Redwood Park in Surrey
Redwood Park in Surrey has a secret.
In a clearing, in the middle of the park, you can find a bunch of Fairy Houses!
On Radio Station CKNW, a spot by Niki Reitmayer alerted us to the magic, in the middle of the forest!
Enjoy!
If you aren’t sure where Redwood Park is, here is a Google Map link…
A Fairy Letter in the Mail
Hola from Costa Rica!
Well, the nights turned cold. The days were rainy and windy. It was time for Violet Prettypetal to head for warmer climes.
So magically the fairy door in our little neighbor’s yard disappeared a few weeks ago, and Violet was on her way to her next adventure. She found herself a nice warm spot in Costa Rica. It took her a while to get there, but it was well worth the trip, according to the little letter she sent.
This little project is super easy. Make yourself a little envelope. On the internet, find some colorful pictures of the magical land your fairy has flittered off to. Print them, cut them. Write a little note.
Oh, and while you’re on the internet, search for images of postage stamps. Find some cute ones. Shrink them down teeny tiny, print them and cut them too.
Now, obviously, we need Mom’s help to place it in their mailbox. For surely, the postal carrier would lose this tiny 2 x 3-1/2 inch envelope! Not to mention the stamps are only real in MY mind.
There you have it. No special skills or tools required!
Fairy Bowls
These will bowl you over!
What are they, you ask?
They’re Fairy Bowls.
And this COULD be one of the easiest fairy craft projects so far! I figured I owed you something a little simpler after the Painstaking Pinwheel Project…
Find yourself some hazelnut caps or acorn caps. Fall is here, so you should soon be able to find some in any park or neighbor’s back yard! Very gently sand the bottom of the cap, so that it will sit flat like a bowl. Find some carpenter glue – or regular old white glue. The thicker the glue, the better. Squirt some into an old lid, or some wax paper or tin foil. Now all you need is something to color your glue. I used alcohol inks. But you could use a few drops of acrylic paint, fabric dye powder, even some koolaid powder! Mix the glue – and whatever you’re using to color the glue – with a toothpick. Get a little paint brush. If you don’t have one, a cotton swab, or even your finger, will do. Just something to apply the glue to the inside of the cap. Coat the inside liberally, making sure the paint goes all the way up to the edge on the inside. Don’t worry if it seems like too much. The excess will settle at the bottom of the cap and even itself out. Leave your little caps to dry for a day or two. When completely dry, the inside will be hard, shiny and smooth, like a little piece of Fairy pottery.
Have fun and keep the magic alive!
Cheers, Lorie
Fairy Pinwheel – This Really Blows!
This Totally Blows!
A Tiny Fairy Pinwheel, that is!
I’ve been pondering this project for a month or more, trying to figure out just exactly how to do it…. I wanted it to twirl, like a real one, if you blew on it. I’m warning you now, this project is for the crazy crafty type. It’s finicky, and requires a few tools any serious crafter would already have on hand, namely a riveting tool called the Crop a Dial by We R Memory Keepers.
You need some silver mylar sticker off-cuts. Yes, I know you can’t just go out and find yourself some of that! But I had some. I got it from a very awesome store in Vancouver called Urban Source. It’s an adorable little place for ‘alternative art materials’. They collect useable off-cuts, discards and over-stock from 100 different local industries. You can find the most awesome one-of-a-kind art materials, and even better, all this stuff is being kept from the land fill! I’m sure most larger cities have a place similar to this.
Anyway. Just recently we were there foraging for awesome fairy stuff, when I came across these sparkly sheets of mylar sticker off-cuts. I grabbed them, not knowing yet, what I would use them for.
And then it hit me! This is perfect for my itsy bitsy pinwheel. I had experimented with regular paper, but it wouldn’t bend nicely, it just folded in on itself. And, it wasn’t very sturdy either. I needed something that had some spring and would keep the bowed-out shape. I cut a little square of this sticker stuff, peeled off the backing and placed a piece of brightly colored paper on the sticky side. I now had a two-sided piece that could be bent into a pinwheel.
The measurements for this teeny tiny pinwheel are 1-1/4” square. I then punched a small hole in the center. Took some little scissors and cut lines up from each corner. I then punched little holes in every other point. I found that the easiest way to accomplish the finicky task of folding the pinwheel, was to take a round toothpick, poke it through the centre hole, and then bend each tip with a hole, onto the toothpick as well, putting a little dab of glue between each layer. I made a makeshift ‘clamp’ to keep the layers together while it dried, by using a pair of long tweezers, and then using a little fold-back clip to keep the tweezers closed. Once the glue had dried, I took my Crop A Dial riveting tool, punched through the existing center hole again, to make sure that I had a nice clean-edged hole down the center of all the layers …to fit the tiny rivet smoothly. Once the rivet was set in place, the hard part was over! I put a little seed bead and cute little sequin on a headpin, threaded it through the rivet hole, then the pinwheel, another bead on the back of the pinwheel, to give it a little room between it and the stick, for easy twirling. I found a little stick, drilled a 1/16” hole in it, and glued everything together. And there you have it. A Fairy Pinwheel.
Click here to open a PDF Pinwheel Template (Like the one shown above)
Click below to watch a quick video… it really blows!
Like I said, not for beginner crafters. But it’s so darn cute, it was worth all the effort. I hope our little neighbor friend is going to love it!
Have fun and keep the magic alive!
Cheers, Lorie
Making Fairy Kites
Come Fly With Me!
This might be my craftiest fairy project so far. A little more complicated than some of the previous little projects.
Ivy and Leaf got new kites! And promptly got them stuck on the roof of the wishing well.
Unfortunately, I made these before I decided to start sharing my fairy projects here. So I don’t have any exact dimensions. But here is the gist of it. I found some fancy paper, cut a kite-shape. I carefully turned all the edges under, probably an 1/8 of an inch. I cut two toothpicks the length and width of the kite. Now that I think of it, I believe the kite is the height of a toothpick…. Glue the toothpicks like a cross and then glue that onto the back of the kite paper. I then glued some little bits of yarn and ribbon to the bottom for a tail. Poked a hole in the kite where the toothpicks cross on the back, thread a length of thin string through the hole, tying it to the cross on the back. Then wrap the other end of the string around a little twig to make the spool. Put a little dab of glue on the spool to prevent it from unwinding.
And tada! Easy Peasy. Well, no, not really, but they turned out great and, I think, well worth all the effort!
Have fun and keep the magic alive!
Cheers, Lorie
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Fairy Swimming Pond
What a ‘Cool’ Idea – A Fairy Swimming Pond
A while back I mentioned the neato swimming pond we were making for the fairies, but somehow I forgot to blog about it when it was finally complete. Last summer was an exceptionally hot summer up here in Vancouver. The fairies next door were really suffering from the heat (as we all were). They needed some way to refresh themselves and cool off. So I put my thinking cap on, and came up with a pretty “cool” idea, if I DO say so myself!
Turns out a sardine can – or smoked oyster can – is the perfect shape – and just the right size for a fairy to do a lap or two. I used some alcohol inks to die the inside of the can a mottled blue, with a little bit of greenish marbling, to give the illusion of depth and ripples. And how will I decorate the outside of my pond? I just so happened to have a branch of plastic leaves in my Craft Room… (which will come as NO surprise to anyone who knows me, or has been following along with my projects!) I made some small holes just under the rim of the can with a metal punch. But you could certainly make holes with a good old hammer and nail. I also punched holes in the leaves, and then took some raffia and “sewed” the leaves around the edge of the tin. You know, just to make it a little more magical. But you could decorate the outside of the can in so many other clever ways. Maybe glue some small pebbles on the outside, or some bark. I’m sure you can come up with something just as clever.
When the swimming pond showed up, filled with water, it looked pretty sweet, I must say. Pansy and Poppy asked our little friend if she would please help them keep it full of water, because it was so heavy for them to carry water from the river miles away. And you know what? She did! Every time we left a surprise at the fairy door – that swimming pond was full to the top. What a sweetie.
Have fun and keep the magic alive!
Cheers, Lorie
Fairy Treasure Hunt – Year 2
Last month I told you about the treasure hunt the fairies created a few years back, for our little friend next door.
She loved it SO much, that we did it again last summer. But — different fairies – so different treasure hunt! The previous hunt was with the painted and jewel-encrusted little pebbles, with little rhyming clues leading her from one treasure to the next.
Last summer, the new fairies, weren’t QUITE as ambitious or poetic. But – just as clever!
The new treasures were made from little slabs of branch, dyed and painted with magical words, and, of course, embellished with sequins, sparkles, and magic dust, as only a fairy could do.
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Whilst hiding the treasures, THIS little fella came along. The fairies thought THAT was pretty magical, and showered him with their blessings. |
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The fairies got carried away and made over 20 of these treasures, which they call “doodlewinks”. So there were actually two treasure hunts. One at the beginning of summer, and one near the end.
Not much instruction is required. You can see from the pictures, exactly how they turned out. You could, of course, paint rocks, or anything else you might think of, along the same lines.
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Fairy Money
Last summer, I shared the story of the lucky penny our sweet little neighbor left for Petal and Thorn, and the itsy bitsy lucky fairy penny, they left in return. We told her this lucky fairy penny was strictly for good luck and that our real money was shells. I just happened to have tiny little shells – where I got them, I do not know! (although, I’m sure you can pick some up at a craft or hobby store, or maybe even find some on the beach if you are lucky enough to live close to one!) I put them in a tiny little plastic box and left them on the fairy doorstep. You can see just how tiny they were.
A few weeks later, talking to Mom, she had the cutest story. The family was at the beach. The kids were busy looking for shells. She asked what they were going to do with the shells. Our little friend, with all the logic of a pretty smart kiddo, said that if she could find a BIG shell for the fairies – they’d be RICH!
Ah, if only that were how life worked….
Happy Spring everyone!
It won’t be much longer, before the fairies come back from Bermuda (and other warm places)!
Have fun and keep the magic alive!
Cheers,
Lorie
Stringing You Along
Last Summer, our little neighbor left a note telling her fairies what she liked to do… Soccer, gymnastics, rollerblading. She asked what Pansy and Poppy liked to do. They said they liked to skip rope – and were VERY good at it!
(We also told her we liked to swim – stay tuned for the pretty neat “swimming pond” I made.)
(As always, you can click on any image to open it in a pop-up gallery)
Making these tiny skip ropes was a piece of cake. Yes a piece of cake was ACTUALLY involved! I bought a cake at the bakery. This awesome red and white striped string was tied around the box. I kept the string. I always keep the string. I never throw ANYTHING out. I can blame my mother and grandmother for that…
Then one day, the light bulb went off. There really WAS a purpose to saving that string (other than creating a delightful tangle in the junk drawer, that is). I cut the string to a length of about 5 or 6 inches. I found some old copper wire in the garage that we carefully cut and slid the rubber casing off of. If you don’t have any rubber coated wired, I’m sure you could come up with something else. A long-ish bead, maybe some kind of tube pasta, a little bit of fimo… Anyway, then the business of getting the string through your handle. I fished the string through with a tiny crochet hook, because I just happen to have every size of crochet hook ever made, right down to the teeny tiniest. But I bet you could also do it with a darning needle with a big eye. Or, tightly tie a piece of regular thread around the string and pull it through the handle. Tie a knot at each end of the string. Tada! Fairy skipping ropes.
(For those of you wondering what The Calgary Stampede is – it’s Canada’s most famous rodeo, held every July in Calgary, Alberta… home of the 1988 Winter Olympics.)
The fairies had not left a note for her for almost a whole week – so naturally they must have been away on vacation somewhere! They went to the Stampede because they heard there was “roping”.
Unfortunately it was calf roping and not skip roping… but they had fun anyway!
(Oh – and by the way – back in September I mentioned the latest craze … adult coloring books. Lucky me, I got one for Christmas! AND, yes, just as I thought – I DO love it!
Are you feeling stressed out? I highly recommend you get yourself a coloring book!)