Planning a Tea Party...

I'm excited to announce that Silver Shoes & Rabbit Holes plans to participate in the fabulous annual Mad Tea Party blog hop this year! Hosted each summer by the amazing Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist, it has been one of my favorite web events for several years now. I love seeing all the twists different bloggers take to celebrate. After Little's Sis's birthday party, I knew I wanted to join in on the fun!

And if you can't tell by the name of my blog, my love of all things Alice runs deep!

Please see A Fanciful Twist for more details, and please join us on Saturday, July 23rd!



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Bloom and Fairy Crafting

  

Last week, I told you about a lovely old fairy book called Blossom. Today, I'm sharing a wonderful new fairy book called Bloom. If you're sensing a theme - well, aside from the whole fairy thing, the titles are completely coincidental.

Bloom by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by David Small.
Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2016.

The blurb at the bottom of the cover reads: "A mud fairy, an extraordinary ordinary girl, and a castle in peril."

This book rocks.

The story? Well, there was once a beautiful glass kingdom, and in that kingdom lived a little fairy named Bloom. Bloom was filthy. She was caked in mud, with beetles crawling in her wings. Her main job was to keep the kingdom in working order. But as the kingdom grows and becomes more prosperous, Bloom and her dirt are no longer welcome. She leaves.

The trouble with glass, of course, is that it breaks. The kingdom becomes cracked and chipped and shattered, and tape just isn't working. The king and queen remember the powerful creature who once lived there. First the king goes to the forest. He finds Bloom, and asks to see the magic that will save the kingdom. She shows him a bucket of mud. "How dare you!" As the castle breaks more and more, the queen decides to visit Bloom. Bloom shows her the bucket of mud. "How dare you!" the queen huffs.

Eventually, the only piece of the kingdom left uncracked is the queen's crystal sugar spoon. An ordinary little girl named Genevieve is charged with protecting it. It is the meek, plain little Genevieve that the queen dispatches to find Bloom one more time.

Genevieve asks to see Bloom's magic. Once more, Bloom hauls out the bucket of mud. This time, Genevieve asks how the mud will save the kingdom. Bloom teaches her to make bricks!

They build a lovely house in the forest together. Bloom convinces Genevieve that she herself can fix the kingdom.

Genevieve knocks on the castle door. It shatters. "I am here!" she calls.


 "Then an ordinary girl rebuilt the kingdom."

We are still working on our newest fairy house. Today, we made toadstool stools. I hot-glued smooth rocks to some short twigs, and then the girls finished them off with red and white acrylic paint.

Here is our little table with eight fairy toadstool stools. Our next step will be to set the table. Perhaps a runner and placemats? Acorn or nutshell bowls?

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Obsessive Nostalgia Disorder Monday: The Neverending Story Picture Album

The Neverending Story Picture Album: Based on the Movie by Michael Teitelbaum. A Golden Book, Western Publishing, 1984.

I was thinking about the movie The Neverending Story this weekend. It was another favorite of mine when I was little.

Several years ago, I finally sought out the original novel on which the film is based. Michael Ende's book is beautifully complex, and the movie only touches on the first half. I should re-read it, and write a post about the book on its own.

However, this is an Obsessive Nostalgia Disorder Monday post, about things from my childhood I muse about over the weekend. And with that, may I present The Neverending Story Picture Album, one of those cheap 8x8 picture book tie-ins. It isn't much in the way of story - it's only the first part of the movie, and contains only scenes from Fantasia. No Bastian, no magical book to be found.

Confession: I really wanted to look like the Childlike Empress from this movie.

Hey, look! It's all the Oompa-Loompas from Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, riding a snail. I wanted very much to travel by snail or a bat.

I had a crush on Noah Hathaway as Atreyu.

Oh, Artax...

Poor Artax.

Okay, this movie has everything: cute boys, a pretty horse, bats and snails for riding, gnomes, magic books!!!.

But here's the number one reason I loved this movie as a kid: Falkor, the Luck Dragon! Who wouldn't want a kindly furry luck dragon? Never mind the snail and bat, I want to travel by luck dragon.

Really, between Falkor and Pegasus from Clash of the Titans, my daydreams as a kid were filled with flying on the backs of large pretty white things.

Um, even by the movie standards, this is not the ending. Hahahaha!

I'll leave you with the song, because it still makes me happy. (According to Spotify, it still makes many, many people happy.)

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