A Splash of Paint

I have been painting away these cold February days - glancing out of the window to notice the sun when it ventures out but otherwise engrossed in learning how to paint again. It has only been a few months since I spent a block of time with my paint box but it's amazing how much one has to relearn after time spent away. I'm showing the ones I'm happy with but I could just have easily photographed a bin full of the ones that just weren't up to scratch ( always painful to scrap the picture that has some nice bits and that you've spent ages on, but no matter how much you creep up at it from all angles it just doesn't have the magic to get it through quality control. )

Iris fairies. I love the shapes that these flowers make and hard to pare down the detail in them ( I'm always too keen to put everything in ) so I wanted them to be bleached out and in doing so I think they become a bit ghostly and hopefully magical at the same time.

Daisy fairies. I was drawn to the delicate tracery of foliage in these plants.

Poppy fairies. Clothed the fairies in tailcoats and breeches.

Fern fairy. This one is a work in progress - haven't signed it yet - always a satisfying task 

as I only will do so when it's good to go !

Hanging Fairies

Hoorah !  I think I have cracked the niggling problem of my text and photos stacking up and not being able to alternate the words and the  images. This is thanks to the lovely Andy Talbot my IT man ( find him on chocolateapple.co.uk ) he can fix any problem and does great web designs too. So he cast his eye over this sticky situation the other day and suggested I composed my post in 'compose' as oppose to 'Edit Html', and to upload all my images first and then jiggle the text around them - which is what I am doing now for anybody else on Blogger who also has this issue.

And so here are a couple of my hanging fairies to go on the tree - they had their first outing at Jo Sweeting's Open House last week end . Sorry no photos on this as I had a camera problem too but will report on the Dragonfly Open House that I have mentioned before which opens on the 6th, 7th, 13th and 14th of December. Anyway am about to press the ' publish post' button so fingers crossed !

Fairies in Waiting

Mo other frustration with this blog is that I can't seem to find a a way of interspersing my text and photos ( the text stacks up on itself and so do the photos. ) The only way round it is to keep publishing a new post - anybody out there who can help ?!
Anyway back to the fairies - all are waiting for the Christmas rush although I do love the feeling of having them horded away in their tissue paper and it's always hard to let them go when the time comes to unwrap them. I have selection of colours on everything if anyone wants to do an early bit of Christmas shopping ! These ones are 7cms high and are £5 each.

A Closer Look

Thought you may like a closer look at them. The ribbon round their waists ensures they can be tied to a tree ( yes, Christmas is coming ! ) or onto any other posing place. I shall be putting them into my etsy shop soon along with some mermaid brooches.

Felt Fairies

After three engineers and much telephoning and stamping of feet we are still having trouble with our broadband. I'm taking this opportunity whilst it IS working to put up some new fairies I've been working on. I feel they are distant relations to these felt and cloth dolls I have stashed in a shoe box ( until I can find a dust free zone for them and all the other bric-a -brac I can't bear to dust any longer ! )

My dollies are made of felt and muslin, tulle, silk fiber ( the hair ) and assorted embellishments. My plan was to make them very minimal and plain but I guess this is as minimal as I can be !

These Oriental Poppy fairies are made with red Habitai silk and black netting.

A hanging Geisha encased in cellophane. I've mad a lot of these and found men's neckties to be the perfect source of
small pattern that quite often can pass as kimono material !

Stripy Fairies

Well after an exhausting 48 hours I've finally got my shop up ( but I hesitate to say running !) and I'm pleased to announce that these are the first fairies to sit on its shelves. I am however wondering if I am the only blogging wimp who has found it so tiring to get this whole venture off the ground ? I have scoured other people's blogs - gone to their first postings and yet I see no whinging about the brain power involved in it all! Not that I want to put anybody else out there off from going for it themselves - it's all totally do-able if you plod through each and every step ... I'm probably just impatient and would rather be spending the time making things, however now I'm virtually there I'm looking forward to enjoying the benefits of this vast community. Many thanks for comments from Fred, Gabriela, Cavania and Posy - so nice to know that someone is listening and viewing !

More Stripy Fairies

Fern Fairy

This fairy escaped the post below but here she is making a late entrance ( or is she early ? I'm still getting used to organising the backward sequence of blogging ! )

Heartfelt thanks

Thanks so much to Stephanie at 'My Sweet Little fairy' and Claire at 'Pixieland'for agreeing to link up to me; I hope soon that people will actually be reading this blog ! In this spirit I thought I would post up some hearts around the cottage, not very original I know but this eternal symbol always seems to warm the cockles ( as we say here, apologies to any American readers who feel confused ! )

teeny weeny summer fairies

Can't leave this post without some actual fairies on it. These little ladies are 4cm high.

a box of brides

Span

Meet Span, one of Betty's domestic fairies.

Ty-Ping the Chinese fairy

Those of you that are familiar with my books will recognise Ty-Ping the Chinese fairy who is Betty's secretary. She has settled on the kitchen dresser.