A few more fairy shoes

After giving my mom her fairy shoe for Christmas she gave me a little bin of fabric, lace, trim, flowers, thread, ribbon, beads, and buttons from mostly the Victorian era, but some are older and some are from the 20's, 30's, and 40's. She is an antique doll collector and has an entire room dedicated to doll supplies. She hand sews and repairs many of their clothes to be authentic to that particulars doll time period. She has shelves and shelves and bins of wonderful, yummy supplies. Whenever I go home to visit I play in that room by sitting on the floor and open bin after bin looking at the wonderful pieces that she has admiring the handiwork of someone 100-200 years ago. She gave me some of her prize smaller pieces so that I could make her a collection of antique fairy shoes. I love using her stuff. It's like opening a treasure box each time I open it and reminds me of being home with her.

My mom's birthday was a few weeks ago and Seth's mom had her birthday a few weeks before that. I decided it was time to make some more fairy shoes for my two moms. :) To see the other shoes I made you can click here.

This is a blue lady's fairy shoe for my mom. Isn't that flower exquisite? This blue silk was the most wonderful fabric to work with. It came in the form of a HUGE ribbon. I like to paint a lot of my shoes with a gold, copper, or silver metallic paint on the inside to hide stitching and give it a more rich feel. You can see that slightly in the picture on the left. (just ignore the chipped off pink paint on my nails- it's time to play beauty salon with my girls and get another manicure) :)

The blue polka dot shoe is my mom's other shoe for her b-day and the gold and red shoe is Georgia's (Seth's mom). Georgia's shoe isn't made from all old materials, but has some old tatting and lace on it. My mom's polka dot shoe has such a wonderful old black button that seems very art deco to me. I remember when my mom gave me that button and I couldn't wait to see what shoe it would appear on that I would make. The black beads were stitched to some old netting and the tassels on the back of the shoe are from a Victorian fan.

Frabjous Day, Callooh, Callay

Our mighty Kendyl turned 7 last month and we had a Frabjous party in her honor. She was so proud of her daddy animating on Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland" that she wanted to have a Mad Hatter's Birthday Tea Party. I must say I was quite inspired by the theme I didn't know how to hold back. Everything I thought up I created. It was so fun. And while someone (a-hem Seth's mom :) ) called me obsessed I chose to think of myself as enthusiastic and inspired (like all great geniuses are- haha).

We started with a gathering of the guests and proceeded to drink some mysterious liquid which shrunk us so we could be led down the rabbit hole by the white rabbit (Seth's mom) until we found Absulum (my cute husband- Seth sitting under a tree "smoking" on a garden hand shovel). He gave us wonderful words of wisdom and showed us the Oraculum (a 9 foot scroll that he drew). The Oraculum was drawings of the events of the party. First was a drawing of Alice peering in the rabbit hole. Next was Absulum sitting on a mushroom. After that was a fun looking tea party and then croquet with the Red Queen and last of all was slaying the Jabberwocky.

(Sorry the picture of the Oraculum is not a good one- I need a better camera)

Since we had been down the rabbit hole and talked to Absulum we knew next we needed to go to the Tea Party. The girls had such a fun time talking silly and eating yummy treats. (It's hard to see because it's blurry but the bottle has a tag that says "drink me" and the strawberry's sign says "eat me".

These little snails are so cute and fun to make. You take tortilla and wrap up cream cheese and ham in it. Slice it and stick it to a pickle with a toothpick tail. Then toothpick green olive eyes on top. The kids loved them!

I love this sweet little butterfly tea set I found online. Each cup and saucer are a different color.

After consulting the Oraculum again we joined the Red Queen (me of course) for a fun game of croquet.

Next we proceeded to slay my poor Jabber-baby-wonkey. :) I forgot to attach he amazing wings on him for the picture and slaying (darn) this cool pinata.

After candy was spilt we celebrated by fudderwacking most vigorously and then watched the movie until parents arrived.

What a fun day. Later that night we had a topsy turvy cake. I have never made one before, nor have I tried using fondant, so I think it turned out pretty great considering. :)