I'm Impressed at the Stats... :)

I'm really excited that so many people are interested in my blog!



I've got this little widget at the foot of the blog, which keeps track of how many times people look at my blog. I've had over 8,000 pageviews!!!!!!!! Of course, some of that is you, my dear followers, who check my blog regularly. But, still! I'm so excited! :)









Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe

My facebook page has 80 followers!!!
Don't forget to fan me on facebook. I'll keep you updated on new events, giveaways, and sales on my Shoppe! Don't worry, I don't spam-- lately I've only been posting once a week, and I make it a point never to post more than once or twice a day.

Fan, soon, because you'll find a giveaway there in the near future. ^_^

 The RSS feed has 40 subscribers...




Look over to the right, in the sidebar, and you'll see the Blogger Followers widget. 29 fellow bloggers follow my blog!!!

Look over to the right, in the sidebar again, and you'll spot more options for following, including receiving email updates!

Again in the sidebar (sorry, some of these widgets are Blooger built and I can't move them inside my post) you'll see my Popular Posts (the posts with the most pageviews). I find it funny which ones are so popular... The drawing of Hermione's Dress somehow got ranked fifth in Google's image search for queries such as "Hermione Yule Ball," "Yule Ball Dress," and some others. (Thank you, Blogger Stats, for letting me know that! lol!) Actually, I get ALOT of people coming through Google searching for things like "Elvish crafts." Hopefully they will be pleased with what they see here at Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe!


Anyways, I just had to share that. Back to regular crafty posting soon... :D

My First Craft Fair

My table display, set up in our school room.

A few weeks ago, my Mom forwarded me an email from a homeschool group: they were having a craft fair!

"You might want to think about doing this," Mom said.

Of course I wanted to do it! And thus it was that last Monday we drove out to this funeral-home-turned-gathering-center with a Rubbermaid tub full of... well, every jewelry that I have made and didn't plan on keeping. :)

The tables were free, and it sounded like it would be a mix of cutesy little kids' wares and parents' crafts. My six year old sister, Adelynn, made her own "Shoppe"-- "Adelynn's Princess Shop."

The day before the craft fair, I took over the homeschool table and made a beautiful little display. (See the results above!)

I wasn't expecting round tables!

The real deal!

(Please excuse the picture quality. Silly me forgot the camera's memory card! Mom snagged these with her phone camera. You'd better thank her for remembering that, or else you, dear readers, would have no pictures of any quality!)

Please excuse how crazy I look and see how pretty my little sis is. :)

I didn't really know what to expect; after all, this was not a real craft fair. When we arrived, I was surprised at how many people came to sell items.

Most of them were cute little kid crafts-- some very creative. For instance, marshmellow guns? Rings made out of brads? Pretty cool. Some people made soaps, some made tote bags, my co-op's art teacher did calligraphy... one lady had some amazing "good deed bracelets" (sacrifice beads made into a bracelet!) Mom bought this thing called a rice bag from someone-- it. is. awesome. I'm going to make some myself and do a post on them. ^_^

So the craft fair turned out rather well; I made five or six small sales and nearly everyone took one of my business cards. Adelynn sold two things and promptly spent that money on two little things from two other little girls. :)

I did notice that the only people there were the people selling things and their families. Most people came with full tables... and left with nearly full tables.

Packing everything up!

I certainly got a lot of experience from this craft fair! One important thing I learned: never forget hyperallegenic ear wires for earrings. I missed out on two sales because of that... In the future, I will always bring some gold plated, silver plated, and niobium ear wires for people who want them. :)

Have you ever been to a craft fair? Which displays and wares were your favorites? Have any tips? Please share in the comments box!

I am now officially hooked. I shall keep an eye out for craft fair opportunities-- and I might even bring some original artwork and some prints!

Do you want me to do a post on how I displayed the jewelry? I've already taken things apart, but I can show you the *drumroll* secrets. (I would make a terrible magician, lol!) For instance... I spent $0 on it!

Flower Fairies

Or, What I was Doing When My Camera Broke

A flower Elf. Arwen, maybe?

Revel in the beauty of that picture. T'was the last my nice camera ever took.

Some of you may remember the post where I explained that my camera had broken. It was a fluke, really; I was holding the wonderful camera, taking pictures out in the yard of my flower fairies, when the camera slid from my hand and hit the dirt. (What gets me is the fact that it managed to fall despite the fact that I had wrapped the strap around my wrist!)

Dad says that I managed to jiggle it's insides just enough and in the only way that it can't be fixed. It was a very, very nice camera. T'was an old Canon of my grandparent's. RIP awesome camera.

Anyways, that was a long time ago. I'm back to using the 10 year old Olympus (again from my grandparents!) It's a nice camera, but it's starting to get old age lines. For example, the memory cards? Soooo outdated. Startup time? Sooooo long. Macros? Sooooo difficult to take. Thankfully I've learned it inside and out, so I can make it do what I want. And if it can't do it, well, I've got Photoshop now!

Now that we've got the camera story out of the way, want to hear about the Flower Fairies?

My aunt (or grandparents, I forget) gave me a book/kit from somewhere (Klutz, maybe? I forget) for Christmas (I was nine or so.... I forget). I spent hours making these little fairies and teaching my friends to make them. (Thankfully I have not forgotten how to make them...  heehee)

I made these three, the Water Lily fairy, the Lord of the Rings Elf fairy, and the Bride fairy, (along with a bajillion others) in 4th grade when I was home from school for a month due to two surgeries.

I made alot-- these are just the ones that I didn't give away. ^_^

Not content with fairies, I made a mermaid.

Click to enlarge

I've thought about making Wedding flower fairy sets for my Shoppe. I would make it all custom order, with the hair the color of the real people, the wedding dress in similar style to the real one, and using the colors in the actual bridesmaid dresses. Wouldn't that be sweet?
What do you think?

Oooops! Business Cards

I just realized that I put the wrong URL for my Shoppe on my business cards!

In case you got to my blog from the business cards, the real Shoppe address is:

{   www.artfire.com/users/Shealynns-Faerie-Shoppe   }

The link on the cards pulls up a 404 Not Found error.

Incorrect Link to the Shoppe

I'm so sorry for the confusion!

Apparently I had forgotten to type /users/ on the card. (Which is strange, because I totally remember not having that in the URL, but oh well!) Now I've got some 20 leftover cards to fix. I might just stick little stickers on the back so I don't have to waste perfectly good cards. :)

Yes, I am weird...

...as can be seen in these pictures.

What You Can Do With Charm Bracelets

My first charm bracelet. { HERE }

I've made two charm bracelets. They are, without a doubt, some of my favorite bracelets, ever.

They are so playful!

Wear two on one wrist!

Bored? Mess around with the beads!

I can't help but jiggle my wrist when I wear these...

Get creative...

Attach the clasps of the bracelet to the clasps of a chain for a fashionable necklace!

And go bold!

Two bracelets and a chain-- overboard? Not so much!

You've got creative and bold... Go unique!

Just two charm bracelets attached together make a great choker necklace.

I've seen this style around somewhere...

It's called layering.

Bored? You are never, never, never ever bored when you've got glasses with magnetic sunglass clips... and charm bracelets.

Muahahaha. Can YOUR glasses do that?

...and, for all that, the only way I usually wear charm bracelets is one on a wrist. The normal way.

(Well, I do stick it on my glasses an awful lot... You know, during long, drawn out games of Monopoly?)



*Check out my new tutorial on how to make these charm bracelets!