutorial

The cuff bracelet tutorial I promised is up and running. There is a button on my side bar to click on for more info, or click here.

Its a $6 class.

The class is online, in blog form, and holds written instructions lots of photos of the steps that I use to make my own cuffs.

(why on earth don't I ever think of polishing my nails before I do one of these???)

Here is a button for the class if you'd like one.

Its up and running, with no end date.  So you can refer back to the blog in the future for a refresher. 

I've also made up some kits for sale. You can find them in my Boutique, on this page.

The tutorial is included in the kit price.

There are a few kits listed and I am waiting on a bulk order of the aluminum cuffs to make up a few more. For now, I have the 1-1/2" size, next week I'll also have the 1" cuffs.  Today I found some toasty, cream cotton velvet too, won't that be pretty?

And if you aren't in the mood to make your own, I have listed a few that I made myself too.

You can find some here, and some in the Etsy shop, here too. (Yay, I got it reopened! And have big plans to restock it for the holidays)

  I've got another half dozen cuffs to photograph and list, but today was busy with putting packages together. I've been in bed with a cruel stomach bug all week and haven't had a chance to get my orders filled.  But if you are waiting for a package from me, thanks for your patience, its on its way now!

Little Dew Drop and the rest of these photos don't have anything to do with the stomach bug, I figured they were much prettier pictures than anything along the lines of what I was talking about. Its been a rough week, but with a trip to the ER for fluids to revive me, I am on the mend.

Seems like the worst part of being sick (beyond losing a week of work, when I am trying to fill my shop for the holidays) is finally crawling out of my dark, depressing, sick room to find the house a mess. Now, I'm not blaming my sweet husband, who spent the night sitting up in a stiff chair at the ER while my veins were pumped full of that wonderful IV nectar that made me better, and who watched Sugarwings on his own while I was out of it.

He was just great. He was helpful, he was loving.

But he just doesn't notice messes.

I honestly think he doesn't see them. 

So, when I finally was able to get up on two legs and left the bedroom, instead of just crawling from the bed to the bathroom, I was a bit down to see how things had piled up around the cottage. 

But the worst part was that I passed the bug on to him and to Ryan and then had to take care of them, while I was still feeling like  noodle legged mush myself.  Not to mention taking over the care of an energetic Sugarwings for the night. 

The two girls were already exposed to the bug last week when their Daddy and his Gypsy were sick, and haven't caught it yet. I'm hoping they don't. Its awful. I feel guilty enough that the guys picked it up while bringing me juice. They were very brave and are paying for it now. So, I'm off to go check on my menfolk, and see if they need a refill.

I hope all is well at your house.  WINTER IS COMING (that Game of Thrones quote stays with me) and so are the bugs. Dang, I miss the summer bugs, as much as I hate mosquitos, they are better than the stomach flu!

 

 

 

 

Sweet babies

 

Miss Pixie Pie, is now a big sis!  She has a cuddly little brother at her house now.  We got over to see him a few days ago and I was able to get some snuggles. There is nothing on earth like holding a new born baby, is there?

We took the big sister home with us for a while to play with her cousin and give her parents a little break. The girls spent a lot of the evening just filling water cans.  Its good to have well water, and not worry about water bills,  water is such easy entertainment for kids this age.

Afterwards, they were a little shivery, so I fixed them hot cocoa.  Not something we have very often in the summertime, so they were both pretty excited to get some.  It was fun to have hot chocolate in the summer in the same way it is to have pancakes for supper sometimes. 

After getting dry and warm, they helped me make dinner.  I like to give the kids a hunk of bread dough and some bowls of cheese and broccoli for them to create their own bread sticks.  Our fairy grand kid can play with dough for so long, we almost don't get it into the oven in time to have it done for supper. Pixie Pie was a bit more efficient than her cousin, she got hers done and ready to pop into the oven right away, so I just gave her more and kept her going on it.  That kid doesn't mess around, she got them all whipped up in no time, while Sugarwings was still reconstructing the shape of her dough ball for the dozenth time. 

Speaking of cooking, my gift for the new mom and dad might seem a bit odd, but instead of buying baby clothes or toys, I like to pack up a big bag full of convenience items.  Paper plates, cups, plastic forks, etc. to hopefully save them some time while they are caring for the new baby.  Its a hectic time, and its not always easy to get dishes done while caring for a newborn.

Cause watching a little one can sure wear you out!

 
Earlier in the week, we were lucky enough to have BOTH grands over for the night.  Mayara is just getting big enough to come over and spend some time, now that her  mommy is not nursing as much.    She was so sweet. If I held up her dolly, and ask her to give it some love, she'd plant a big ole slobbery kiss on its head. 

These girls are all pretty sweet too, I splurged big time and took them to the groomers for a make over, complete with matching bows.

Our neighbor, Holden thought they looked lovely.

Even with all the cute babies around here, I've been managing to get things done. I went to a flea mkt with Mary, and met up with Beth who was selling there.  As sweet as all the kids are, it was pretty durn nice to have a grown up day with junking!

By the way, Mary is hosting her first swap and its a doozy.  Its for glue book pages, and she'll provide the book covers, ring binders, plus an ephemera pack to get you started on making your book grow with more art when you get it back.

Our remodelling project has been finalized too.

Its good to finally get all of that settled and mark a date on the calender to start it.

Although, that means, that I have to start packing up my kitchen.  Ugh.

On the other hand, it means that I get to pick out flooring and shop for something to build into a kitchen island.  I know what I want, now I just need to find it.

I've been adding some things to the Boutique over the weekend, and a few to the long neglected Etsy shop too.

I  hope to add more, but then I always say that, don't I?

This weekend we have family in town to visit, and will be going to one of our faves, the Renfest.  After that, I have 3 days to get everything in my kitchen and dining room packed up and out of the room so the work can begin.  So, who knows if I'll get more added to the shop. Maybe after the packing up is done.

I'll have more additions to the shop to show you in the next post, this one has run on long enough.

Flawed but lovely

When I looked through my photos from this day, I almost dumped this one.  Its pretty blurred.  But there was something about it that I still liked, so I edited it a bit, grayed the image and kept it.  It seems to capture little Sparkle's sweetness.

The same with this one.  There just wasn't enough light for a non-photographer like me to get a good photo with no flash on.  But it was such a sweet picture of the littlest fairy baby.

It makes me think about how many things I love that are flawed, but still beautiful in my eyes. Vintage, pre-loved, chipped, distressed, all are adjectives that make me happy. 

Perfection is over rated!

This photo, too, was blurred.  I used "soften" and a black and white tint, then a faded white matt on the edges. The photo itself might be blurry, but the faces of my girls are so happy, that I had to save this picture too. 

Sometimes, using soften and toning down the colors makes a blurred photo have an "I meant to do that" attitude. 

When this posts, I'll still be out of town, and won't be answering emails.

But please do leave a comment, it will enter you in the drawing for either a free online dress form class, or a kit to make the dress form if you've already paid for the $15 class.

Packages will be shipped after I return, but if you order the dress form class, I can send the password to you on my Ipad, from Indiana.

A message from Mayara

Grammy Karkie is away this week. I know she'll miss me.  We have fun together. I love it when she takes me to a restaurant and gives me the lemon from her ice water while we wait for our food.

What is a lemon, anyway?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, not so bad once you get used to it.