FAIRIES FOR ALL SEASONS!

Wow! I can't believe that its been so-o-o-o long since my last blog post. Please know that I have been working away despite a little sickness last week and that I miss each and every one of you! When I am not visiting your blogs my own inspiration often wanes. I had a little sore throat that seemed to turn into the croup - thank goodness not the swine flu! I seem to be on the mend and I no longer feel like I am walking through pudding just to make my way around.
Last month a fortuitous blend of new "toys" led me to make this fairy house. I had a little board book I had bought some time ago at Dee's for $1.99 with no plans for it. When I saw the lovely little fairy stamps in the $1.00 bin at Michael's, I knew they would be just perfect for this little fairy house. The little stamp on the front of the book - "fairies live here" was all the inspiration I needed and this book was put together in no time from stuff I already had on hand. When I reduce photographs I always make a whole page of little postage size stamps and save the rest for later projects. Many of my previous projects came together into this one little package. And if, like me, you wonder how it all comes together, I'll try to give you the chain of events that led to this book:

I covered each of the little house pages with scrapbook papers. As I was working, I decided to make the book travel through the seasons of the year so I picked the papers for my "seasons" accordingly.

I love the Ranger Distress inks and embossing powders and I used the Distress Ink (old paper) to age the scrapbook papers and the peeled paint embossing powder gave the edges a look and texture of moss. Occasionally I used a white wash of water and white acrylic paint on part of the background to dull it a bit and pop the rest of the page.

I used some diamond glaze sparingly on the flower "tree" and the roof of the mushroom "house" to give the page an extra pop.

I had little images of this little girl with her dress already painted bright orange and green from a bookmark project last year in which I dressed her up as a pumpkin. I reduced a piece from Sandra Evertson's great book : Families. I also already had a little bag of the leaves which were punched for another project and edges with Ranger sepia brown ink.

The tree is part of a rubber stamp image I had saved from another project as well. The little silhouette fairy is from one of the new $1 sets from Michael's.

This winter page is my favorite. I made a path for the two children with white acrylic paint and then made "snow" on both sides with glue and fine glitter. I am so in love with how this path turned out that I may use it as my Christmas card this year. The photograph is one I have used again and again and is one that my business partner's mother graciously loaned me for any use. It is of her mother and uncle as children. I think the path and snow would be really pretty on a larger card. I could make the path curl around behind them. I made another rubber stamp image of the same tree from the last page (except this time with Versafine Ink) and put it on the other side of the page. I made some falling snow with dots of glue and glitter and put a large snowflake from a paper punch. I only glued the large snowflake in the middle so that the edges are loose. The little fairy is from another $1 set.

I already had this tiny image of boys playing in the snow from an ATC swap last Christmas and I covered the page with more glue and fine glitter. I found this quote on the Internet to complement the pages.

This is the only season I had planned out when I began this book: April Showers bring May Flowers. I made rain with white blobs and diamond glaze.

This was the first time I had used the new Ranger Distress stickles and I just love them. They are the texture at the top of this page. Lots of texture, but no shine! Perfect! I had a little page of German die-cut angel heads and that nest I had stamped from a friend's set of rubber stamps. I used another fairy in silhouette and left her wings free. The greenery are rub-ons.

I had picked a paper for the summer pages that already had butterfly wings on the page so I positioned one of the little fairies to look like she was driving that butterfly. Then I stamped the other two butterflies and fairies from the Michael's stamps. I found this near perfect quote by searching the Internet: Then followed that beautiful season...Summer... Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light." I white washed parts of the page and then used my Stardust gel pin to add scribbles of tiny glitter to the rest of the page.


I used part of another image from Sandra Evertson's book and made a little fence from some trim and rhinestones. The quote on the back was from a page I had torn out of a magazine years ago and saved for just the right occasion such as this: No winter last forever - no spring skips its turn. How true!

Happy Spring to each of you!