Today we received two delightful dolls from Farida of Saints and Spinners: an Apple Root Child and Vasilissa. They are so sweet, well-made and wonderfully detailed, we can't wait to add a few more to our collection! Farida's shop can be found here: Alkelda.

Yesterday was the day our fairy house was scheduled to arrive. Unfortunately, it was also the day I was scheduled for a spinal tap, so I missed UPS when they came. I had warned my boys to be on the lookout for UPS and explained that they were not to touch the box when it arrived because it would be extremely fragile. Imagine their surprise then to see the UPS driver pull up in front of our house, kick and then toss the box of the truck, and proceed to roll it up to the porch (mind you, the box was not even the least bit heavy!). Did he miss the big red "Fragile" stickers all over it?! I suppose it should've been no surprise that when I opened the box, our beautiful fairy house was virtually in pieces - despite all of the extra careful packaging (ironically, it had been packaged by a UPS Store!). My heartbroken Maddie began sobbing immediately. Every day prior we'd had to check the UPS tracking number to see where her house was because she was so looking forward to it, in particular, because it had been made especially for her birthday.

Here are a couple of pictures of the house when it arrived:

The entire structure had a huge crack up the back, a crack in the front (as shown above), the second floor had come loose, stained glass was cracked and broken, the twig railing on the tiny bridge had been broken to bits, numerous bits of moss and twigs were broken off and a chunk of the back wall had fallen off (and since it contained the battery pack for the lights, it was pretty essential!).

After calling to file a rather irate claim with UPS and e-mailing the artist, I yielded to Maddie's mournful plea to "just do something, fix it!" I spent hours with the hot glue gun, trying to piece back a part of the magic that had been...Let me just say, this gave me an entirely new respect for the work Rachel does on these homes. Gluing little bitty twigs and other equally fragile materials is hard work!

My results weren't entirely successful, but I did fix many of the broken bits so that we were able to put the furniture in the house and enjoy it's beauty for a few hours. We added a new gnome from Painting Pixie that arrived at the same time as the house and she fit perfectly!

This morning UPS arrived to pick up the house for inspection (yeah, silly me, I shouldn't have bothered to repair anything!)...the driver was even rougher with the house than yesterday's had been - shoving it repeatedly to make it fit back into the box, which resulted in some unpleasant cracking and further damage I'm sure. He just laughed and said "Well it's trash anyway since it's already broken" (this promptly sent Maddie into another fit of tears!). So, there we have it. The house is gone, though the artist, Rachel, is sending us "The Great House" today as a replacement, which is very kind. Maddie's still very upset that *her* house is gone, but I'm hoping the new house will cheer her up at least a little. It's all just a sad situation, especially since I know Rachel takes such care with these homes, to ensure that nothing is broken - all of her Etsy feedback has been very positive in this regard.

Previously I'd written about a number of fairy houses that Maddie and I had been admiring online, in particular, those of Etsy artist Centaur1201. Since Maddie has a birthday this Friday, only a week after mine, last weekend we decided to take the plunge and commission a very special fairy house that we would both enjoy.

I cannot even begin to express how amazing it has been to work with Rachel...she is simply wonderful and so attentive to every detail! After carefully looking through all of the fairy homes she's previously made, our request was this: A 3 level home with 3-4 rooms and stained glass, a garden, a telescope, all furnishings (bed, dresser, dinning table w/2 chairs, lab desk with chair and all accessories, library, working acorn porch light, lots of fairy potions, and crystals). In particular, we requested that the furnishings not be glued down as they normally would be, so that they could be gently re-arranged on occasion. We were especially inspired by two of her recent creations, the House of Fairy Knowledge:

and The Great Fairy House:

Today I received an e-mail letting me know that our fairy house was finished and would be shipping out tomorrow - wow! She worked extra hard to get it done close to Maddie's birthday, which was totally above and beyond what we'd expected!

Here are a few "sneak peak" pictures she sent us:

This bridge is on the second level and leads to a roof-top garden:

The roof-top garden (the little dragon statue is adorable!):

Needless to say, we're beyond excited to see the house in person -- it is 22" tall, 27" wide and 14" deep and all of the furnishings have been packaged separately, so are not shown above. Though it was a bit extravagant, we can't wait to see it and know that it will be dearly treasured!

This afternoon we found more wonderful fairy houses, this time from Etsy artist Centaur1201 (she's also got a website, Rachel's Fairy Houses):

This gnome house from Gnome Sweet Home is also quite charming:

We found a Build a Fairy House Kit and more fairy furniture, from Sunflowerhouse:

This Enchanted Fairy Cabinet, by Spirited Woodland is amazing:

Recently Maddie and I decided that we needed a fairy house, so we began to do some research. Many years ago I came quite close to ordering from the now defunct Toad Hollow Farms, makers of these fabulous Tree Stump Homes:

Oh how I wish I had (note the stained glass windows)! Their site can still be viewed here, thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive, and they remain a great source of inspiration to us. We also discovered artist John Curtis Crawford's Fairy Woodland ("Fine Handcrafted Homes for Discriminating Fairy Folk"). In particular, Maddie was drawn to this house, though she thought it a little austere:

Most importantly, she'd like something delicate enough to please the fairies, yet sturdy enough to play with. We discovered that there's a Fairy House book series, by author Tracy Kane, as well as a Fairy Houses Weekend in Portsmouth, NH (check out the photos in this Fairyland Set on Flickr). There is even a Squidoo lens on Fairy Houses. Here, we found instructions on how to build our own fairy house:

• How to Build a Fairy House: From Tracy Kane's website
• Fairy Houses: From Disney's Family Fun website
• How to Transform Your Dollhouse Into a Faerie House: From wikiHow
  

Oh my goodness, and there's this (found here):

Then, of course, there's the matter of furnishing our fairy house. Maddie loved this furniture from Forest Whimsy:

We were also greatly inspired by the designs at this Japanese nut craft site (perfect for a fairy kitchen!):

And we're in love with these fairy rooms, from Twig Wizardry (click on the photos to enlarge):

So, now begins the work of collecting materials and determining how best to build our house. Maddie thinks perhaps we ought to buy a house and then create our own, since it will likely take awhile to collect the needed materials (and she does have a birthday coming up). She envisions an entire fairy village one day. We also have a dollhouse cottage, waiting to be assembled, so we may opt to re-work that into something magical, but we're carefully weighing our options.

As for the fairy folk themselves, she's anxious to create them, too. She enjoys making these flower fairies from Felt Wee Folk, which ought to be just right:


All in all, it ought to be the perfect Spring project!