My girls love the dog beaches.
Especially the puppy.
The off leash parks are the faves of all of us.
Of course I have never met a beach I didn’t like. But I have to admit that Jupiter’s off leash beach is ranked up there with Siesta Key as a perfect destination.
The seashell fairy ingredients are abundant!
The fun from the wings we made with Miss Tree just keeps on coming.
It is special to have an opportunity to play dress up, and go into the woods like sprites.
We even attempted to fly like real fairies.
Some were pretty durn good at levitating.
Others, not so much…
Everyone jumped on the count of three, and you snap the photo at one or two to catch them airborne.
I preferred pretending to fly, not actually jumping up. (By the way, this is a dress I bought way back in the 90s. I wonder if it is considered vintage now? I buy what I love and wear it forever, and clothes never feel dated to me)
And everyone was kind to pose in ways that I can cut the photo up to make banners or captured fairies.
Won’t this one be sweet in a jar?
And this one framed?
These three can fly beautifully, cut out and hanging from a banner.
My husband even participated and said he enjoyed it. He’s a bee keeper and Katie made some cute bee wings for him. But I am not allowed to post those. You’ll have to take my word for it, he was adorable.
A bird shaped rock! Isn’t it cool? Well, the front is head, back and wing shaped, the tail part is a second rock and they just kind of slid together perfectly to create a bird.
I was so excited to see it on the shore of our lake.
Then I found a dinner plate sized heart rock with a hag stone hole in it. This was my lucky day.
And a beautiful day at that.
A great afternoon for the trails around the lake.
The dogs thought it was their lucky day too.
The wing project the Miss Tree gifted the family with at Winter Solstice is a gift that never ends. Not only did we have day after day of fun with creating the wings, I made captured and framed fairies for the mantel from one of our two adventures in fairy dress up parties.
She has become a master wingmaker (Katie, you need an Etsy shop!) and crafted these for my son, to look like oak leaves.
He and Dewdrop were here for a much too quick visit, and while at the cottage, he took the time to remake my garden entryway. The vines put up years ago had started to fall, and most of the twinkle lights had given up their glow.
More native grape vines were gathered in the woods and he came up with the idea of forming a heart instead of just a random design.
See how he incorporated the scrolls of the fence to complete the point of the heart?
I’ll have more pictures of our dress up night, and of the projects I make with the photos later on. Because like I said, the wing party from Katie just keeps on giving. I can’t wait to add more fairies to my fireplace mantel.
Plus pics of the fabulous heart with blooming vines growing around it this summer! Won’t that be lovely?
Thank you, Katie and Adam, for the beauty you bring to my world.
My boy is in town from North Carolina and we love being able to have the family together for adventures.
The evening began with some ax throwing out by my husband’s log cabin.
We were not only blessed by having a passel of pixies to play with, but the most beautiful spring break weather you could ask for, too.
The day before, I made up batches of vegan and of meaty, veggie calzones plus home made bread sticks and salad, so I could relax and enjoy the evening without worrying about dinner. Making up meals ahead of time sure makes life easier at family gatherings. I whipped up vegan, lemon cheesecake and dark chocolate cupcakes while I was at it.
Then we lit all the garden lights, fired up the fire pit and sticks, turned on the music and took turns playing with the flames.
I had a box of rainbow powder and the grand fairies added that to the flames, and I was impressed at how pretty the colors were. I got the $5 box of three at Walmart and it lasted all evening. I’ll be buying more of those.
At first, I was overly cautious and worried the children would burst into a fiery ball of death. But they were following rules and having sooooo much fun, I soon let go and enjoyed the show.
Even to the point where I shocked everyone by joining in! I am clumsy with no sense of rhythm, but who cares?
After everything we have all been through as a family, a country, and a planet this year, I think it’s time to let go of fears and enjoy what’s in front of us.
You can’t take life for granted, live it to its fullest, even if it means doing some bad dancing like a fool with or without a torch.
Some of the pictures from our fairy family photo shoot were simply ideal to use in cute ways, like Thia, here in this bottle.
And the bottle was ideal too! It’s a plastic bottle that unscrews from the bottom and came filled with candy. Why oh why didn’t I buy a case of them instead of just one? I’ve not seen another one since. I got the candy at Tuesday Morning a couple years ago, it was a brand I hadn’t seen before. I can’t remember what flavor it was filled with, but who cares, all candy is good and this bottle was meant to be a unique and wonderful craft supply!
Any container that has a good sized opening on the bottom is much easier to catch a fairy in than trying to use tweezers to slide them into a narrow top. This is an upside down sauce jar, not a fancy shape, but she went into it nicely. I should probably add flowers to the top to disguise it more.
The photo of me with Molly is printed a little larger than the girls, so I could layer them in prospective. I’m glued directly to the glass, a smaller Dewdrop a bit behind me, and slightly smaller Sugarwings a bit higher and to the side behind her.
Their photos didn’t show feet, so I used moss to hide that. In all the dioramas, I added pussy willow branches as trees, because I think fairies would really love to hang out under fuzzy, soft trees like that if given a choice.
This pic would’ve worked well in a box too, but is just so lovely, I wanted it framed as is.
And I thought the two of these were cute as a bug next to each other.
Our family has been known to don wings on more than one occasion. Here are pictures of the Guncles that I thought should be added to the grouping. I have one of my sissies that needs to go up here too.
This picture is from the grand masquerade we attended. I cut out the girls and glued them to a little blue mirror and glued it to the rosy tin lid. I don’t know where the bottom of the tin went, but held onto the lid, knowing I’d find a use for it someday.
Blue mirrors are significant in the fairy world! You can spot them in your garden by holding up a blue mirror and peering into it, looking over your shoulder to see them flitting about.
These sisters are glued to an amber glass, beveled “moon” and then onto a painting that Dewdrop made.
She swirled lots of glitter paint onto a paper plate, then smooshed it onto a canvas. Gorgeous, isn’t it? I think it looks like woodland flowers.
Twinkle lights are strewn throughout the display. I’ll get a photo of it lit up when I add more fairies to the mantle. The lights twirl between the frames, then up into my set of wings hung over the mirror. I didn’t realize while doing it that the lights formed a heart shape!
On Winter Solstice, our Katie Tree brought over wing making supplies that turned into weeks of creativity and craftiness for us all. Afterwards, we had a fairy fashion show and played dress up with our fabrications.
I thought I’d hang my pretty, Tinker Bell style wings in the studio, and probably will later on. But for the beginning of spring, I wanted to display them on the mantle with some of the framed pictures we took.
Looking through my stash, I found some appropriate frames, and a couple of shadow boxes that made me think of doing just a bit more than simply framing the pictures as is.
Most pics were groupings, and it wasn’t possible to cut out individual bodies. But there were a few that I could make work.
Even without complete bodies, if tilted and used right, I had plenty of fairies to use. Each one got some embellishing with glitter and metallic inks.
This vintage mirror was ideal for showcasing some flying fairies.
I’ll have some more close ups in my next post.
A very close, supportive, and caring friend recently lost her mother.
She had been there for me when my Ryan died, and had a suggestion that helped me tremendously to cope with not having him by my side.
Her suggestion was to write to him. And I did, repeatedly.
Long, tear stained letters.
Quick funny notes about something that had happened and I knew that he’d enjoy laughing at with me.
A jotted down memory.
Stories of what I’d done that day, or how many steps I got, what we had for dinner.
A simple, “I miss you.”
Maybe writing to her mother could help my friend with her own grief. So I made a book for that holds pockets and envelopes to place writings or mementos, little stacks of note paper, pages to write in or add photos to.
The book is a planner from Michaels that had mostly blank pages, but also some printed ones with prompts for journaling. On this page, I wrote words about Judy that her daughter used when talking about her in a memorial she had written about her love of family.
I printed the paragraphs out and placed them in the book too.
Then I found Facebook photos to print and added a few to some pages. Not too many, the book is mostly blank for her to use as she’d like.
My friend is a stained glass artist with a bright, bohemian style, so I tried to make the journal in cheerful colors she would like.
The front cover is one of my pour paintings, cut up and glued on.
After seeing how kind everyone was to me after my son died, I pledged to be a better friend. Honestly, there is nothing anyone can do to make things better when you lose a loved one. But showing that they care and reaching out does ease the pain. So I wanted to do this for my pal, and I hope that writing to her mom helps her get through this.
Last fall, we took a trip to the pumpkin patch, after an extremely LONG time of no regular outings. The grand fairies and I typically had a schedule of getting out and exploring on a regular basis. In the summer, it was the pool, park, zoo, and more. In the fall, we'd go to the pumpkin patch multiple times and host pumpkin craft parties after.
2020? not quite the same. But we masked up, and social distanced our way through the punkin patch, and made the most of a day out. We were pretty happy to be there, too, even with the restrictions and changes that had to be implemented.
We probably bought way too many pumpkins, hoping to have a carving party with Fin and Clover, but the weather didn't cooperate, and we couldn't get together outside, so I made use of the gourds as best as I could.
When the pups were tiny, I liked to do photo shoots with them for their new families, so these were great to use as props for posing puppies.
After Halloween, I spray painted some of them white and added a touch of glitter to the tops, and placed them into flower pots in front of the house. Others got turned into pies.
(The white pumpkins make the best pies, uhm, not the painted white ones, the REAL white ones.)
Now, it is time to clean up the front porch and get rid of the pumpkins who have seen better days. They are squishy and wrinkled, but instead of tossing them out, they went to the hens. The birds don't eat the rind, so didn't even bother with the painted exterior. They went right for the tasty seeds inside.
I guess I didn't have too many pumpkins after all! At least the chickens didn't think so. We have been giving them a couple a week and they are pretty happy with the treats.
It has been a long, cold week here in Kansas, as it has been in a large part of the country. We were only without power for a few hours, and our pipes froze up until we (meaning Rich) tucked a tarp around the bushes in front of where the pump goes into the basement.
My heart goes out to the Texans who went through much worse.
We built a big fire, piled our dogs and blankets on our laps and were just fine. When we heard the weather forecast of bone chilling cold and about the possibility of rolling black outs to protect the grid, we did what we could to protect ourselves and pets.
I charged all of our devices and extra power packs, filled the bath tubs with water to use for flushing, and Rich brought some five gallon water bottles in from the garage. We had plans in place if things got worse, but never needed to start hanging tarps up in the hearth room or lighting candles in terra cotta pots for extra warmth.
Our dogs were very excited to see that the hens came to live in the basement for about a week or so during the coldest stretch. And the cats were happy to be tucked into the hen house with all of the warmers and heated water out there, plus a cozy, insulated little box full of cushions to snuggle up in. While I was not quite as happy about chickens as house pets with hay tracked all over the kitchen from Rich’s boots and the dog’s feet, I was glad to know they were safe.
And that they didn’t really smell that bad. Just a tad of a whiff now and then.
But I did enjoy hearing their chatter and singing coming up through the vents.
We did just fine, and I hope you are okay too? Days like that can sure make you appreciate what you have, huh? And remind me that I am blessed.
That we have a cute long cabin just for fun, and not as our actual shelter.
Well, it is fun to have it now. It was not an easy thing to build. Maybe emotionally as much as physically for Rich.
Chopping, hauling, and stacking the logs, coming up with the design and crafting the building throughout a long, hot summer was his way of working through the pain of losing our son. I think a lot of tears mixed with the sweat of the hard work.
The project was mostly completed before winter came. He still needs to gather fieldstone to enclose the chimney and is waiting for the logs to settle before chinking between them.
The fireplace is functional, but not usable yet because of all the gaps between logs, the draft pulls too much smoke through the interior.
See what I mean about drafts?
For now, it is a little garage for our mower. Later on, he will build a table from some wood leftover out of our grandfather tree (a special oak that he used to tell stories to the grandfairies beneath. It fell over and was used to make our dining room table and dog crate) and add a hammock too.
