photo illustration by yours truly

Today I interrupt your ordinary arts-and-crafts posts to say, "UNICYCLING SHOULD TOTALLY BE AN OLYMPIC SPORT! While I love the fact that unicycling is very unique I certainly wouldn't mind it becoming popular and having talented athletes explore the depths of what can be done on one wheel.

I've been bit by the Olympic spirit, having watched every gymnastics event with my little gymnast sister. So of course I was thinking about it yesterday while riding on a hiking trail. I can barely ride my unicycle backwards, but recently I've been looking at videos of some impressive athletes who do spectacular things on one wheel. Unicycling could totally be an Olympic sport, and this is why...

Reason 1) Unicycles are awesome.

Reason 2) Unicycling is challenging, rewarding, and a very diverse sport. It's still a young sport-- it wasn't taken seriously by athletes outside of circuses until recently-- but already there are unicycling events that mimic (and often 'branch out' to the point where they only borrow a few concepts of) a wide variety of events such as trials biking, mountain biking, freestyle skateboarding, dancing, ice skating, hockey, racing, and slacklining. Plus, you have the typical unicycle tricks that people think of, like juggling while riding a giraffe uni.

Reason 3) THIS:

(extreme off road riding)


(beautiful dance, like ice skating...)


(street)


(cool show with a violin)


(another dance, and a favorite song)


(WHAT IN THE WORLD AND HOW DOES HE DO THAT?)


(crazy circus tricks)


(Can you tell I'm fond of the dancing? This starts getting totally awesome around halfways through).


That is all.

Well, I don't know the language, but I can write English in Tengwar (Elvish letters)! (JRR Tolkien made an entire Elvish language, did you know?) I taught myself, peicing together snippets I found in various places. Most likely I have it all wrong, but... it looks impressive! These are the pages from my notebooks where I wrote notes on it.

The first page shows
1) the Elvish letter
2) the symbol that I think symoblizes the sound,
3) an example of how that sound is used in a word, then the name of the Elvish letter. It has only consonants on it.

Everyone has their wish lists... As I've been working on jewelry and researching techniques, I've run into quite a few things that I wish I had. Some would let me do new techniques, some would lessen the difficulty of the designs that I make.



1. Unlimited time, supplies, and $$$.

2. Real chainmaille pliers

Are you about done with all the snow yet? This year, we had some of the most snow I've ever seen. Actually, yes, the most I've ever seen. We took the opportunity to build some epic snow sculptures!







We had snow and ice constantly from December on. This past week was full of beautiful, green grass and warm breezes... no ice or snow to be seen... but today I had to miss Taekwando because of more winter weather. I don't think we'll ever be able to understand weather. Where was all this snow past years, when my siblings and I went sledding on one inch of slushy ice?

It's not all bad, though. Snow can be quite beautiful. The two above pictures are taken from our porch and basement door.


We went sledding... (New tricks this year! Purple penguins flying from one sled to another mid-hill, snowboarding with one foot, and fixing sleds with duct tape!)

...and had snowball fights.

Well, I've been pretty busy lately with life. You know, school and making new friends and visiting old friends and last-minute get-togethers with relatives.

I really should start scheduling my posts, so that I can write up three or four when I have time, and set them to automatically publish.

In any case, I have a very fun craft project (with a tutorial! Shiny!). Gotta snag a couple more pictures. You should see it sometime on Wednesday.



Google has teamed up with a bunch of museums. They have extremely high-rez pictures of artwork. You can zoom in and see the tiniest details! Even individual brushstrokes!

One thing that cracks me up is that they have an interactive virtual tour of some museums (I especially like the tours when the building itself is a masterpeice on par with the artwork it displays).

You can even go out in the street at one museum and see a vendor selling some kind of yummy-looking food. :)

Our family doesn't do much for Valentine's. Dad usually buys Mom some roses and we cook some nice deserts. (We all need deserts, right?)

Yes, this was a fun little craft of mine. Instructional post coming soon...

This Valentine's, however, Dad was on a business trip and we had my sister's Little Flower's Girls' Club meeting at our house! Soooo... I felt like sharing some pictures.


I had some of the most delicious tea in the morning; a bestie :D from my old town sent it in a pretty little box. I pulled out the only teacup in the house and enjoyed the sweet taste of rose petals, lemons, and who knows what else.

Dad bought Mom some stunning roses the night before Valentine's day, when the prices are insane, just because he loves her so. :D

As always, I took advantage of the photo ops that bright red roses bring...




I did Adelynn's hair in a heart-shaped braid, just because I can. Because she's my little doll, now that I'm "too old" for "real" dolls, LOL! I used these instructions from A Story of a Princess and her Hair. And I'm going to try this one soon, too.

 The craft this month was a flower hair barrette. (We got messages crossed; we thought the "virtue of the month" for the Little Flower group was "purity," hence the white flower, while it turned out to actually be "piety." Oh, well!)

This was really easy to make.


The glue dots are small enough that they stick to the flowers only; not the hair. I'm wearing one right now. ^_^ It looks pretty with those strange little curls I get when I don't brush my hair.


The "older sisters"-- all around my age-- came over and I discovered that they like dress up as much as I do. :) :) :)

Someone brought over these sweet candy roses!

Just for fun...

I had a very fun day, even thought it meant cleaning all morning and getting a full day behind in school. :)

So, that's not much of an arts/crafts/jewelry/writing/otherwise-creative post.... But it's fun!

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 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!

Art mannequins are no help, whatsoever. They are supposed to help artists understand the proportions, angles, and movements of a human being.

The problem is that mannequins cannot move in the way that people do. My little mannequin cannot sit. It's hands can't touch its face. It can't cross its arms, tuck its ankles primly, or touch its toes. The little wooden joints simply don't do that.

A mannequin can also bend in ways a human cannot. It's head swivels, it does more-than-spilts, it can stick is arms up... backwards.

Overall, a mannequin is no help in art.

I got an iPod touch awhile ago! I was slightly annoyed, though, that the screen could only be used with your finger. Being an artist at heart, I loved the drawing apps. Being big in the bones, I have rather large fingers that made drawing on a four inch screen difficult. Being a person filled with curiosity, I had to figure out why iPods can't have styluses.
Here is the info on the way an iPod touch screen works. Its seriously cool. You must read it. Press "next" to continue with the article. HowStuffWorks--iPod Touch Screen

That explained why syluses don't work. It needs to be conductive.

Being a crafty person (in more than on sense... muahaha) I had to make a stylus. That is conductive. Being a person who misses the obvious, I didn't even think to look online and realize that they actually sell nice iPod styluses. Ones that don't have the same problem mine have.

The problem with mine:
It only works if it is touching your hand or skin or a banana. (WHY the banana works? That I don't know. But I did it accidently once. And it worked. Although that might just have been a fluke...). This stylus will be useless with a glove. However, it allows for better control on the screen!

You will need:
Aluminum foil
Tape
Two or more foil wrappers from Wrigley's gum (believe me, it makes sense)
Old pencils to kill
A craft knife
And an iPod touch


I covered mine with blue painter's tape! Voila! A stylus!

I finally learned how to French Braid properly! My sister usually doesn't like me to experiment with hairdos on her because it "HURTS!!!" But I convinced her. :)
What you see in the picture is... rather confusing. But it holds hair back nicely, and is pretty. I did it for my friend before her basketball game, and it stayed in! Its two sets of french braids on either side of the head. The braids ended at the middle of her head, and I then pulled the rest of the hair into a single french braid with a ribbon in it.

My favorite french braid so far is the one that looks like a circle crown.