I am humbled, touched, surprised and in awe of this poem written by a friend, a confidant and a true leader. You have always been filled with surprises and amazing talents, who knew you could write poetry as well? I will treasure this poem forever. Thank you Trish. 

THE RIVER FAIRY

While walking through a forest grove down beside the river,

I saw the ferns along the canopy's edge suddenly begin to quiver.

But there was no breeze or other force causing them to wiggle.

And as I paused to ponder that, I thought I heard a giggle.

Then a small figure appeared out from behind an old fir tree.

And a voice whispered in my ear; 'Rejoice, for it is she.'

Black hair flowed over her shoulders, wisps framed her lovely face,

Around each delicate wrist were silver ribbons of spiderweb lace.

Her flowing blue robe rippled at her feet, like waves upon the shore,

Woven petals with sparkling dew drops formed the necklace that she wore.

A kaleidoscope encircling her head made a delightful spinning crown,

The forest birds singing in harmony was the most enchanting sound.

I watched as the beauty, the butterflies and birds of a feather,

Danced in joy and celebration of this joining together.

To give loving thanks to the river for its gifts never-ending,

And embrace the peaceful vibrations the river was sending.

By now the sun had reached the very west edge of the sky,

Pink light let them know that it was time to say good-bye.

But before the birds and the butterflies would set off to go,

Each presented before her and bowed their head low.

As she returned to her tree home, she faded from sight,

And the forest became still as it welcomed the night.

Who invites winged treasures to galas so merry?

Emmanuelle, the River Fairy.

By Trish Curtin

The Blossom Holiday Line

Welcoming to the Nursery our newest faeries...

The Blossom Holiday Line

These Faeries are available for a very limited time so please be sure to visit our website for further details. www.faerienursery.com

Welcome to the Faerie Luna Gardens

The Nursery has opened up yet another Instagram account titled faerielunagardens to showcase what the Faeries have growing in their gardens. So far, during the first few months of living here on Vancouver Island and living with the Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park backing onto our property line, we have been awed by finding different mushrooms, flowers, plants and trees local in this area.

With this new account we will post photos of our old and new Nursery will all of the splendour that nature has to offer.

A bit about the Nursery:

Created/founded in Fort Smith, NT, located just above the 60th parallel in Canada's north. The weather there can swing from -30C in the winter to +30C in the summer.
Fort Smith has a Dry Continental Subarctic climate with very long harsh winters combined with warm but relatively short summers. With this diverse temperature the environment of this area can be both stark and barren in the cold but lush and green in the heat. Most gardens and flowerbeds are raised as the permafrost stills lingers just meters beneath the surface of the ground but this doesn't stop the Faeries from gardening.

Now the Nursery has relocated Qualicum Beach, BC where the climate is classified as a Warm-Summer Mediterranean climate. Meaning that it has cool, wet winters and relatively dry summers allowing it to be considered to have the mildest climate in Canada. The average temperature during the rainy winter hovers around +1-3C and during the heat of summer it reaches to a balmy +25C.  The area is known for its amazing gardens so I can't wait for spring/summer to get here. With this just being the first week of March (2017), the Faeries have been busy preparing for spring planting as the local markets have already held their 'seed sales' and bedding plants can be found outside of shops ready for sale.

Let us celebrate the wonders of the outdoors ... welcome to the faerielunagardens.......

Flying Woodchips

during the last month or so (okay, more like 3 months and a bit?) while we were out for a walk on a cold and crisp afternoon we were hoping that we might spot a faerie or two but instead to our surprise we came across a tree trunk the must have housed some pretty tasty bugs.

with having three resident woodpecker in the neighbourhood and after comparing their beaks to the size of the hole it was quite easy to figure out that a Pileated woodpecker had come to visit us.

after coming home to a cup of steaming hot cocoa we decided even though there was no hide nor hair of a faerie about, we did have a great afternoon of exercising and bird watching.

note:
woodpecker photos curtesy of Cornell Lad of Ornithology - All About Birds website

Turning Green on a Teacup

spinning around on a porcelain teacup (disclaimer .. please do not spin too quickly, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN). 

squishing your barefoot toes in the grass (disclaimer .. please do not do squish after freshly mowed, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN). 

climbing on tree branches to reach the highest apple (disclaimer .. please do not eat the fruit that has fallen on the ground, as i cannot not be responsible for faces turning GREEN .  

smelling the pretty coloured flowers (disclaimer .. please do not touch your nose to the petals, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN).

wishing for an ice cream snack (disclaimer .. please do not eat the coloured dots on a mushroom, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN).

catching a butterfly in a net (disclaimer .. please do not try to ride on the wings, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN).

taking off your socks (disclaimer .. please do not smell, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN).

nibbling on fresh pea pods (disclaimer .. please do not mistake for lima beans, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN).

cleaning off after a nice warm bath (disclaimer .. please do not mistake cotton for a fern, as i cannot be responsible for faces turning GREEN). 

and after a very long day of playing and your eyes cannot stay open any longer ..

turning down the covers to dream (disclaimer .. please do not nudge the chameleon sleeping in the middle of the bed ...AS THEY ACTUALLY WILL TURN YOU GREEN).

now wouldn't it be fun to live on a teacup!!

Jami

Clare

Button

Hazel

Star

Lucy

Lady Regina

Jemma

Windsor

Vale

Buttercup

PWK Fall Fair & Tea

What a wonderful turnout today. It was so nice seeing returning customers and meeting new ones :)

First of all....a MASSIVE thank you to Georgina for sitting with me today. You made the day perfect.

Second of all....a MASSIVE thank you to my hubby for his help both in the nursery and today (plus having to live me....deserves a wee bit of a mention as well).

After living here now for 2 1/2 years it's amazing how many people I either knew or have seen before (being such the caterpillar type of gal I have become {not so much a social butterfly anymore}) that walked through the doors.

The Faeries were all behaved sitting in the new tree branches and on their platforms on the table. The Seed Pod Babies were happy in their new platter (note to self, Georgina always imagines them swimming, so I think I will pick up some tiny blue marbles or something that they can sit on to give the illusion of floating). The cases for the miniatures worked perfectly and everyone was able to see them and we didn't have to worry about wee little fingers getting ahold of anything (legally, a very important note). I will say though, that the hit of the afternoon was our new line....the Faerie Princes! Everyone had to pick one up and check them out.

We had put out a copy of the new catalogue and people were so impressed with it. Even got a few asking if they could purchase one. As this thought did not quite enter my mind when ordering them, I will make a mental note for next year to perhaps print off a few that can be made available for sale.

A big shout-out goes to Meagan at the Northern Journal for the story she did about me and my little company for Small Business Week in our local newspaper. I must have had a least a dozen people recognize either me or my company name and state that they had read about me and wanted to learn more.

Georgina organized a secret draw for anyone that purchased an item. She even punched out little 3D faerie figures on the ballots for me!! Congratulations Jennifer Hudson, I will be calling you shortly and making arrangements for delivery :)

     

Care Package From Afar

A new care package arrived today in the mail from my bestest on-line friend Sharon.

 It seems that when I make my petal faeries my favourite flower petals to use are the sheer iridescent ones. These petals just add that extra 'magical' look to each faerie. Now, don't get the wrong impression of me or anything but I have hung these pretty little flower petals off on another rack away from the rest of my flowers as they are special to me. The last few times I have had visitors over to the nursery though, they have ALL managed to find my hidden little stash and proceeded to use them when making their own faeries!! Now, there is really nothing wrong with this and I am glad that they feel the same way about them as I do. So.....I thought I had best check back in with Sharon to replenish my supply and sure enough she had posted more of them. I ordered 7 more sets of 6 flowers (there are 8 layers to each flower) so that will give me 336 more sparkly flower petals (to share??) plus Sharon threw in a few extra as well.

But as always, my box from Sharon didn't just have my order of flowers (did I say, I LOVE her care packages yet? If I didn't....I sure do LOVE her care packages).

I now have a whole family of wee little critters that surround my little tree that I have on my desk here. So every time I glance over to the right of my computer screen, they are all looking up at me with their eyes full of curiosity and smiles galore.

Also in the box came loose flowers, beads, pins for my hubby's collection, little note pads, white head beads, a book, fimo flowers, molds and a whole lot more. How lucky am I??

The loose flowers....I am keeping out to make a very special faerie. As soon as I was taking them apart I knew immediately what her name was going to be....Cotton Candy :)

On a side note though.....Faerie Sharon (named on behalf of Sharon) has been a bit of bother lately! It seems with all of theses holiday decorations that I have laying around while getting ready for my upcoming Christmas fairs has put her into a VERY mischievous state! As I have always kept her close by on the table (she tells me stories and whispers in my ear while I work) she has been busy knocking things over and then hiding little baubles and jingle bells in the strangest places. At first, I was blaming Lady Isabella my cat, but nope.....I had gone upstairs to get a refill of my warmed apple juice and there on the floor were two jingle bells and a little present wrapped in the shiny gold foil. Now what on earth she was going to do with them, I have no idea but because of this behaviour she has now been moved over to my faerie bookshelf to keep her out of trouble!! Not sure how long it will take her to figure out how to get down...but at least I will be able to work without finding little treasures missing from the table!

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