SeaHeart

The next Fable Tribe update is this Friday, June 1st, at 3PM, EST! It's a Glamourkin focused one, with more closed book and Lake-Stone Glamourkins, and several traditional shapes. <3 There are also (as always! The fairies are MISCHIEVOUS!) a few small surprises in this one--stay tuned for magic! <3

Also, thanks to finally receiving our shipment of blank bowls, I added a few more custom Blessing Bowl slots back into the shop! Last time, they sold out within minutes, so if you were disappointed that you weren't able to get one last time, they're up now!



A few unusual surprises are coming soon to the Fable Tribe in the next few weeks, things and places we have never gone with this fairy magic--we can't wait to show you! <3

The Fable Tribe update is now live! This update, we've debuting Lake Stone Glamourkins, Tarot Grottos and Blessing Vessels, along with a few favorites like the Blessing Bowls and available custom slots! Any spreading of the word is love and so appreciated--come to the fairy dusted halls of the Fable Tribe and see what magic awaits you! <3

TheFableTribe.etsy.com

All right, guys! The preview for tonight's update is live on Flickr! I'm starting the update now (and the custom listings are now posted!).

For Blessing Bowls, Blessing Vessels, Tarot Grottos, brand new Lake-Shore Stone Glamourkins and custom listings, I direct your gaze and sparkle to our Etsy shop! You can follow along with the update there, and see what's coming up at our Flickr!

TheFableTribe.Etsy.com

(The Element Blessing Vessels!)

The Fable Tribe's next update is tonight (I'll post the exact time when I post the photo preview--probably between eight and nine, EST!), and I was just in the middle of doing the photo shoot, and the camera was like TOO MUCH SPARKLE, and the batteries were eaten up by the glitter. ;D So to TOWN I must GO to PURCHASE more BATTERIES. (I swear to the gods, the fairies eat them around here. HOW many batteries do we go through? No, don't answer that. I'm going to hook the camera up to some winged hamsters next time).

So, I wanted to post the tease before I made the quest to town--the preview hasn't been posted yet, because I'm not finished with the photos--I'll update here when I am!

Tonight, we debut some sparkly, magical, new creations! Near us, we have one of the most magical Great Lake beaches--our family favorite, Olcott Beach. It's a historical little town with a lot of magic and dreams, and the shore is ethereal and golden. <3 On that shore, having undergone hundreds (and, one supposes, thousands) of years, are lake-smoothed, magical pebbles. We gathered these pebbles together, charmed them with words and a lacquer that makes them look like they were just plucked from the waves, and are thrilled with the result. <3 When you hold them in your hand, or they're against your skin, the smoothness of the stone is like holding a prayer. There's a great deal of old energy to these stones, and there's such a great deal of peace, as well--hundreds of years of surety in the magic of the universe, housed over your heart. <3

Secondly, we're debuting Blessing Vessels! Blessing Vessels happen to be the Blessing Bowls' cousin, though a little fancier, and a lot more glittery (IF THAT WERE EVEN POSSIBLE). These sweet little vessels hold a crystal, a whole lot of magic, and the intentions of a blessing. <3

Thirdly, Tarot Grottos! Charmed with the energy of that specific card, they're perfect for working with that card's energy, as a ritual or spell or magical reminder, and as a magical invocation on their own. The cards I did for this debut are The Empress, The Star, the Queen of Pentacles, The Magician, The High Priestess and Strength.

Lastly, but not leastly (NOW A WORD), there will be a small quantity of custom listings available for purchase for Glamourkins, book Glamourkins, Blessing Bowls (sadly, a super small quantity of these--there are three in the update, then two available for custom...still waiting for my supplier to come through!), Pixie Stars, Invocations and Grottos! First come, first served, and the customs will be done in the order they were received (unless you need something for a gift or another super-quick reason, then just let us know, and we'll work to accommodate you! <3).

I THINK that is it! :D Pictures and glitter ahoy!

Jenn and I arrived home very late Wednesday night--home from the 21st annual Spoutwood Fairie Festival, and a few day visit afterwards with the amazing Kat and Corey. <3 We returned home rejuvenated, brimming with magic, and just so happy and grateful to be alive~ (Hint: spending time with some of your favorite people in the world, in one of the most magical places on earth tends to do that to you. <3)

This was one of the oddest festival experiences we've had yet, with a lot of mirth from the Universe folded into the cavorting. Nothing turned out as we planned it, and in a lot of ways, that was a good thing, because of all of the festival experiences in recent years, this may have been the oddest, but--for me--it was also the most surprisingly magic-filled, in ways I could never have expected.

So, let me tell you a story...it begins, as all good stories do, with faeries...


( Chapter One: Friday... )

( Chapter Two: Saturday... )

( Chapter Three: Sunday... )

Our visit to Kat and Corey (including pictures of my nose piercing that I FINALLY have that I have waited for since I was SIXTEEN, the Universe MAY implode since it has finally happened, DEAR GODS XD) will be regaled in another post! <3 Thanks for reading and sharing in the sparkle~

<3 <3 <3

*All of the photos in this post were taken by either us, or Shel and Ryan. <3

The Fable Tribe update is live in the shop! This time around we debuted several new, shiny things, including Glamourkins made out of little wooden books, Invocation Blessing Bowls (of which there is only one left! [I'm so, so glad you guys loved them! <3]) and Fairy Wish Houses!

This is the update that's going to make the Fairie Festival possible for us and vanquish some pesky, unexpected bills, so any spreading of the word is extremely appreciated, and earns you magical, internet hugs! Possibly from unicorns! I'll see if they're willing to hug people. XD <333333333333

TheFableTribe.Etsy.com

To all the lovely fairies and glitter-folk we are blessed to call friends:

You know that, each year, Jenn and I host a bacchanalia of glitter and magic at our home entitled the Midsummer Faerie Celebration each Midsummer. We have put on two of these massive multiple-day festivities, and we have loved every minute of them, the friendships shared, the beautiful moments, the rituals, the fairy high-teas. It has been an exquisite and fabulous run, and we loved it dearly.

However, last year's celebration, though magnificent and magical, by its larger-than-expected scope was taxing in new ways we had not yet expected, and the response (before we've even mentioned that we might or might not be having it) to this year's possible festivities is more than overwhelming--it's downright massive! Last year's celebration was bigger than the previous year's, and this year's celebration was beginning to shape up to be even bigger yet.

Which is wonderful--but is not something we have the resources to manage this year.

These past few weeks especially, people have talked about the Midsummer Faerie Celebration--and Jenn and I knew we had to come to an absolute decision (we didn't want anyone to expect something that might not happen, and we knew that many people like to plan their travel plans far ahead of time, so wanted everyone to know far ahead of time if it was or wasn't going to happen). So, just this past weekend, Jenn and I finally had the last of our many, many talks on how to make this manageable or workable this year, and after hours of discussion weighing positives and negatives, we reached the very, very difficult decision, that I am placing here:

This year's Midsummer Faerie Celebration is canceled.

The theme of this year for Jenn and I is sustainability. The Faerie Celebration is many, many things, but at its current incarnation it is not sustainable for us to put on such a large endeavor, fund it (even with the donations garnered last year!), host it and pull it all off.

This leaves us heartbroken, but also (if I'm going to be perfectly honest), relieved. With trying to make The Fable Tribe the absolute best it can be and with the many, many publishing/writing projects coming up in the next few months, we would have drained every resource we possessed to put on the Midsummer Faerie Celebration.

And, obviously, this is very, very far from sustainable.

Jenn and I talked about this for hours upon hours upon hours over months. We tried to think of every way that we could make it sustainable this year without taxing us, and we could not, even with all of our resourcefulness, leading to the obvious conclusion of canceling it. We waited this long to announce it, because we were still trying to figure out a way to make it work. But we have to be honest and gentle with ourselves (I'm total crap about being gentle with myself :P), and not kill ourselves with the over-taxation-of-all-bodily-and-spiritual-resources this year.

This is not the end of the Midsummer Faerie Celebration. Next year, I will be self employed (meaning I WILL ACTUALLY HAVE TIME, WHAT IS THAT? :P) as is Jenn, and we will have many more resources than we have now. Hopefully, all debt will be paid off. Hopefully, all of our constant hard work will have brought us to the place we've striven for for years.

Thank you so much for understanding. <3 Here's to many faerie years to come!

We have begun. <3

TheFableTribe.Etsy.com




Edited to add, 11:28 PM, EST: All right, guys--I am finally finished. <3 I'll make the big announcement tomorrow morning, but for right now, I am going to go sleeeeeeeeeep. :D :D :D <33333333333333333 See you tomorrow, bright and sparkly!

It has been so unseasonably warm that everyone in Buffalo has been having end-of-the-world thoughts. It unnerves me to be able to go outside in a t-shirt in January, that harbinger of doom and blizzards, but I also hate to not take copious amounts of advantage of it, either, and have been frolicking hither and yon in the great outdoors, not hampered by my bulky coat and boots.

Jenn and I, in the warm months (and even the "getting colder" months), took a walk every night under the stars. It became one of our happiest daily rituals, we'd usually talk about books and writing and watch the shooting stars, and it was kind of THE GREATEST THING EVER. This is something I've missed so much since winter began, so last night, after we came home from the library, in the coolness (not frigidness) of a January evening, we went for a walk together. <3

Before the library, we'd tried to make it to the thrift store before it closed (WE JUST MISSED IT. It was like the saddest race against time EVER.). Now that Sparkle Room is almost finished, the final thing we need are two dedicated chairs for our posteriors to use while creating MAGICAL THINGS. Yes, of course we can move the chairs from the dining room table to Sparkle Room back to the dining room, but our dining room chairs are the least comfortable things in the known universe, and when you have to create on something for HOURS every week, you like something a touch COMFY. So we thought it might be TIME FOR A CHANGE. But the thrift store was closed! Woe! We'd have to wait. Again. (We've been trying to get chairs for awhile, and keep getting thwarted.) ;-;

So we went on the walk down our road when we got home, and we had the best, most uproarious conversations, and went much farther than we'd planned--about two miles. It was a very dark night--though the moon was just full, the sky was covered with a thick blanket of cloud, and there wasn't a pinch of light to be had. We trudged along, hands in pockets, when out of the gloom loomed a shape-that-shouldn't-have-been-there on the side of the road.

It was garbage night, and in front of every house and barn was a few bags and bundles of refuse. We live in a very poor county, so whereas garbage day in the city is a bonanza of Interesting!Things! you might like to have or need (we've gotten some pretty cool tables and necessities from the curbside), mostly what is outside on garbage day on our street is PURE GARBAGE. You really don't want any of it, I promise you.

But what did we have here? We stood in astonishment and stared, for on the side of the road beside bags of garbage were two chairs, as if summoned there by magic.

After the astonishment wore off, we tested them, made sure they were all right. They were good, thick, sturdy dining room chairs, and one was in perfect condition, and the other had its seat removed. But we are VERY handy people and KNOW HOW TO PUT A SEAT BACK ON A CHAIR.

That it was two miles back home in the pitch dark on the roadside didn't daunt us in the least. When a wondrous thing happens so obviously, you are GRATEFUL for it. So we walked all the way home with heavy, sturdy chairs slung over our shoulders, absolutely and utterly delighted at the serendipity of this world, and utterly aware of how ridiculous we looked (some church ladies getting out of the corner church watched two chair bearing turtles walk by, mouths open. It was HILARIOUS.), and not caring in the SLIGHTEST. BECAUSE WE FINALLY HAD AWESOME CHAIRS, gifted to us by the UNIVERSE.

AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS THIS: sometimes, when you ask for magic, it happens. <3

Once upon a time, there were two fairy girls. They made things out of sparkle and magic and old, unloved fairy tale books, and they made these little treasures with all their heart.

Now, these fairy girls had ideas, and they had words, and they had magic. Any one of these things is bright and powerful, but combined together, they began to spin and grow, putting down roots in the old stories, and unfurling green leaves toward the stars of possibility.

The fairy girls told stories. They told stories in tiny treasures you could wear, and they told big stories about what people can do and be, how great magic exists in small things, how hearts can grow and how people are capable of brilliance. They told the stories and some people did not listen, said that magic doesn't exist, that the world is a sad and lonely place.

But there were people who listened. People who loved the old stories, words, magic, glitter, promise, possibility. Who buried their noses in books, saw the veins of myth in our everyday lives, the glimmer of enchantment beyond the plain drywall of the mundane.

And they came together.

We are part of something larger than ourselves in the Fable Tribe. We are connected to the old stories, to new story, to the very fiber and essence and heartbeat of what Story is. We know the old myths and the fairy tales and the fables, and we create our own stories here and now, in our lives, and we join together, and become the soul of Story, alive and ever spinning.

Will you come and join us? Will you gather here, in the dusty, glittering halls of words, will you join hands with your fellow tribe, will you fiercely believe, passionately live, connect and grow and thrive?

Welcome to the Fable Tribe, where we tell you this story, among many others. It is a true story, and it goes a little something like this: within small things waits great magic. <3

Coming February 14th, 2012~

TheFableTribe.Etsy.com


Connect with The Fable Tribe on Facebook!

And on Twitter!