I’m just too excited about this not to share in a Miss Fi’s Kingdom blog. If it isn’t already fairly obvious I LOVE FAIRIES! My collection of fairy books range from classic tales, tooth fairies, novels, board books with glitter, and the treasured 1st editions. I was always pretending to be a fairy always wanting my own pair of wing, petals for dress, and glitter and fairy dust sparkling from my long curly locks as I ran through my garden. I’ve only caught a glimpse of fairies out of the corner of my eye and even then I have let my skeptic mind say yeah right… It’s just your imagination and your love of fairies making you see things, until yesterday. All three of us were in the backyard making the rounds trying to wear Fiona out for her nap. I was also getting pictures of all the new things she can do now that she’s not having daytime seizures. Fiona is almost five and she is doing things that we have never seen or only seen once years ago. I had to document her climbing up the play equipment to go down the slide, picking vegetables out of our garden (and voluntarily releasing them back into our hands), and grip the bubble wand, dip it in the juice, and wave it around! Fiona is ready to move on from the bubbles after a few minutes but I needed to use up the bubble juice and I had wanted to try and photograph the bubbles. They are so big and so colorful… actually rainbow is my favorite color. So there I was camera in my right hand bubble wand in my left snapping off pictures of every bubble I could. And look at what I caught on film! Even as I was taking the picture I knew what I was capturing in my little playback screen. The above picture hasn’t been edited at all. I have other pictures that you can cock your head and say, “well maybe that could be…” This one is the clearest of the bunch. After I uploaded the pictures I opened it in Photoshop and had a look at the details of the fairy’s face, legs, and wings. Amazing is all I can say. I played around with the dark and light and cropped the picture. This is what I came up with.

I hope this brings a smile to those of you that hold a special place in your heart for fairies and maybe makes a believer or two. Do you believe in fairies? Tell me your stories!

Curtis brought home some; tea bags, stir sticks, and instant coffee after a business meeting. Of course I tucked the tea away but the “coffee stuff” sat on my kitchen counter for weeks because we aren’t big coffee drinkers and we when we do make coffee we use spoons to stir not disposable utensils. Right? Not using disposables is one of the ways to positively impact the environment and reduce your waste. I didn’t want to send them to the landfill, but they were going to end up in my cabinets collecting dust. I knew I wasn’t going to use them in the kitchen, so…

I put my recycling cap on and started think about how I could transform these silly wooden sticks into something more use full, more entertaining, and hopefully send a message about looking at the items we use and toss in a new way. I thought about all the items we use to make coffee and tea; stir sticks, tea bags, coffee filters, individual packets of sugar and creamer. Many of them we just use once and toss. I pulled out a coffee filter and stir sticks and started to let my imagination go. Coffee Fairy! I got my wire out and started to bend and twist the core anatomy of the fairy. I looped hip, neck, and shoulder joints to attach the limbs and head of the fairy. I made a spine, ribcage, and even a spiral heart to fill the space under the dress. Adding cotton balls gave Stacey a little more substance to her body. The sir sticks could make simple stick figure arms and legs. I cut the stir sticks in half and wired them to the fairy’s frame.

A filter would make the most beautiful, fluffy, and chic dress for an eco fairy. The hardest part was coming up with a head and wings for Stacey. I eventually found the right size and shape for her head and figured out the simple lines of the copper wings. Now Stacey the Coffee Fairy is ready to hang on your tree or by your desk. Just be careful not to leave a cup of Joe out, she might just drink it down to the last drop!

I named this one-of-a-kind fairy after my close friend and graphic designer, Stacey Pastor. She has been the reason I have a website and wonderful graphics for Miss Fi’s Kingdom. She has works hard for me. She took my pencil drawings of Miss Fi and my vision of her Kingdom and turned them into pixels and points on her Mac. Stacey LOVES coffee! So when we work she has to have to have a cup of coffee or a latté or two. She is one of the reasons I bought a coffee machine. So I thought naming this fairy ornament, Stacey, would be the perfect tribute to her and all her work for me.

Stacey the Coffee Fairy drank all her coffee and she wants some more! Go to www.MissFiKingdom.etsy.com to purchase this very special ornament. There is more to come from Stacey the Coffee Fairy but this is the 1st of her kind.