Pixie Houses….who’d have thought it!
In these uncertain times which can be very hard on small businesses, we self employed artisans have to find alternate ways to earn a living. Purely by chance, such an alternative came my way a couple of weeks ago. I had made a couple of Fairy/Pixie houses as a gift for a local family who were dressing their front garden as a fairy garden, for the enjoyment of children (and many adults) who were taking their daily walk in the town and close to the lake.
This was the pair of houses that I first made, and they were noticed by my grandson, who liked them, so I made a third house for him…
….and then the floodgates opened and orders started to come in from local people. The special house, made for my grandson Osian, was a little too complex to be able to make commercially to sell at an affordable price, so all the orders taken were for the original type, which had a solid body and roof, with details etched on, whereas Osian’s was fully hollowed out , had a doorway and windows cut into it, and even window frames and a chimney added.
So today I spent much of the day, as well as a few hour yesterday, making a batch of houses. It’s great fun to be free to choose a size and style that works for each piece of log, and also great to be able to use up log-ends that might not be suitable for other projects. Seven more houses came off the lathe, and all but one of them is sold, and that’s because it has a special owner, but more of that later.
….and so for the special one……
This little Pixie house has been made for my granddaughter, Beca, who was born just a few weeks ago. Well, it wasn’t right that her brother, Osian, should have one when she didn’t, even if she isn’t old enough to know anything about it! The house was hollowed out, as was the roof, The doorway was cut into it and a few holes drilled for windows, then window frames were turned and one even went into a bedroom in the roof. I hope that one day Beca will understand just where her fairy house came from!
I guess that I’ll have to clean the workshop now….cutting logs down into houses makes enormous piles of shavings and all those scorched roofs make piles of sooty dust, so the whole place is a terrible mess and before I can make any new bowls or sculptures, a good clean-up is in order.
