I was blessed with a brand new granddaughter last week and while I was down helping my daughter for a wee bit with cooking and cleaning and what not, I had the opportunity to do a photo shoot with some beautiful wee faeries, Olivia and Anastasia.  Enjoy the magic.

Nothing particularly arty farty, just a walk through the local county fair to see a few fun crafts.  I couldn't spend as much time viewing the exhibits as I typically do as I had a four year old and one year old in tow. 




Silly and whimsical kitties.




More whimsy, and of course Halloween theme caught my eye!




Pink AND faeries - Joli loved it.




I liked the thin, soft, minkee backing and the butterfly quilting choices.




Cute flowers.




Sorry the photo is a bit out of focus but I think you can see that there's huge amount of piecing work in this large bed quilt.  Very nice.  It won Best of Show.




Fun bright colors, not sure what it's meant for - the wall?  A table?  This is about as artsy as it gets at the fair.  The judges don't seem to know how to judge anything that's too far outside traditional quilting style.




I liked that the trees weren't all tree colors.




I can't help it, I love scrappy quilts made from a collection of theme fabrics.  This one is all kitties!  I've made monkey quilts, faery quilts, turtle quilts, cooking/food quilts..... probably others themes I can't think of right now.




I also love aprons and I actually wear them a lot.  They were handy back in the "good ol' days" and they're still handy, I don't know why more people don't use them on a regular basis.  This one had a beautiful soft edge with zig zag piping as well.





Another pink quilt that Joli loved.  (Joli is a four year old girl, so, duh, pink equals love)



Nothing fancy but I loved the rich sherbet happiness of this quilt and the patchy framing.




Moving on to other crafts, I liked this welded spiderweb and spider.




I'd totally put this alligator in my garden.





And I'd double totally put Fred the Dragon in my garden.  He was awesome.   I wish they'd put him someplace with a more photogenic background.





There was a California Mission class, a clever way for all the California 4th graders to get another opportunity to show off their mandatory mission making.  I helped my kids make several of these and joke (only I'm a teensy bit serious too) that I homeschooled William in part because I refused to be forced to help with another mission project!  I think we studied medieval history for his 4th grade.  But to offset that, he's actually visited many of the California missions in person.  Joli was completely transfixed by the missions and wanted to leave the fair right then and there and rush home and MAKE A MISSION.  Uhm.... No.





Speaking of medieval history, this was the best I could do with all the reflections, can you see this amazing carved castle!?!




Another photo that is just layers of reflections but I sort of like it.  Joli and I were admiring the faery houses when a passerby corrected us, telling us they were actually BIRD houses.  Yeah, yeah, whatever, did we ASK you?!  I prefer our interpretation.




These metal creatures weren't entered in the fair, they were a vendor's art.  We really liked them.  Joli wanted the brontosaurus.





Instead I bought these three little worker ants.  The one in the back, a little hard to see, has a broom and dustbin.  Hopefully they'll keep my back garden paths all cleaned up so I can sit back and relax for the rest of the summer.  They've only been at work for a few days, we'll see how useful they are as time goes on.

If you're interested, the artist has a website - Man of Steel Art.   It's not a fancy website, his work is much nicer in person!

I know it's been at least a light year since I've posted.  Okay, I know, a light year is a measurement of distance, not time, but it sounded good.  Anyway, it's been a long time, and I don't want you to faint or anything that I'm posting.  It's just, I finally finished the last little creative bits on a dear friend of mine. 





His name is Drift.  He was wandering about on an Oregon beach when I found him, a bit waterlogged from the tides and all.  We got to talking.  Hit it off right away. I offered to take him home and he thought the idea of somewhere snug and warm - not to mention dry - sounded good, and so that was that. 



But he was feeling a bit restrained lately I guess. Can't say I blame him, what with the cool, restless winds we've been having the last several days.  He just couldn't stand it anymore and decided to go out into the gardens for a bit of a walkabout.




I don't think he was expecting the terrain to be quite so rugged.  I warned him.  I said "Remember, I've been so busy, I'm woefully behind on weeding.  It's like a jungle out there."  I don't think he believed me.  Unfortunately, by the time he decided maybe it wasn't such a good idea to be out there on his own, he was lost!




Eventually he found a clearer spot. He decided to clamber up to a higher vantage point to see if he could find which direction to head back to the house.  Aha!  There it was, the back door.  He just had to follow the cobbled path.





He thought he was home free when, oh no!  Suddenly a pack of ferocious gargoyles were headed straight for him!!!!  He was frozen with fear!




The creatures were almost upon him... he raised his staff to fend them off ....but wait.  The giant creatures might have looked frightful but to his surprise they were unexpectedly gentle.  They sniffed at him for a moment, and then as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone.


 

Drift didn't want to push his luck.  He headed quickly for the house, where he gratefully climbed back to his cozy home on the poetry shelf.  It might not be the most exciting location, he thought, but he'd had enough of that back on the beach what with seagulls and crashing waves and dark, stormy nights. 

Still, he had enjoyed most of his outing today, up until he'd gotten lost.  He might like to go out to the gardens again, although next time he'd wait until he could get a human to accompany him, in case those humongous gargoyles were still roaming loose.  Until then he'd stay warm and safe on his little shelf, where gargoyles were the PROPER size.

I've been busy.  You might have noticed, if only in the sense that I've been absent here.  But I've been working on some outfits for this year's Faerieworlds Festival (coming up soon! Soon! Soon! Panic! So much left to do!!!!)

I decided to finish Hubby's outfits first (so he'd stop bugging me) and next on to my outfits.  After that come one or two ideas for the grandson.  And then back to an optional outfit for Hubby.  AND I have a chandelier to make - yes, a chandelier.  And some other ... stuff.  I suppose I don't have to list it all, but you can see why I'm feeling last minute-y.

Hubby was a pirate last year for Bad Faerie Day.  He wanted to be a pirate again this year, only he wanted to be an even more AWESOME pirate. 





We found him this scruffy old leather jacket.  I think the fact that it's well used adds to it's pirate-y charm.  Here's the front.





And here's the back.




And here's what it looks like redone as a pirate jacket.  It's got new buttons that you can't see clearly here but they (serendipitiously unplanned) match the new tooled leather design of the sleeve cuff fabric.  I was going to add more patterned leather on the pockets and collar but didn't think through the fact that I'd have to sew through four layers of leather.  So, that's a no.  But I still think it looks great.




A little extra fancy strap with matching buttons on the back.




And check out the amazing skull buttons on the cuffs.  These babies were NOT cheap.  But how could I resist!




Here's a little peek at the full outfit.

After the pirate jacket was finished, I started work on his Good Faerie Day outfit, a sort of elven Mad Hatter theme.  I forgot to take Before and After photos of the pieces I refashioned, but here's the end result.




He's lacking the boots and pointy ears but, I think it turned out great!

Tralalalalalalala! OWOH Winner Announcement!

Being a night owl, I kept my comments open until midnight last night, certain that I could choose the winner immediately after.  Alas, the weather gremlins had other plans and were out in the snowstorm knocking down power lines and running the poor electrical company crew workers a merry chase.  Let's hope the workers appreciated both the overtime pay and the magical sparkling snow illuminated by a full moon.




Here she was last night peeking out between a thin spot in the clouds.




Lighting up the icicles clinging to the roofline and shrubbery.  (Ni! Ni!)




 And look, I wasn't kidding about the sparkling snow.  You can sorta kinda see a few sparkles (in particular, look at the bottom left hand corner).  You have to trust me, in real life, it was dazzling.  And I took these photos on a regular camera setting with no flash.  The shadows were even sharper in person as well, at 1 am-ish in the wee hours.

Other than a quick dash out to let the chihuahuas do their thing and snap a few photos, I was inside eating brownie sundaes and playing a fierce game of Scrabble by a card table near a roaring fire.  No heat.  Certainly no internet.  And as much as we adore our cyberlives, sometimes it's  good to get back to the most basic of experiences. Oui? 

Well, enough already with the backstory.  The point being, there was no online random generator to select the winner.  No problemo.  I happen to know a few fae folk who are willing to guide me to the once and future king... no, wait.  Wrongstory.  To the rightful winner.  And, so they did.  In their typically wise and amusing way.

The winner of my door prize is -

Marianna of Vintage Arabesque (love the name of your blog!)  

The faeries say YOU must be the proud new owner of a handful of Butt Roses.  Please let me know what color(s) you would like me to make your roses.  Choose up to three colors.  I'll email you backchannel for your mailing address.

           **************

Postscript: I have mixed feelings about another OWOH event being over (and although it is indeed the final OWOH, check out Lisa's post announcing a new and, I believe, IMPROVED event beginning next year!).  On one hand, I only managed to visit a fraction of the participats this year (but I won! I won one very perfect prize - tell you 'bout that later).  On the other hand, I was spending all my spare time online.  And let's face it - "spare time" - SPARE????
 
Now the prize deadline passed, the pressure is off.  Whew.  I do still plan to find snippets of time when I can lace up my cyberboots and spend time wandering through the links, discovering more new blog friends and returning to some of my old favorites.  And I want to spend an equal amount of time here, preparing new posts for other creative travelers who may knock on my blog doors.  (My other blog is here.)  I also want to spend time doing some major revamping on both blogs.  To say "Yeah, they need it." is an understatement.  To say "Oh really, I hadn't noticed." is a clear sign that you need to go visit your friendly neighborhood optometrist.) It'll be nice, to slow down the pace.  I look forward to many cups of tea together.