By this time, all of my family knows about my dedication to this blog and to my fairy garden so when it comes to buying me gifts, there's no doubt on what to get me. This year I received some wonderful gifts for my birthday and I decided to use them for a class opportunity. From my daughter and daughter-in-law I was gifted these large, beautiful teacups that were made specifically for gardening (they came with drainage holes). It's amazing to learn of all the creative things that are out there in the world!
I went ahead and cleared out this area right next to Teapot Glen to expand on my porcelain theme gardens. This new area has been named Teacup Nook.
After clearing it out, I filled it back up - this time with silk flowers that will stand up to the Summer heat here in California and add a unique background.
I went to my local Home Depot and purchased a few small plants to fill my teacups with. The teacups have drainage holes in them under a layer of pebbles, topped with potting soil. I sought out new fairy dwellings that would be tall enough and narrow enough for this space.
Adding the fairy treehouse and some decorative rocks, the teacup container combined with the background I previously set up shows off bold pops of color!
This colorful mushroom house blends in with the surrounding foliage, looking natural - as a good fairy house does. A small table is set up for tea time.
Have you ever used teacups or teapots in your fairy garden? If you would like to share pictures of your tea-themed garden, or any fairy garden you created, please contact me. I love to see what My Fairy Folks create!
Oh my goodness, it's time to celebrate another year already! As of tomorrow (July 9), this blog is turning 3 years old! Can you believe it? Last year's review mentioned Wikipedia's anniversary flowers - I remember looking at the list and being excited for this year because the third anniversary flower is my favorite; the Sunflower! Here's one of my beautiful sunflowers from last year's bloom since I don't have any blooming yet this year, but you bet your bottom that they're in the ground, working their magic.
Now, lets get to the progress we've made in the last year here at Grandma's Enchanted Fairy Garden. My Google+ followers haven't gone up much (and I still can't figure out how to see my Google+ views), but my YouTube views have increased by 1,979 in the last year to bring me to a total of 3,126. This means that I more than doubled my YouTube views in the last year. That's wonderful! I know that wouldn't be possible without My Fairy Folks sharing my videos with friends and family, so thank you very much! I am just shy of 70 videos uploaded to my channel.
Speaking of My Fairy Followers, I want to thank those of you who have shared your own creations. Lets look back at all of them.
Again, thank you to all of my followers. I appreciate every one of you, even if you haven't sent in any pictures or made any comments; just knowing there are eyes on my blog and YouTube (represented by views) keeps me going. There are so many of you all over the world. Some of you might even hail from the following locations, represented in my vacation series of fairy gardens.
These two vacation-inspired gardens, Ensenada and Hawaii, were created within the last year and helped me achieve one of the goals I set for myself in last year's review. There are also a few more that I have planned and that you can look forward to in the future including Yellowstone, Alaska, Williams Arizona and Cabo San Lucas.
I have made many posts about Fairy Garden Classes, a few that took place in public but the majority being just tutorials. Some were based on a holiday theme or a monetary goal. I want to expand these tutorials to include child specific activities and make this blog even more family-friendly.
With all the successes we've had in the past year, there is one that slipped through our fingers and that would be the Gnome wedding. Things in the real world got in the way of making this event come out in November (which was what last year's review slated it for). It was decided that we would just move the date forward another year. Between you and I (and the rest of the internet), the pictures were all taken and in the system but my granddaughter's (who helps me write this blog) wedding was a priority.
With that being said, I had time to do some thinking about the goals for the next year of our blog. One thing that really popped out to me was a contest. There's only been one contest here and the product of that was the name My Fairy Folks. In that same vein, I want to continue to celebrate My Fairy Folks, their creativity and promote my blog. With all that being said, we have plans here to start our own miniature garden contest that will last a whole year! You will be allowed to enter with multiple miniature gardens (maybe one for each season!) and have your friends and family help by voting. Prizes aren't decided yet and neither is a start date, but I will keep you updated. I really want to make sure there are at least two winning categories - people's choice and best of show. I'm very excited about this and hope you are too!
