Welcome to our Fairy Wonderland

Welcome to our fairy wonderland. My oldest daughter Cammy is all about fairies. This year I built the girls a fairy house of sorts. I used Karma's old crib sides for the main structure and secured them to a shady tree. Then I cut the wisteria and grape vine back and wove a nice domed top for the house. It is actually big enough for me to stand up in. We had an old column off of a porch that was all painted up....it kinda looks like a chimney. We also added a piece of old broken fence and even made a walkway complete with stepping stones and secret passage going behind the house. Cammy has added her own touch by painting a door and she has filled the house with large seashells for dishes among other natural things. I had done this once before when we were renting a home but I used twisted crepe myrtle branches that time and let Cammy weave yarn and other things into the sides of it.
Here is little Karma our resident fairy upon occasion.

We have set up a little oasis for weary traveling fairies to rest at when their wings are tired from a long flight.
We caught sight of a fairy one morning but she flew away before we could catch her in the butterfly net.
Cammy has put together an edible fairy garden on the back porch in the shade of the umbrella trying to entice a fairy friend. Karma has been having tons of fun watering the garden and making the little ceramic animals play in the mud. Everything that we planted is actually edible : chives and lettuces. Karma is a bit confused with what is edible in the yard right now. I am having to keep a close eye on her. With seeing us pulling up radishes and picking herbs and lettuce...she is trying to pick and eat leaves off of just about anything right now.
We also found this old abandoned castle. We aren't sure but it looks like trolls might have stormed the castle because part of it is broken and it is empty, there is no furniture or anything in it.

Mushroom houses

Take a look at these mushroom houses that we found under the weeping willow tree in our front yard. How cute is that...little windows for the fairies. We have had lots of fun this fall taking walks and photographing mushrooms. When it rains here they seem to pop up within an afternoon. It amazes me how fast mushrooms can spore and populate a nice moist yard. We live near a lake and a saltwater marsh and there are always mushrooms to be found near them both. We take care to never eat any of them and we always wash our hands if we have handled any of them. We have yet to check out a book about mushrooms from the local library but it will have to be on our next visit.
Wow! Look at this nice big mushroom cap. What could we do with it?

Cammy being the fierce defender of the fairies has made it into an umbrella to keep the fairies dry. Apparently it also doubles as a magic staff of mushroom power....her imagination is limitless.


Cammy thought these mushrooms looked like hamburger buns.

I don't know much about mushrooms....but this was one of the only ones we found that had a frilly skirt under it. Hence the need for us to get to the library to check this out...after we wash our hands.
These were some of the nastiest looking mushrooms we have found to date. Someone had apparently stepped on them before we came by and they looked like rotting meat. Yuck!

And here is a closeup of one of the mushrooms with a view.

We had a "fairy"ly good weekend indeed

Gillie Du, I think his name was....made quite an impression on Karma this weekend. He is the yuckiest fairy of them all because he picks and eats his boogers....he showed us (really did)! She has been picking her nose ever since.
He wasn't the only strange site we encountered jugglers and acrobats with swords, knives, chainsaws and fire....and oh yeah a few balls too.
This guy was amazing.
The tree man caught me offguard. I thought it was a sculpture and was about to touch it when it hugged some people right in front of me.
Cammy got to see "Mother Goose"
There were amazing artwork and crafts to see.
We had a great time at the renaissance festival. Cammy especially loved the fairy that befriended her and gave her a magic pebble. Cammy in turn gave the fairy some of the treasure that she later got from the pirates that we saw. Upon returning home she has been drawing more fairies than ever...I don't have enough paper to keep up with her need to draw sometimes. I have taken to getting our groceries in the paper bags just so that I have some kind of extra paper for art around the house. We just cut them open and turn them inside out so that you don't see the logo and voila you have a giant piece of paper to draw on and they take paint well too.
Last night we watched the new Tinkerbell movie....Cammy had earned a well deserved treat. Today she was busy trying to catch a fairy and getting quite frustrated in the process. She just couldn't understand why no fairies would come to her. She said it was obvious that she was a nice girl. I pointed out that standing in the driveway with a jar and a piece of rope to trip the fairies and trap them might not be the most welcoming sight for a fairy and that they tended to shy away from big people things anyway.....at which point she stormed off in her own little furious six year old way. Later she came out with a plan to make amends and apparently it was the water fairies birthday and she would be quite upset if Cammy didn't have a tea party with her or give her a gift. I was very busy trying to load the pottery into the kiln so she took it upon herself to mix up a fairy dust concoction as a gift. Five minutes later with lots of glitter and moonsand on the studio floor she was pleased to display a bowl full of fairydust to give to the water fairy. Who knows....maybe the water fairy will come and give her a goodnight kiss and leave a present under her pillow.

Fairy feeding time

So, the other day the girls and I had one of those "best day ever" kinda days. We started out the day doing a little yard work....which you can see Karma joined right in on. This kid is only one year old but she has some serious determination to do just what the big people are doing. She actually raked up that pile. Meanwhile her big sister was catching fairies.
Disappointed because all she caught was a stink bug. Yuck!
We decided that maybe if we left the fairies a special treat, then maybe they would come around. So off we went to find the rarest and most delectable flowers and herbs to prepare our special offering. Through the enchanted forest with it's tickling trees and onward.
We had to climb this impossible twisted massive beanstalk to get the magic beans to put in our soup.
We know where the fairies like to picnic....by the spotted orange mushroom house that Cammy made for them. They love to sit on the little brown bench and watch all the bugs.
Cammy made a wonderful soup with a broth of rainwater and tender zinnia petals and a sprinkling of butterfly bush flowers accented with a few chives. She was so proud of her soup..."but it smells bad...like poop" she says to me. I took a whiff and boy it did!!! Apparently along our enchanted forest trek she had picked up something the cat or some other animal left behind. This made for a most unpleasant discovery. So we did a quick dump of the beautiful concoction and a quick wash of the hands and opted for some leftover banana bread instead. She was convinced that the fairies would be satisfied with the bread. It was all gone the next day so they must have liked it.

Fairy Fortress

Cammy being the fierce defender of fairy territory has set up fairy camp headquarters by the edge of the driveway. Don't you just love the sweet little fairy door she made for them. She keeps adding to it. Today she left them a speckle glazed clay egg that I made back at Easter. Earlier this week she added her precious rocks that she had collected over the two weeks that she spent with her Nana this summer. She feeds them well giving them seeds and flowers and the occasional goldfish or cheerios. She leaves them water filled pots after the rain from the edge of the studio as well. Cammy has quite a fierce spirit and gets mad at my husband Mark when he cuts the grass, saying that he is destroying their homes. Hopefully they will like this new territory she has staked out for them.

fairy mural

I have finished part of Cammy's bedroom mural. I didn't get as much finished while she was gone as I had dreamed. She loved it and has grand plans for the rest of the mural. Cammy said that she wanted to paint a cowgirl fairy with cowgirl boots, a cowgirl hat and some cowgirl clothes riding an ant with a mane,a tail and a saddle.