Karla's Cottage

Fumpity Fump Fump

 We were out shopping the other day and Sugarwings saw this sign on a stand and in her mind, it was the perfect microphone, so she started to serenade all the shoppers.  The kid seems to have inherited my singing voice.  And also the joy of singing out, loudly. 

Its a short video if you want to watch it, and my favorite part is where she is distracted by something shiny and walks away just as she sings "look at Frosty go". 

This year, the holiday month seems to be racing by faster than I can keep up.

Its happening too fast and will be over before I know it! So, I'm slowing down and making myself take in every minute of it.  Sugarwings has been spending a lot of time with me and she agrees that we need to make the most of our days. We've had a hot cocoa party every night that she sleeps over, lit only by the lights of the tree.

We make an event of it, setting the table with our best china, filling our favorite tea pot with hot milk, and passing around tiny bowls of shaved chocolate, mini marshmallows, and peppermint sticks.  Not only are we getting a delicious bedtime snack, we are learning about manners, polite conversation, and building memories to treasure.

We are watching all the holiday specials that we can cram into our time together, without losing out on time to create and cook too.  As much as I love holiday baking, its even better with her. 

There has been a ton of cookies and fudge being whipped up, as well as a  gingerbread house we had to put together with hot glue before we could decorate it.

I'm trying to show Dewdrop about the joys of baking too, she held the mixer for us last week. Its a start!  Soon, I'll have two little helpers.

With her Daddy being so busy getting the Yurt weather proof and ready to live in for the long, cold winter, and her Hippy Chick Mommy studying hard for her first semester of nursing school finals (I'm proud to say that she is an A student!), I've been lucky enough to have lots of holiday play time with my fairy girl.

Sometimes, we invite guests to the parties too, like Luna Moona, her Raggedy Ann doll.

Last week, Dewdrop came to her first bedtime cocoa party and I have a feeling, she will be a regular at them with us next year. She adores anything that has to do with food.

And for some odd reason, Sugarwings has been setting an extra place at the table for my sisters. She is fascinated by them and talks about them a lot. I guess she knows how much I love and miss them, even though she has only met them a handful of times in her short life and they live far away.

Yes, its been a sweet December!

 

A foray into film

Yesterday, Beth came over for a puppy play date. Well, actually, we were working on Romantic White Christmas, but the dogs thought it was all about them.

We rearranged the furniture in my bedroom to make use of the mantel that I have as a headboard. The pups curled up on my bed and kept an eye on what we were doing as we foofed and decked the halls.

All of the projects we had made for the classes were brought out and displayed, then photographed for a talk on the basics of holiday display. (tomorrow's post on the Ezine) 

We've tried to make sure that there is a new post everyday on that blog, and that we give lots more than just the projects listed.  There are lots of extras, downloads, freebies, and ideas.

If you are in the class and would like to show what you've made, I've set up a Flickr page for us.

Also, if you have posted a creation from the Ezine on your blog, please let me know and I'll set up a link page to it.

 

 While it was all set up on my mantel, we made a video of the projects.  Using the Flipcamera editing software was a bit of a learning curve for both of us, but once we got going, it was much more simple than we thought. 

I'm looking forward to doing some baby videos now!

You might have noticed that I still haven't shown Silver Bella pictures??  I'm still not unpacked yet!

Except for a couple of little things.  I did unpack this lovely old print for my dining room. Its from our shopping excursion to St Joe on the way to Omaha.

And this purchase was from Sunday at Brass Armadillo with some Bellas. 

They could almost be the same lady in the print, huh?

 

I am linking with:

Tinsel and Company

and

Common Ground

 

 

Won't you be my neighbor?

 

Before my trip, I started building this little housing development.  Then, when I got home, Beth came over for a craft day, and brought a similar project to work on! 

 

Funny, how we both had the same idea at the same time without knowing what each other was doing!  Yet, we both took a different route with our cottages.   We took the same idea and each "made it our own", as they'd say on American Idol.

  

My houses started as cheapo, chip board books from the Michael's dollar bins.  But all the building materials that went into the renovations of these cottages were top notch!  I like to think of them as those run down neighborhoods where an artist moves in, fixes up a place and then makes the block trendy. So that everyone wants to live there after that.

  

Adding all the little details was the best part of redoing these plain houses into artist's cottages.  Lots of vintagey goodness went into the renovations.  The chip board was covered in old wallpaper, back and front, then I hand drew some welcome banners, butterflies and vines. 

The curtains are old lace, the door knobs are vintage buttons, and the window boxes are blooming with teensy flowers I transplanted from my hats.

 

You might have noticed, I have become infatuated with mosaics..... I'm really enjoying the Picassa editing tools.

If you like Mosaics too, check out http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/ for Mosaic Monday!

While making up houses (some are books, some are just wall hangings)  I made another butterfly book too.  Its not pictured with the houses because it is the same size, and would look like Mothra devouring the houses in the Godzilla movies if it was next to my dainty cottages.

 

I'll be adding this butterfly to the website this morning, the homes are already there.  And please wander through Beth's open houses too, she has some beauties inherEtsy shop right now.

 

All of the books, hers and mine, are ready for your own embellishments over the base of old papers we have used.

 

When Beth comes over, she always has some tid bit of cool stuff to bring to me.  If you read her blog, you know that her life is one great find after another.  Recently she found this box and when she saw that it said "Nathan" (my last name) on it, she brought it as a gift. Along with some new (old) wallpaper too.  She and I have a Wallpaper Pact. Whenever one of us finds more paper, the other gets a hunk of it.

Its a good way to keep jealousy from coming between friends while shopping! Plus, isn't it more fun to share the joy when you find something great?

While she was here last week, we were joined by Mary, Queen of the Logomachy cards.  She just got a new flip camera and wanted to play with it.  We made up a couple "how to" videos and I thought I'd show you one.

Now remember, its off the cuff, not planned.  Not professional at all, on my part!  And while Mary does a good job with editing, and has learned a lot about the camera, there are still moments when the angles are a bit odd and we decided that the title of the movie should be "Karla's Cleavage" instead of "Karla's Cottage".

Also, I might not be very good at loading the video onto the blog. If you can't see it here, you can click on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZYx1iIyid8