I received a letter via snail-mail the other day from our fairy neighbors requesting my assistance in finding accommodation for some fairies visiting in Spring next year.
It seems their house is a bit crowded, especially since the birth of the twins, Rosalie and Rosamund.
After I gave it some thought I remembered the gnome villa that stood downstairs. Once a glamorous gnome country villa, it fell into disrepair when two princesses started to raid the house of furniture (which they distributed to all their dolls....) during the day, when the gnomes were at work. Finally at their wits' end the gnomes decided to buy a house in another neighborhood and sadly moved away and the once gorgeous villa remained behind, desolate and abandoned, but I was sure with some restoration and new furniture we would be able to restore the villa to its' former glory!
The logical approach to the process would of course have been to spring clean the villa, and that was my intention (promise!) but then I got side-tracked into first finishing the new dining room set.
I started off with some things I already had in the house - some lids from my recycled glass bottle hoard stash (a bigger one for the table and 4 smaller ones for the chairs) and some wooden blocks that have been lying around in my notorious crafts' cupboard (no seriously, my husband is rather afraid of fetching anything out of this cupboard - I think he think it might almost be like the magical wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which might just suck him into another parallel world.....).
Then I painted everything with 2 layers primer - we all know what messy eaters fairies are, and we don't want them damaging the surface of the table after the first feast!
While all this was drying I decided to do the actual spring cleaning. I wiped down the gnome villa and then used my homemade furniture polish - I used this recipe from Crunchy Betty - Wonderfully simple homemade wood polish recipe . In fact I use many of her homemade cleaning and home solutions and they are all amazing! I applied some polish to the poor-dried-out, shouting-for-some-nourishment wood and after about 20 minutes rubbed it down with a clean cloth and it really looks amazing, but I think I will probably repeat the process in a week or two because the wood was really dried out.
Look at how much better the floors of the villa look after the treatment.....
By now the primer was dry and I applied the red paint needed to turn the dining room table and chairs into pretty little mushrooms and of course it had to be a Fly Agaric mushroom because nothing says to me fairy party like those red and white caps! What a cruel twist of fate it is that these are so poisonous because I simply adore these little mushrooms - when walking in the woods and spotting some of these I can almost hear the pitter-patter of little fairy feet....
And seeing as this villa is going to be very posh and hoity-toity - you know I have to think of the future when the fairy guests are gone and I might have to look for new residents for the villa - I painted the table and chairs with a metallic red paint I had lying around from a previous project. You know everyone needs a bit of bling in their lives......
After the red paint I used an ear bud to apply the white spots and then I glued the wooden blocks to the red lids.
I really think these came out amazing and I will leave them out for the fairies tonight to get their opinion on the new furniture.
But we have a long way to go before the gnome villa will look as elegant as before so I'll have my work cut out for me before the guests arrive in Spring.....
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