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A little catch-up blog filled with lots of flower fairies and summery photos of a few fairies that have fluttered their way to new destinations...
Hello again! I hope you've been enjoying some spacious summer moments and it's hard to believe that time has marched on so quickly again... It feels like a little while since the last fairy update, and indeed plenty of fairies have flown the nest over the last few months...
It took me a while to go through all my pictures, and curate them into a little collection of images to share. Choosing can be tricky at times because I really love them all! I truly love sending them off into the world, but I also often think "ooh I want to keep you" before I do... so although it's never quite the same, the photos I take also bring a lot of joy when I look back at them :-)
This lovely pair of flower fairies went off to the Museum in the Park a few weeks ago. I hand-made the felt for their petal skirts, as I always do, as well as the their flowers and flower-crowns. I sourced the beautiful miniature flower-heads earlier in the year and they have been inspiring me all summer... I love that they are all different, so when I put them together to make the flowers and crowns that accompanies each fairy, they are also unique and one of a kind. These two have longer legs, are about 22-25cm tall and full-skirted (it can be tricky to tell the size in the pictures!). I was so pleased with them and know they will be very happy in their new homes too!
Although we haven't had much of a summer here in the UK this year, I couldn't resist making these little strawberry fairies! I hand-felted the strawberries - which turned out to be a lovely exercise in observation. I started by needle-felting the basic shape, and it was my husband who reminded me how strawberries actually look by passing me an actual strawberry from the fridge to study - it made such a difference, and I was really pleased how cute they looked when they were finished! This little trio also went off to the Museum in the Park a few weeks ago...
Earlier in the year I enjoyed playing with some vintage fabrics that I found at the Frome Independent Market in March this year. I love to use off-cuts of one-off pieces, and especially vintage, fabrics as it's fun to envision how one small piece of fabric can have a new lease of life, but also it means that the skirts or decorative details that I make from them are one-offs and unique as well. And because my fairy clothes are essentially miniature - a little goes a long way, and no fabric needs to be wasted. I made some bows, head-bands and pom-fringed skirts from one piece of floral fabric; some examples can be seen in the pictures below...
After all the sparklyness of the autumn and Christmas season last year and through the winter, flower-fairies have definitely been an inspiration and theme all through the rest of this year... The two fairies below did go to different shops, and were made at different times, but they do complement each other so beautifully in these pictures as well... The fairy with the yellow flowers was made in the spring and I felt that she really reflected some of the colours and wildflowers in our local landscape at that time of year... and the fairy with the dusky pink flowers spoke to me of early summer in a tranquil rose garden. I think all of the flower fairies this year have had such a lovely whimsical feel to them too!
Again, the fairies below went off to different shops even though they complemented each other really well as pairs. The beautiful purple fairies were inspired by the little purple flowers, as well as my purple wool - they went together perfectly :-) The fairy with the vintage skirt also has a vintage button on her dress - one of a small set of four that I found in Haberdashery Twist (where some of the fairies below are also sold) a few years ago. The ribbon on the skirt of the big-heart fairy is also from Haberdashery Twist, and was a starting point for her colour scheme.
Alongside fairy-making we've had plenty of fun with our Kids Art Spot projects and film/tutorial making. All of these projects are now live in the Kids Art Spot membership art club. All the projects are things that can be easily made in a few steps and with materials that are often already around the home, including things like soup cartons - which we used for the cute little fairy houses in the first picture below! All the videos in the Kids Art Spot are designed for children to easily and safely follow along at home, without the need for You Tube (and all the distractions that can bring!).
As ever, we've tried to keep a few personal projects going as well. I'm slowly adding a few rows to my crochet blanket and we often have drawing projects on the go too. But sometimes these projects do slip away for a bit, when life gets busy... at these times I try to remind myself that creativity can happen in the tiniest of moments, and doesn't have to be about working towards a goal, it can just be a playful moment, or a new way of thinking about something. I took the picture below on our way out of a cafe earlier in the summer, on one of the first sunny days... I thought the colours of these daisies against the stone and the wall were so pretty. And it reminded me that I used to love spotting and taking photos of wild flowers or other plants growing through the cracks in pavements or walls... A tiny moment of pause, of noticing and of hope, too I think, knowing that life and beauty, always finds a way through...
I really hope this blog post finds you well wherever you are and wishing you a restful bank holiday weekend (if you're in the UK) and a lovely last few days of summer too. ♥
