My new Atelier

If you ever come by the Champagne Region in northern France, you can now visit my atelier and see how the fairies are being made. This end of year I will only exhibit my work at the country living fair in London and the Wealden Times midwinter fair in Kent . I used to exhibit at The Reims christmas  market, but no more . In december you can now visit me every day until the 24 th of december from 14.00 to 19.00 at my atelier in the beautiful village of Chenay among the champagne vineyards 5 minutes from Reims.

                                           Atelier My sweet Fairy
                                                    4 Place Boisseau
                                                       51140 Chenay
                                                            France

My new Atelier

If you ever come by the Champagne Region in northern France, you can now visit my atelier and see how the fairies are being made. This end of year I will only exhibit my work at the country living fair in London and the Wealden Times midwinter fair in Kent . I used to exhibit at The Reims christmas  market, but no more . In december you can now visit me every day until the 24 th of december from 14.00 to 19.00 at my atelier in the beautiful village of Chenay among the champagne vineyards 5 minutes from Reims.

                                           Atelier My sweet Fairy
                                                    4 Place Boisseau
                                                       51140 Chenay
                                                            France

Let's meet up

Sometimes after months of routine work, things suddenly get hectic.

It is right now happening in ALL areas of my life. The quiet village life is suddenly disturbed by big decisions, and the crafting, for once, takes the back seat. I live and breath my craft, but it has kind of smothered the other things I should be doing, meeting friends and enjoying more than work.

I had quite a few tough years in my personnal life, and working making fairies has been a screen that protected me from feeling too much, as long as I was working it was enough. Work helped me keep my sanity, but was also used as an excuse for not questioning too deeply what my life was about.

One big piece of news is that I will be at the spirit of christmas fair again this year, so see you there , maybe?

My phone killed my blog and put me on facebook

My blog is kind of abandonned...for two reasons, I have little time and therefore always put blogging at the very very bottom of my list, so much so it never gets done. And I find it difficult to share anything else than professional news, and well nothing extaordinarily new recently.

I can also say that my smart phone has put my computer on holidays, I can now spend weeks without opening it and I still spend millions of hours on the internet, in queues at the post office, in the dentist waiting room. It has freed me from my desk, but because blogging from a phone is a bit more difficult I ended up not doing it for quite some time now.

But it made facebook so quick to use.

Having facebook on my iphone made keeping up with everybody's news so much quicker, so I kind of read less and less blogs too, if they are not linked with facebook.So if you want to follow the fairies news follow me on facebook.

Anyway, I am still making fairies ( I have started to work on christmas stock this week), and I still do fairs. This november I will be as usual at the Country Living fair in London, and maybe, but still to be confirmed, the Spirit of christmas fair in London Kensington. Over the summer I will go to Portobello market (London W11) on most fridays, and Camden lock market (London NW1) on saturdays and sundays, weather permitting, if it is pouring with rain it makes it difficult for me to display the fairies.

I will try to come back and post more often here, but I know I always prefer to sit in my studio making fairies, crafting is my breathing.

Back from the country living fair

I just got back from the country living fair, and as usual it didn't disapoint, lovely fair, lovely christmas scents, lovely people :)

Autumn is there

The nights are getting colder, but the days are quite warm. Yesterday the grapes harvest have started here, and my village that is usually so quiet is buzzing with people. In the champagne region the grapes have to be picked by hands, no machine there.

I am completely immersed in christmas stuff, working three months ahead as usual, and I just would love to skip work to go outside... I really have to force myself to stay anchored to my desk and work, one of those days hey!

Newbies

The days are shortening, time to forget the garden for a while (still so much things to do before winter though). Even though I seemed to have disappeared from the virtual world, I am still going modeling clay every single day in my studio,which needs a good clear out too !

The little newbies are in the shop right now.

The carnations are in !

I love carnations, I know they had a bad press for along time , I am thinking of the long-stems- crying-out-for-some-love at the petrol stations ones , these ones are garden ones, the short, pink very smelly ones, love their peppery smell!

In the garden

I am spending lots of time in the garden right now, and the rest of it I am making fairy cakes for the next exhibition which will be at the RHS flower show in Tatton park . I won't be going on holidays this year, and the most exciting trip I will take will probably be a shopping one around Manchester...But I am very excited just as much as I left for holidays in Italy last year ! I love garden shows, because I can shop too for my garden. And mine is still a very blank canvas except for the wendy house I set up for my daughter a couple of years ago, I though she would be thrilled, she very rarely goes in there...she prefers to climb trees ! But she does enjoy the garden too in her own way !

Eggs and bunnies

The very tiny ones

7 Years

It has been already 7 years since this little rabbit has become the focus of every outing ("did we take rabbit" "do not forget bunny")...And a very full life it had so far, after being with us for ten month her little owner baptised it " dadine"...This little furry thing spent many hours in the washing machine after being torned, pulled, droped, forgotten on the lawn.

This little dadine has visited 7 countries...has been lost several times (many thanks to the kind lady at Marks and Spencer who brought it back to the till ! IT REALLY SAVED THE DAY).

It has been the witness of tooth ache and cries of joy too...

This little rabbit is not abandonned yet, it still goes to bed every night in the (too fast) growing arms of her owner, and she pulls its ears on a regular basis.

When this little rabbit will be very tired I will frame it and look at it every day , forever the reminder of the joy of having my little one, my little toddler who will be seven tomorrow...

To celebrate, this little bunny is going with us to see the Tales of Peter Rabbit at the Royal Opera House, we are very excited to see rabbits with ballet shoes!

My sweet fairy loves snow

The silly things we get excited about...here we don't get much snow, not very much, not very often, so I couldn't help getting a little bit overexcited (an understatement) when by midday the house looked like it was coated in icing sugar...

I already overdo it a bit at christmas: this year we chose a christmas tree way too big for the cottage sized living room, but we don't care, it has filled the air with scent and that feels good...

Even if It does obstruct the view of the tv slightly from the sofa ...

And tonight I just realised I do suck at snowballs fight...was never very good at aiming at anything !

Country Living fair 2009

Back from the country living fair I wasn't able to take lots of pictures as I was stuck to my stand working all day . But I saw that Ruby's mama took quite good ones, and her blog is lovely!

I had a lovely time over there, and I thank all the people who visited me there, you are all so kind !

Sweet november

For me November used to be just a damp and cold month, not any more... It is still damp and cold, but it is time for a change in my lifestyle. It is time to swap the wellies for the high heels, and the loneliness of my studio for the jolly crowd of christmas fair. I love living in the countryside in my tiny village in my tiny cottage, I love this slow pace of life. But there is nothing more revigorating at the begining of the cold season, than to emigrate a fortnight to busy London. It is just long enough to appreciate the restaurants, the theaters, mmm and the shopping too !

Out with the country girl , I am off to the city!

I may see you there next week with all the baubles on stand D3 at the country living magazine fair.

Scary halloween !

A day late, I am always behind !

Busy bee

I am working on sweet unedible stuff for the fair next month. I love it when I manage to produce fake cakes that look perfectly yummy. Some days I wake up thinking what a silly job, doesn't sounds very serious and still it is my "profession".

It always is a very akward moment (for me) when people I just met ask me:

"And what do you do ?

-...Fairies...

-Sorry, I didn't quite get that.

-Fairies, and then faced with their blank look, I mumble again, fairies, you know,... with wings."

Then comes the big "Oh!" pronounced with a tone of commiseration that is quite puzzling to me.

They very often jump to the conclusion that "oh god! poor girl , she must be struggling to make a living."

And in less than two minutes all the credibility and seriousness that I gained slowly over the past ten years (took me quite a while to look my age, when I was 25,some people thought I was 16, I am now 34 and looks it), all this just goes, and they assume I must be one of those silly head in the clouds girl with her head not properly screwed on!

It was the anniversary of my business in september, and it has been going on for 12 years now , so the good side of it, is: when the people who asked me several years ago what I was doing how I am today and they add "Still doing fairies?"

Yep! I still do ! And more than I ever did...

And then comes the "It is a nice little business you have here, working for yourself, nobody to boss you around..."

Yes it is, and I cherish every moment of it.

We are the choices that we make !

Back to school...back to work !

After long, very long holidays...I can go back to work now that my daughter is back to school, and so I start accumulating stock for the Country Living fair and all the other christmas markets I am going to attend. The blog is bottom on the list of priorities unfortunately . I would love to be able to share all I saw this summer and I have just visited a brilliant trade fair in Paris but I don't think I will ever be able to make time for everything. Hence, as usual a quick picture a quick hello! and back to work!

From the Hampton court flower show

I visited it for the first time this year, and I have to say it is the best show I have seen ever (it tops Chelsea!)...really worth the trip! It takes about 6 hours just to walk down every corner...so imagine to decide on what to buy!
The british can really be proud of their Royal Horticultural society!