A Fairy House

When I was about seven years old, my best friend Laura, and sometimes our other friends, would make fairy houses. Laura's older sister Debbie came up with the idea, which tells you why Debbie was the world's most awesome babysitter.

I hadn't made a fairy house in decades, but today I suddenly thought of it and decided it was about time. Besides, I haven't posted here in a while--I haven't had time to do much of anything except write my current book--and fairies are a bit steampunk, right?

Here's the finished house in the flowerbed, in the upper lefthand corner:

The houses we made as kids were just single rooms built of twigs, with moss carpets and bark roofs. We made them in the forks of trees or among exposed roots. I decided to make mine in the corner of the raised garden bed I made recently, because it's pretty boring right now.

First I gathered up some materials: twigs, bark (from dead trees only; even as a kid it bothered me to pull bark off live trees), and other stuff. As I worked on the house, I kept getting up and gathering more things, and the things I gathered gave me ideas for what to build next. That's the lovely thing about making fairy houses: you start to think differently about the odds and ends of forest detritus you see.

First I set some flattish rocks down as a floor in the corner of the flowerbed. I decided this would be the larder because it's so protected. I started breaking twigs into the right lengths to make corner posts and remembered, with complete clarity, the concentration needed as a seven-year-old to find just the right size forked twigs. I put straight twigs across the top to hold up the roof, and added bits of pine bark as walls. Inside the larder I put things fairies would eat. The door is another piece of bark, slightly ajar. I made the roof from sycamore bark, which is heavy and scaly like shingles.

Here's the larder without the roof:

Next I decided on a bedroom, so I put a lot of moss down for the floor. Half a walnut husk with some moss in it made a cradle. More pine bark for the walls, and no door because fairies like lots of fresh air.

Here's the bedroom without the roof:

Lastly I made the kitchen, with pieces of walnut husk for bowls and a wall made partly of a stone. No door to this room either, but to keep rain from blowing in I put a piece of bark down as a partial shelter. I also set some shiny stones (from my gravel driveway) outside for the family to sit on while they eat together.

Here's the kitchen without the roof:

I added a few details before I decided I was done. Here's a close-up of the entire house with the roofs on.

Fairy houses are ephemeral. I did a pretty good job building this one, but after the first good wind, or the first curious squirrel, it will be mostly gone. But that's part of the enjoyment.

Last sleep before DragonCon!

Tomorrow morning I plan to roll out of bed at whatever time I wake naturally (or whatever time the cat wakes me, actually) and head out to DragonCon. My goal is to get there and get my badge picked up by around lunchtime or a little later, depending on traffic. Then I can hit a few panels and look around, hopefully meet up with friends, before heading to my hotel in Kennesaw to check in, grab some food, and return to the con.

Saturday will be my exhausting day, because I want to watch the parade at 10am (for which it's best to get there at 9am or thereabouts) and see Professor Elemental and Abney Park perform at midnight. Sunday will be almost as exhausting, because there's a 10am panel I don't want to miss ("The Science of Airships") and I also want to see Voltaire perform at midnight--and of course, both days I've got tons of stuff I want to do in between.

I took today off work to get all the last-minute stuff done. My attempt at making my own bag was a failure, but I found a bag I really like at Goodwill for a few bucks and added some decoration. The owl thing is my $5 pocketwatch! I finally have a place to put it.

And I crocheted this adorable pouch for Owlet from this tutorial. I didn't have time to handspin yarn of the right weight, so I bought a nice silk/bamboo blend and used it instead. Ordinarily I don't sew random gears on things, but hell, it's a pouch for a toy owl, sewing gears on it isn't going to make it any sillier than it already is. The button is for Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys, a great band but also the button has tiny owls as part of the design. So, you know.

If you're going to be at DragonCon and you'd like to meet up, just email me at kcshaw123 [at] gmail [dotcom]. If you've got the DragonCon app, email me a friend code if you like! I'd love to have someone to hang out with, especially at the live performances.

I will, of course, take plenty of pictures.I'll post them when I get home on Monday!

No update this week

Yeah, I got nothin'. Even with a four-day weekend, I didn't do anything. Well, I started one project but didn't get far (making moth hat/hair decorations; it's not working as well as I'd hoped) and I ordered some stuff to finish my goggles. Did you know there's a website called The Buckle Guy? I ordered some buckles and other stuff from the Buckle Guy, since it didn't seem worth it to just order, like, one buckle for my goggles and that was it. I also ordered the new Dragon*Con steampunk lanyard, because I always forget to bring a lanyard and end up having to buy one when I finally get to the dealer's room. The trick will be to not forget to bring my steampunk lanyard.

Oh wait, I did do one thing. It took about thirty seconds, but here's a picture.
 

It's a tiny copper owl charm I found on etsy, which I strung on some copper-ish links and pinned to my hatband. I'm going to try to find some more charms to put with it. Here's another picture of the hat, along with my owl goggles and a cheap pocket watch that I found half-price ($5! and so far the watch hasn't broken!) and bought because there's an owl on it.

So in other words, I have my accessories set. I should have my faux-leather corset any day now too, and the shoes will work as they are if necessary. All I need is the rest of my freaking costume.

Antiquing haul

After yardwork, garage cleaning, and lunch, I went antiquing. I went to four different shops and spent--gulp--fifty bucks all told. But I got some fun stuff.

For some reason I was suddenly drawn to bottles. I'll have to figure out some way to display them, maybe on a shelf.

From left to right: an empty Sloan's Liniment bottle, a full bottle of clock oil YES CLOCK OIL OMG NOW I NEED A CLOCK, an empty bottle that might have been hand lotion or something--it says something about rose water and glycerin, two full bottles of litmus paper (red and blue), and a full bottle of "parchment black" ink.

I also got this rusty and gummy oil can, because I liked it and it wasn't very expensive.

I love old photos, and I got three very interesting ones. Two are of children. The first picture is of a little girl, who looks exactly like she was just told to sit there and "don't move," and she's tired and wants to change out of her good clothes so she can go play. The second picture is of a fat little baby who looks adorably squashy, sitting in a chair with...rocks in the background. And apparently those things in the foreground are rugs that are probably sitting out to dry. Because nothing says "I love my baby" like having its picture taken in front of rocks.

Lastly is this guy's picture. I spent considerable time digging through boxes of old photos, looking for a debonair gentleman to swoon over. As you do. Obviously I couldn't quite find one, but the more I looked at this guy's picture the more I liked him. He's reasonably good-looking, but even better, he clearly has a sense of humor. It was as though he knew, when the photographer was taking his picture, that a hundred years later some woman was going to find it in an antique shop and decide to make him her imaginary boyfriend. I wish it had his name on it.

Now, things I didn't get because they were too expensive. I wish I'd taken pictures, but I suspect that as soon as I can scrape up the money for them I'll go back and buy them if they're still available. The one thing I practically drooled over and must own eventually is an old brass blowtorch. YES. It was $90. It will one day be mine, at least as soon as I sell another story and can justify spending that much. I also really wanted the Underwood typewriter even though it needs refurbishing before it works. It was $95, which really isn't bad considering what good shape it's in. And I wanted the Singer foot treadle sewing machine for $125, but I'm actually not sure if the sewing machine was part of it; in those models (which are not uncommon) the machine folds down into the cabinet so it can be used as a table, and it was folded down. I didn't open it up since I couldn't have afforded it anyway.

When I got home, I spraypainted three hideous fakey-gold picture stands bronze, which will hopefully make them look less hideous. Once they're dry I can display my new photos.

The shelves, before and after

Finally it's the weekend, which means I can get back to work on the garage. It's taking me so much longer than I expected!

Today I took three trips to the dump and one to Goodwill, getting rid of eight or nine bags of stuff in all. There's more to go, but I was too embarrassed to go to the dump again. It'll keep.

I wanted to accomplish something today that would make me feel like I'm actually making progress. So I focused on the brick-and-board shelves that used to hold gardening stuff.

I'd never stained wood before, at least not that I recall, and I was a bit intimidated. I don't know why. It was ludicrously simple. I stained the table in the back corner of the garage first, and it was not only easy but I thought it looked really good immediately.

Of course everything's easy if you do a sloppy job. I have low standards.

I let the boards dry for a few hours while I worked in the yard and ran errands (in that order, so I probably frightened some people with my appearance). Then I stacked the bricks, making sure that each pair was the same height since the bricks were a mixture of new pavers and very old bricks, some of them apparently handmade.

It looked good when done, and I had a few fun minutes decorating it. All the stuff on the shelves was already in the garage, incidentally. This might be a good time to mention that my grandmother was an antique dealer for decades. Me and my brother and all our cousins grew up helping move furniture, and along the way we absorbed a lot of knowledge and interest in antiques. Most of the stuff on the shelves, though, was my mother's.

Tomorrow I'll arrange more furniture, sweep the garage out, and make some decisions about what to do with all those boxes of Christmas decorations. And if I have time, I'll hit the antique shops. I need some gadgets.