This Moment...

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember...

Linking up with Soulemama

Moments from the week

Autumn Inspirations

Autumny things to love this month...

* Oatmeal breakfasts

* Milky coffee with a sprinkle of nutmeg

* Warm cosy woollies, socks, jumpers, cardigans, socks....

* Cosy evenings and candlelight

* Poetry. Something about Autumn makes me read poetry

* Quiet anticipation

* Crisp blue skies

Tree weaving, Autumn's warmest threads... stitching a tapestry of days...

More leaf preservation gathered from many a woodland path.

Pied Beauty ... Gerard Manly Hopkins

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

"Pied Beauty"
Gerard Manly Hopkins~

Let all go dear... So comes love...

I  pray to bring light, peace, God's love into every situation. Wherever the opportunity arises.

I want to well compassion from broken, parched ground. 

I want forgiveness's balm to soften the hard places.

Leave a space.

For the sacred to enter.

Open those windows out wide, let the light and the sound of the Autumn breeze flood through.

As e.e cummings says...

- let all go dear 

so comes love...

 

(Photo's of Tilly in Autumns evening Goldust)

The making of Our Fairy Garden!

Here was our fairy garden in Spring when we first made it out of an old disused sand box.

The girls each chose their own plants to put into the garden.

We used our rabbits rich manure compost to fill the sand pit and the plants have really thrived on it.

The girls helped me dig out spaces where they wanted their flowers to go and then carefully planted them in.

Matilda chose the mini tree (for the fairies to climb, gather firewood and take shelter under)

Bujana chose the pretty pink powder puff flowers, (because her fairies just love anything pink) 

Seraphina chose some lovely purple heather (To remind them of the wild)

Emmy chose some beautiful miniature daffodils, (mainly because she is a march 1st baby) But also because their trumpets make excellent fairy dresses!

 

After planting came the really fun part.... Choosing treasures for the fairies to find in their lovely new garden!
Oh the joy...Of running around in search of treasure.

• We put in fir cones and sprinkled little sparkling green sea glass jewels.
• We made a garden path out of pebbles.
• We scattered a few copper coins in amongst the undergrowth for lucky little fairy people to find. (Fairies just love treasure)
• Emmy found some pretty shining shells at the beach which she filled with water to make fairy paddling pools.
• A couple of lanterns and some candles look so pretty and magical lit up along the sides of the garden on an early summer evening.
• Bujana found a little font to make a fairy bird bath.
• Then came the little butterflies for the fairies to ride around the garden on.
• And rainbow windmills which have the magic to create real rainbows according to one little girl I know :)
• We collected fir cones from our woodland travels to make little homes for our fairy people
• but best of all was this addition.... Our mini celtic wattle and daub roundhouse.

What fairy wouldn't love to live in this snug little abode?

By mid summer the wild flowers we had planted as seeds and which the fairies had obviously tended to with great care had grown bigger than we ever could have imagined!

The giants have now been replaced with, among others, a constant budding of small but beautifully formed red poppies and cornflowers.

These pretty wild flowers attract all the lovely bugs, bees and butterflies that this little girl is so interested in.... Yes, our fairy garden is now a wildlife garden too!

Emmy planted some wild strawberries along the far edge of the garden over Spring.
"So the fairies could find their own food in Summer." They are the smallest strawberries you've ever seen, truly "fairy strawberries" but you've never tasted anything more fragrant and sweet in your life!
*
Thank you fairies....Yes the fairy garden has been an abundance of growth, learning, joy, imagination, magic and wonder.....Sweet treats and all :)
 

And look who I found the other day! A real life flower fairy! Right from under the tumble of leaves and flowers in our magical garden!

Whatever next?

I can't wait to follow this magical little spot through the seasons and the years to find out!

*

Inspired by "The Magic Onions" Annual Fairy Garden Competition!

Here is a post about our Fairy Garden 2011

Make a Summer Fairy Hair Wreath...

Bujana my very own Summer garden fairy, has had so much fun wearing this fairy wreath that we made together this afternoon! She still has it on... in peaceful slumber in the bunk bed fairy den the girls made today!
I suggested to her that the theme could be Summer. Bujana chose the "summery" colours that she wanted the flowers, ribbon and buttons from her fabric scrap basket and button box.

First we measured around her head with a tape measure and cut a piece of florists wire to the same size adding on an extra inch or so for the wrapping.
Then we twisted it into a circle, tying a long piece of ribbon to the part where the wire joined itself, wrapping it securely it all the way around.
Bujana really enjoyed twisting the ribbon around the wire frame!

I drew some flower and leaf shapes onto card and cut them out. Then I traced around the templates onto some pretty, summery coloured felt.

Then I carefully cut out the pieces.
Bujana sewed the button onto the flowers first then I helped add the leaves underneath because that part was a little trickier.
Then she sewed the three oak leaves together with a button in the centre.

I sewed the finished flowers and leaves onto the top of the wreath using the long end of the thread still attached. Hooking through the wrapped ribbon and then back up through the button hole till secure.


Bujana couldn't wait to run outside to show the fairy garden fairies her new creation!

I think they were impressed :)