Originally posted on Acorn Tops Tumblr: On Fairy Wings and Acorn Hats The original idea of the fairy door is to sit at the base of a tree. It welcomes the fairies to the garden and to make a home if they so wish. However, this seems rather exclusive. What about people who do not have trees or a yard, for that matter? Currently living in the third floor apartment, my mom found an easy solution to this predicament. She has decided to invite the fairies to her bookshelf, because after all what is more magical than reading? A customer decided to follow suit with her Wander door! Some have put them around the baseboards and walls of their rooms. One of my first ever customers put her fairy doors around her raised garden bed and added a stone path to them! Last year, customers told me that they were buying dog fairy doors in honor of a beloved furry companion that had passed away and they were planning on putting the door over the spot their dog’s ashes were buried.
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The first magic any of us really experience is in a book. There is nothing more magical than joining Jack and Annie when the tree house spins faster and faster until everything is still, absolutely still. They transport us to Neverland and Wonderland. They teach us things. That loving something can make it real because we’ve all had our Velveteen Rabbits. To sit and smell the flowers like Ferdinand. Or all you need is a purple crayon to make a whole new world. Sometimes the magic was in understanding a character so completely, because we’ve all had terrible, horrible, no good very bad days. Sometimes the magic was in the simple joy Amelia Bedelia’s blunders brought us or Dr. Seuss’s nonsensical rhymes. And sometimes the magic was simply just in saying goodnight to the moon. For me, my favorite books growing up are filled with memories. Not so much my mom tucking me in at night, though it is that too. The memories and magic for me are a connection. In each of my grandmother’s Lucy Maud Montgomery books, my grandmother wrote her name. For me to pick up that book that she loved so much, means the world. It is a type of magic that words fail to describe. To hold the books she held, to read the words she read, it is like her being there and reading them with me. My all time favorite children’s book, though, would be My Mama Had A Dancing Heart. I cannot write a blog about children’s books without mentioning that one book in particular. The mention of it alone makes me smile, because it is something my mom and I share to this day. John Green called reading a collaboration between the reader and the author. I would go a step further and say it is also a collaboration between reader and reader. There is something special, something exciting when someone reads or has read the same book. There is a personal and intimate connection, whether it’s between family, friends, classmates, or that random customer who walks into your booth. Constantly, I return to this first magic. A lot of times for me, personally, it’s like visiting old friends. Once more, I explore The Hundred Acre Woods. Once again, Max and I start a wild rumpus. Years later, since my library has grown, so has that magic and my inspiration. Now I find it in J.R.R. Tolkien’s poetry: “Not all who wander are lost.” Or in some contemporary young adult literature. Through fairy doors and fairy houses and ornaments, I’m able to take this magic and continue that connection and collaboration. It has always been the first real magic, and now, for me, it is where I turn to first for inspiration. Originally posted on: On Fairy Wings and Acorn Hats This picture hung in every bedroom of every house my grandmother lived in. She received this picture when she was six year old, Christmas 1934 from her Sunday School teacher. She gave this picture to me, and ever since I have carried on that same tradition. This picture was the inspiration for my business and has now become my logo. When my grandfather passed away, we received his carving tools. Many of these tools were handmade themselves. They have the initials carved into the bottoms of the handles. The ones that are not handmade are labeled in permanent marker. Every time I hold them, it’s like holding his hands. With my grandmother’s inspiration and my grandfather’s tools I have created Acorn Tops. From the picture, my line of products have expanded from hand carved Fairy Doors to include Fairy Houses, Fairy Gardens, Fairy bottles, ornaments, and soon Raggle Taggle Fairy Dolls. My business is small. These roots, this tie to the past and to my family will give me the wings for me and my business to soar. Originally posted on: On Fairy Wings and Acorn Hats To anybody else it is just a broken fence post. It is just a broken tea cup. It is just an earring without its pair or an extra terracotta pot. We throw away these items; toss them aside because we believe they have lost their value, all the while failing to see the true magic and beauty behind them. When we were children we could make anything what we needed it to be. Boxes were houses or ships. Backyards became kitchens. Markers became light sabers. Swings became a rocket and dragons. We did not just see items for what they were originally designed. Make-believe and playing pretend gave us a magic that many have lost when leaving childhood. My mother is one of a rare few who can still find the magic and use of items normally tossed aside. Her handmade business, Seeds of Inspiration, makes cat toys using recycled denim from old jeans. Recently on etsy, I came across a bird feeder made out of glass salsa bottle. Trash for Teaching re-imagines items cast away in bulk and doomed to landfills and uses them to help in teaching within schools and communities. The trick is to return to that child-like outlook of the world, where anything can be anything else. Put away our adult eyes for just a while and embrace the magic and gift of seeing more to everyday items then their assigned purpose or value. You’ll be amazed at what you can find. The possibilities are endless. |
On Fairy Wings and Acorn Hats
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