Faerieworlds - Bad Faery Day

It's pretty unanimous that Bad Faery Day is everyone's favorite. Not only is it nicely in the middle, not the first day when you're trying to get your bearings and too excited to be relaxed, and not the last day when you can already feel the end approaching. Plus, who can resist letting one's more impish side out to play!

Here's the camping core of us in our Bad Faery finery.



Hubby looked quite handsome actually, in his kilt and Puckish horns, but here he just looks his ordinary goofy self, trying to sneak through the forest.




I made Joli's little fire faery outfit. Here she is trying to wave her sparky hands about.



Victoria worked on her outfits during the weeks leading up to the festival and this one went through some last minute adaptations to finally arrive at this stunning purple evil enchantress persona.



I was with Lisa when she found the pieces for her Bad Faery Day outfit. We decided to call a spade a spade and labeled this her Slutty Faery outfit. She got her photo taken a lot this day, for obvious reasons. She looked totally hot. (and was indeed, VERY hot inside those boots, that she hated having to take off as the day wore on)




I got my photo taken a lot this day as well. The idea for this evil Will-o-the-Wisp came to me after last year's festival and I wasn't sure if I could manifest it like I pictured it in my head, but I was thrilled when it all came together in the end. One thing I didn't consider that worked well is that since black (and to a lesser degree red) were the obvious choices for the theme, white stood out in the crowd. The idea - and so many people described me in exactly this way, which was so exciting that they "got" it - that I was beautiful from far off, luring people in. It wasn't until they got up close (at which point a real evil Will-O-the-Wisp would have lured her victims far off the beaten path and done what she pleased with them) that they started to notice the skulls, bones, skeletons, and decaying lace.




Here you can see my bone wings and the lace and other decaying fabric on the last layer of my outfit. It's actually old pieces that I accidentally left out in the rain and then washed as best I could, thinking I could use them to make some odd dolls or something out of - it was perfect. Unfortunately I forgot to get a real close up of my wings.

Just another photo of me being all sassy.

Once we were ready, we wandered down for breakfast. Several members of our larger circle of friends took it upon themselves to organize and run a group kitchen for the camping folk. Here's the head chef, Sam, most probably the nicest Red Cap you'll ever meet.

And then it was off on the walk to the festival. Before we even arrived, the magic began. This guy was just standing in the woods by the side of the road drumming folks into the realm.

It was a long walk for the smaller fae. Apparently Joli's baby faery was having a hard time keeping up.

The closer we got, the more faeries we saw. They were coming out of the woods all over the place!

When we arrived, even though it was still far too hot to qualify as Oregon weather, the music had already begun and faeries were flying about everywhere you looked.

There were bad faeries, evil faeries, slinky faeries, and mysterious fae and creatures of all kinds. This faery family I remembered from last year, they looked incredible on this day although, I don't think they quite turned their young one to their evil ways quite yet.

Here I am posing with my friend Mermaid, this day a seductive siren version of the watery fae (she mostly looks hot in this photo but trust me, she looked gorgeous), and Katie as a crow (raven?) faery. Katie is a wonderful artist and I love the Poe woodblock design tank top I bought from her this year. Wearing it right now actually. (You might have to click on the specific image on that last link to see the Poe print)

Here's that wee fae again being entertained by Toby Froud and his friend Ignatz. Most of you know Toby for his role as the baby in the movie Labyrinth but as you can see, he's grown a bit since then and, amongst other creative talents, is a talented puppet maker.

Here's Lisa again with a likeminded fae with the same fashion statement - we had to take a photo of them together!

Here are two fanciful fae wearing charming chapeau's designed by our friend Heather. Argh, I couldn't find a link. I don't know if she even has a website for her creations. If she does, can someone throw me the URL? If not, then shame on you Heather, you should!

I guess these three youthful pranksters makes a good "tail end" for this post. More Bad Faery Day to come...

Faerieworlds: More Good Faery Day

I couldn't resist sharing a few more photos from the first day, before moving on.

There are beautiful Lammas altars in front of the both the main and side stages. Joli is all about the altars as she knew from previous years they usually provided some sort of opportunity to "borrow" some fresh fruit or other food offering. Here she is checking out this year's side stage.




Looks like Elena is making a tradition out of an annual hat purchase. She said she's gonna hang this one like a lamp in her room between times when she needs it for head adornment.

Each year's opening ceremony includes the always amazing spiral dance. Jeff took photos so that I could participate. He managed to capture our friends Katie, Mermaid, and Zoe here.

And coming into view - me, Joli, and Lisa. Everyone joins hands but to make it work when Joli got tired of dancing, I had to hold onto her foot.

Someone video taped this years, to see the movement and hear the music, go here.

Of course I took photos of as many of the other faeries as I could manage. These three had the right idea for faery garb - I believe faery fashion sense runs strongly towards the idea that "More is MORE!"

I admit my favorite are the darker faeries and even on Good Faery Day, some of us couldn't resist showing a bit of our Gothy side, like this gorgeous fae.

Or this amazing birdwoman.



Of course faeries come in all ages, from wee babes to the crones and sages of the realm. I was excited at how many older fae there were this year, even having to brave the heat! (And since I'm not particularly a spring chicken and I know how the heat bothers me these days, I was really impressed.)




Hubby made friends with this small gentleman that goes by the name Nimblenuts.




The magic and music carried on well into the night. Here's the lovely Kelly, one of the lead singers for the band Woodland. Also, she and her husband are two of the Faerieworlds organizers. She wears many hats during the festival. Click on their name to reach their site or here to hear a clip of my favorite song live from last year's Faerieworlds.




Sunflowers from the main stage altar.




A bit obscure but these were people dancing to the music in the night with glow in the dark hula hoops! Faeries don't let a little thing like no light get in their way of having fun.

Lost in the Faerie Realm

All the old stories tell of humans who wander, or are lured, into the land of the fae, sometimes never to return. But if they do return, it's often weeks, months, years later, and they are completely unaware of how much time has passed, for in the Otherworld, time moves at a completely different speed or perhaps doesn't seem to pass at all.

That is, to a great degree, what has happened to me and why my blog has been so empty and abandoned this last month. Last we spoke, except for the quick anniversary pop in, I was in the midst of company and travelers. The fun and busyness continued on, and en masse we all finally packed up and made our way to Faerieworlds. It was wonderful, musical, overwhelming, hot, magical. The human world and it's troubles and concerns seemed far away and irrelevent. It was hard to come home.

But come home we did and for a long while time truly didn't seem to make much sense and we were all trapped inbetween the fae and human realms. And the heat wave continue. And more company arrived. And then just as the magical fog was beginning to clear from my brain, I was off on another adventure, travels for a week.

And now home again and trying to get back into new routines. Autumn is whispering. School has begun. The first football game of the season is tonight. The laundry and the plumber and the animals and the dust bunnies and the garden and oh, everything is calling for my time and attention.

It's been so long and I'm so hopelessly behind that I've now passed all hope of "catching up" here on the blog, or somehow segueing artistically into stories new or old. Instead, I'll just jump in and then carry on.

Today, I'm sharing photo moments from the first day of Faerieworlds, aka Good Faery Day.

Here's the group we started out with on the first day of the festival (sans me, taking the photo). Folks left and more folks came and all in all over the course of the three festival days, we numbered fifteen in just our group. And that didn't count all the friends, old and new, we wanted a chance to meet up with outside our own contigent. From L to R: Jeff as an old oak tree, Victoria the woodland fae, Lisa the happy black and white faery, Lisa's sister Elena in her faery garb, Lisa's mom Gaye (her first time to the festival), Joli faery reworking some of last year's outfit I made for her, and Lisa's sister Brianna in her beautiful lavender wings.

I really like this photo of Victoria in her woodland garb.

In the children's area, Joli is watching a puppet show put on by two other wee fae. It totally cracks me up that they miss the stage window and have their puppets performing on the top of the stage. LOL!

Two very Suessical looking birds were dancing about during one of the performances.

If a tree falls in the forest, does it require another glass of Hibiscus Cooler? We must have bought fifty orders of them before the weekend was out. As well as a zillion trips to the water truck for drinking water. It was so very, very hot!

Noel and the kids arrived in the afternoon. Nonny, Joshua and Garrett all enjoying their frozen ice treats.

Benjamin wasn't convinced about the whole wing thing.

Here's the one decent picture of me that day. I was a chocolate faery. I kept telling everyone my wings were melting in the heat! I had a little melting cap on too, which never made it into a photograph. In the middle is my friend Mermaid in her ocean finery and her beautiful daughter Zoe. There were so many friends to hug and talk with and we really only had smidgens of time with everyone because there was so much to do and see and catch up on.

Here be dragons.....

The vendor in this awesome gothy booth (which I can't remember the name of presently but I'll post a link later if I ever find the business card I brought home with me) was so nice. She scooped Joli up onto her lap and they looked through that entire Froud faery book together where they discovered a photo of the Laume and Joli pointed out "That's Grammy!"

Many more Faerieworld photos to come.....

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Today is our 19th wedding anniversary. Which I remember mostly because other people, including Hubby, remind me that it is so. Really, it's more like our 20.5 years anniversary as we hit the ground running with four kids and too many last names between the six of us. Over the years we've added another child (who is about to turn 18!), our children's friends and partners, grandkids, friends, cars, travels, many pets, several houses, and chaos and adventures of all natures - some sad or challenging but mostly good stuff. Not sure what to make of it all except to say, we're still laughing.