Teacup Nurseries

First things first...these photos are terrible! I promise to have better ones shortly. I decided to photograph these sets in this manner as I am purchasing those large glass domes for display cases. Thought it would give me a good idea of how they will look.

For the actual ad photo shoot these sets will be taken outside with trees and moss for a backdrop.

Again, I apologize for the quality but thought you might like to see them anyways.

The Teacup Nurseries will be sold in two different ways.

1. As is. When you purchase a Teacup Nursery and Flower Petal Faerie you will be purchasing what you see in the photograph.

2. DIY. This method will mean that you will receive a teacup with floral foam and a moss mat already attached. Everything else that you need to complete a miniature nursery will be included along with a check list of items included. There will be a step-by-step instruction sheet if you need it or for those that are a bit more adventurous you can place the items where you like. Again, each teacup will come with a matching Flower Petal Faerie that has been named and like the other faeries will have her own little story.

These Teacup Nurseries will be packed ever so gently, wrapped in my favourite lime green tissue paper. Each Flower Petal Faerie will be in her own box so she is not crushed while in transport. If you chose to purchase your nursery as a DIY version, all of the little items will be individually packaged for you.

A Sneak Preview

As I have mentioned before, my teacup nurseries are coming along quite well. I am very happy with them and enjoying experimenting with all of the new and interesting shapes.

Each teacup nursery will come of course with a flower petal faerie. I have decided to make each of these faeries match the colours of the teacups. Thought that it would be quite complementary and tie in nicely.

As my graphic designer is waiting NOT so patiently for the photos of the teacup nurseries for the magazine ad, I figured it was about time I actually get some faeries made.

Here is a sneak peak at what I managed to do this evening. Now just remember, this is only a peak!

And yes, the faeries are tipped upside down drying in their respective teacups :)

Push Pins Anyone??

You know how you go into a store with great expectations and then all you find is plain, boring, everyone else has kind of stuff?

Well...here is my story for the day!

Figured I might need a cork board for the nursery. You know...with this whole aging thing, my mind is definitely not as sharp (get it...push pins...sharp!! Okay, maybe it was just me that giggled at this one??) as it used to be.

So, now I have a cork board. Even managed to find a great spot for it. Hung it up. Looking pretty good.

Now, what does a cork board need. It needs little pieces of paper that are hung up with push pins. Off I went to find push pins, but being me....ordinary push pins we know just won't do. In the store, I managed to find the back wall that has all the push pins on display. Can you say ... DISAPPOINTED! Not one package of cool looking push pins. All I found was the ugly prime coloured ones (not saying that these don't fit the colour scheme of other folks....just not me). Went and got the catalogue...nope...just plain old dull blue, red and yellow. Now tell me, how boring is that??

Back here at home...time to do an internet search for fun, exciting and cool push pins. Whoa.....have you priced out fun, exciting and cool push pins?? Huh, huh, huh?? Hmmmm, so obviously that was an easy decision, the nursery was NOT going to be getting any fun, exciting and cool push pins.

Back to the drawing board. Now if you have been following my blog for a while now, you will recall that last year, I kind of went on a button buying spree. Not any type of button but real wooden buttons. Now with the joy of Ebay (and I do type that with a smile on my face), I was able to find buttons. Off to the bidding part but I am a firm believer that if anything goes over my maximum bid of $2.31 it wasn't meant to be mine. Over 1800 wooden buttons later.... :)

Now here comes in the ingenious part....yeah....I know....you already figured this part out!

Now I have fun, exciting and cool push pins for the nursery :)

Some People Really Are Just That Nice!

It sure is nice when you meet genuine people who like to share in making the world a more 'magical' place. I have been lucky enough to accidentally meet a wonderful woman by the name of Cathy, who has taken it upon herself to select a few precious items from her own collection of craft supplies to give to me to make my flower petal faeries. As she has asked for no monetary payment for all of these bags upon bags of flowers and ribbons, she did ask if I would make her a petal faerie. As her favourite colour is blue, I would like you all to meet Flutter. Thank you Cathy for helping me keep the 'magic' alive. 

Sitting on the Fence Post

You know how when you are just teetering on the edge of life and you just don't know if you have what it takes to take the next big leap? Well I have been teetering with my company for the last few months. I have put all of my ducks in a row and just kind of sat there, contemplating the next step. As I work full time, I must admit that my little Faerie Nursery somedays just takes the back burner.

Well over the past two weeks, I have managed to get myself together, have a few brainstorming sessions with great people and in the end making the decision to jump!

So, I jumped. Here I am now, dangling off the edge, with one wee little finger still hanging on for dear life. I don't know about you, but even when you have surrounded yourself with wonderful friends, family and supporters, it is still hard to say...okay, you are going to be okay and everything will work out just fine.

I have applied for two grants for small businesses here in the Northwest Territories. The first one being for small tools and supplies. Now with this grants, like all grant, I had to come up with a business plan that catered to this specific grant. In the end, I decided to commit to making 80 Faerie Suites (50 small doors and 30 large door {these sets include a magical wooden door, trinket chest filled with goodies and a flower petal faerie}{I already had almost 80 doors cut and in the stages of completion}); 50 Seed Pod Faeries (I already have 15 done so I figured that wasn't unrealistic); 25 Teacup Nurseries (as this is still in the experimental stage, they shouldn't be too hard to make, as well each nursery will come with a matching flower petal faerie); and then 200 hundred flower petal faeries (I have over 50 already in made). Now as I am only one person and each of these creations are lovingly hand made, I figured that I could handle this amount of production. The second grant was for marketing and this is the big one. I was hoping to have everything it takes to have a full trade-show booth; store displays, all printed materials, designer and webpage master time and to top it all off, advertising in the local newspaper and possibly a national magazine.

Well today, I found out that both of the grants have been approved! (Actually the small tools and supplies one was approved and signed off last week). So, now here I sit. Pretty scared, pretty nervous and feeling pretty overwhelmed to tell you the truth.

Today, I have taken that leap of faith. That next step. That saying so-long fence post, I don't need you anymore.

So I hope that each and everyone of you, will join me on this journey. As I said in my Facebook post earlier today when I found out my second grant had been approved...

WORLD....HEAR ME ROAR!!

And Who Doesn't Love SPARKLES???

Tomorrow is Art in the Park and as a last minute decision I decided I would like to do a tree display for the faeries. 

Now normally, well I have only ever done Christmas craft fairs before, I have used pine tree branches with moss at the base. Mind you this display is used for the complete Faerie Suite that includes the magical wooden door, trinket chest and a flower petal faerie. Everything is tucked in nicely to create a wonderful mystical scene with mushrooms and rabbits and faeries in the trees.

But as this is a summer fair, I thought maybe using just branches that are sparkled to hold the faeries. So over the weekend I just happened upon one of those light-up branch Christmas trees. You know the ones, just bare branches, no leaves. Well the picture on the box made it look like it was rounded and filled out and just perfect to hide little faeries in. After taking it out of the box....well lets just say it was silver branches all right, but they were all tied together flatly. There was no dimension, no nothing, just flatness!

Really need creativity here. The craft fair set-up is tomorrow morning. I don't want another Christmas scene and anyways, my table is only going to be about 3 feet long. Not nearly enough room to show a complete Faerie Suite. So what to do. Don't want to show off my Teacup Nurseries just yet. What does that leave me. The Seed Pod Faerie Babies...but but but. Nah. I am only going to take my faeries. 

So, off I went after work...need spray paint and sparkles...oh yeah and branches! 

I was lucky enough to have Georgina come over who really should go into interior design. No, really, she should! Wow. She did a fantastic job of the whole tree. She make little spaces for the faeries to sit in and everything. Plus she seems quite at home wearing sparkles :)

I will take more pictures tomorrow once everything is set up at the venue. As I am unsure if I will have access to an electrical outlet, the tree looks just fine without all the blue shiny lights. 

Wish me luck :)    

And thank you again Georgina :)

Georgina having fun ;)

Sparkles :)

Sparkles, Spray Glue and Rubber Gloves..hmmmm

 Fionn making sure we are doing things right!!

sparkly leaves

with lights

without lights

Art in the Park

Well this will be my first official showing since deciding to go from a home crafter of Enchanted Pathways to making a go of it as an actual business.

With the new name change to The Enchanted Pathways Faerie Nursery (legal registered for GST purposes is still Enchanted Pathways); a brand new website; Facebook business page; Etsy store front; a Twitter account; banner and faerie and introducing my new icon.

This icon was a concept of mine that Alyssa brought to life. A true artistic blend of beauty, practicality and simplicity. Everything a memorable icon requires. This icon will become the symbol of the Faerie Nursery. It will be included on everything from business cards, labels, web buttons, letterhead all the way to banners.

As this icon is actually one of my Seed Pod Babies it only seemed appropriate that she represent me, represent the company as a whole. She is the beginning. She is what each faerie starts out as, a flower petal baby.

I hope you like her  :)

New Best Friend??

I'm not sure how I managed all of the other sanded doors I have done but I tell you....I have a new best friend!!

Today I purchased the Black & Decker Mouse Sander/Polisher and WOW! Did I say WOW yet?? I managed to get 6 large and 25 small doors completed sanded in under 2 hours! AMAZING....WOW.

Totally recommend this product to anyone that has small items to sand and that have small little hands that can't take the abuse from a larger palm sander.

A Care Package from Home??

I have been trying to decide if I can really call this parcel a 'care package from home' as isn't the definition of home....like from your Mom?? Well this parcel today came from my beautiful daughter and her family.

All the great goodies in there were a wonderful surprise. I received chocolates of all sorts...including a container of After 8 sticks which I might add are already in my tummy :)   A superb selection of hot chocolates including some weird tube of 'stuff' from Second Cup called 'frrrrozen hot chocolate'. Now I must admit I am a wee bit curious on this one but Brandi says I will fall in love with it. But for now, I chose to have a cup of hot chocolate flavoured french vanilla and chocolate in the mug I bought myself just the other day. It is like she knew I had a new mug.......

Also in my box were 13 of my wooden trinket chests. I was a bit surprised though that these ones are bit smaller then the ones I normally purchase through the same store?? Either I will have to learn how to pack all the miniatures in a bit better or I am thinking that these ones will work perfectly for the smaller the doors and my other chests will be used for the larger doors. Thinking business like....shouldn't that be the way it is?? I won't compromise the 'idea' of the trinket chest but I will put in a few of the smaller things instead of the larger trinkets. Yes....good thinking :)

And she also sent me up my bestest and most favourite paint brushes. Now yes, these brushes come from 'Dollarama' but they are the only ones that I love to use. Not only are they the most coolest looking paint brushes I have ever scene...but they paint really well too!!

And some of the prettiest stick-on butterflies ever!!

And finally....we come to the best part of the whole package....my 23 bottles of paint picked out by my granddaughter Rebecca who will be 2 in September. I am going to put a big 'R' on each of the lids so that when I go to use a bottle of paint and I happen to pick one that she personally took off the shelf for me....I will smile and all of the wee little faeries in the nursery will smile along with me. Thank you Rebecca :)

Jewelled Wings

With more on the way....the nursery is now surrounded by sparkly, jewelled delicate butterfly wings. My only wish is that they were real but these will do. As I mentioned previously, I want to have the feel of the Teacup Nurseries to be whimsical and very exaggerated. So your teacup will have the tiniest of a wee little faerie house and it will be surrounded by trees and flowers and bugs and mushrooms and butterflies and....well the list can just go on and on and on....and on as far as my imagination can take it actually.

So here they are.....90 of the prettiest little butterflies that are no bigger than an inch.....

Rainbow Chests

I had a few trinket chests that I decided needed to be completed over the last few days. Once you take apart all of the tiniest little screws that I have EVER had to work with and then make sure that you don't mix up all the hardware with the chest that it came to....the fun begins. Usually I make sure that all of the paints go hand-in-hand and are coordinated in their rightful colour schemes. This time....well, lets just say that I kind of went off kilter!! As I only use environmentally safe paints (everything is water-based, even the Varathane!!) it is easy for me to paint in the workshop with little ventilation required. Plus, using water-based paints make the drying time feel like a snap! I decided this time to start with the outsides of the boxes, not sure why...just did. All my colours are usually dark and jewel-toned for the exterior just to make sure that there is great coverage and the different shades of the wood don't show through. The insides are a bit easier as they are usually filled with little trinkets. Don't worry though, they still get the exact same treatment as the exterior does, having two coats of colour and then 2 coats of Varathane. The only difference is that the interior gets the matte finish of the Varathane and as I love shiny and sparkly things....the outside gets the full gloss :)  While painting away, I was looking at all of the other colours I had on the shelf and things just started to fall into place. So now I ended up with a rainbow of trinket chests.

Even better then all of the above!! I sent my daughter on a shopping spree (as she actually lives in civilization where there are stores!!) and asked her to pick me up 20 more bottles of paint. So off she went...with two kids in tow. I get a call the next day saying that my granddaughter Rebecca was allowed to pick all the colours of paint for me. Now you have to picture this...we all know that paints are arranged on shelves that are closest to the floor correct? Well my granddaughter will be two in September and she was allowed to just pick whatever colours she wanted. How special is that :)  I may not even want to use any of the paints now as I will want to treasure them forever. I figure that once my 'care package' arrives I will actually label each bottle and say 'hand picked by Rebecca'. As I use each colour the memories of knowing who picked it will flow through me and make me smile. I will even save the bottles so I can show her when she is older that she helped her Amma Emm :)