10.12.12 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut
Button Bella and her family have nestled their home in this thick green ivy patch. Button fairies are a rarity and to view a button faerie dwelling is an uncommon gift! Button Bella and her family have scooped up scores of buttons, some most likely from the artists, to adorn their home.
~ Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making
Last October, Janet and I went to see a temporary outdoor exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. This year we visited the museum’s gardens again to see a new and different installation, Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making. Janet’s mom, Liz, joined us this time around and treated us to a delightful lunch at Café Flo, where we were seated with lovely views of the Lieutenant River.
This year there were thirty-three whimsical creations to enjoy, and at least five extra fairy dwellings not on the map, marked with an FF flag. The FF stands for “fringe fairie.” We were enchanted!
In the garden we found this fruit (below) and have no idea what it could be. Can anyone possibly identify it?
Liz asked me to take this lovely picture for her, of raindrops on the underside of a leaf lying on the grass…
Coming soon – more pictures of fairy dwellings!
The wee cottages are enchanting. It sounds like you had a lovely day!
I’m not completely sure about but this looks very much like the fruit (berry?) of a Pacific Dogwood. And the leaves are also very similar.
It was a lovely day! Thank you for the identification of the fruit/berry – Pacific Dogwood does not appear to be native to this part of the country so perhaps someone brought a transplant home with her for the garden. 🙂
Love the little cottage! And I think Colleen is right about the fruit being from a Pacific Dogwood (at least it looks like pictures of it on Google images).
Isn’t the cottage sweet? I love the way the surface of the stump marks the outline of the fairy property… I looked at the Google images, too, and it does seem to be one and the same as a Pacific Dogwood.
What a lovely little cottage! It sounds like the kind of day when you could forget the rest of the world existed and pretend you were a child again, visiting the land of the fairies. 🙂
There were fairies everywhere that day – we were very honored to be allowed a tour of their village and delighted by all the unique decorating ideas they had for their dwellings and shops! 🙂
Barbara, what an inspiring image. There are bound to be similar faerie cottages in my neck of the woods. I guess I’m just going to have to look more carefully.
I’ve never seen such a fruit so to me it’s a ‘snake’ berry – a name given traditionally to any berry whose edibility is questionable. I’ll bet the faeries eat it though 😉
I’m glad you enjoyed a peek at Button Bella’s cottage, Amy-Lynn. I used to find fairy dwellings, fairy rings and fairy forests (princess pines!) in the woods on a regular basis when I was little and had better powers of observation. It would be fun to look for fairy cottages in your neck of the woods some day. I like the term and meaning of snake berry. 🙂
Oh what a beautiful faerie cottage:-) When I walked in the woods on Saturday I looked carefully to see if I could spot some faerie cottages, while I saw a few beautifully constructed animal nests, of faeries there was no sign. (((Sigh)))
It seems to be harder to find evidence of fairy presence as we get older – sigh. Our imaginations get so out of focus!! But it’s just as nice to find animal nests in the woods. I get excited every time I see a deer bed on one of my walks.