Coleyne
“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!” – William Butler Yeats
Fairy Portals are something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now and had initially thought of combining materials and some crochet creatures as my first thought. When bookends was announced, I hadn’t thought of applying the portals to the bookends until I was looking at pictures of moongates on a twitch channel and the idea for the bookends was born ( and I abandoned the idea of anything crochet or knit).
The most challenging part of this idea was how to create the portals. I started with a few ideas, but trying to figure out how to mount the round portal onto the wooden base without having big brackets, etc was the thing that I struggled with early on. As I was digging for materials to use that I already had, I found the small round embroidary hoops I used for making ornaments. I used the outer portion of the hoop since it has the tightening screw and the 2 brackets.
I tightened down the screw, used the UV tape across the hoop to make an area to pour the resin into, placed the small glass pieces (2 colors of blue, and silver) and then poured in the UV resin and crossed my fingers since it was the first time I had ever tried to use any type of resin. A UV lamp typically used for nail polish was used to set the resin. Removed the screw at the base of the hoop and was left with the 2 metal posts I could use to mount the hoop to the base. Drilled out a couple of slots in the wooden base to mount the hoop.
The wood of the hoop was covered with the small silk leaves and then inset into the stone arch I had made. The stones were laid out, and glued using the hoop as a guide, they were glue onto plastic craft mesh using it as lath so the stones had something for structure.. The grout was used in addition after the initial glue was dry to give more structure and a more natural look to the stone work. Cork was added to the back of the plastic mesh lath to cover it. . White tacky glue was used on the base and the leaves poured onto it to create the forest floor and then were given a final coat of modpodge.
The fairies are made from wire, a wooden bead, cotton crochet thread to cover the wires and create the bodice of the dress. The skirt of the fairy dress is deconstructed silk flowers, their hair is made from lace weight yarn. Tiny bottles were filled with the same glass used in the portal.
I decided to cover the backs of the bookends with black velvet lining material typically used for jewelry boxes and also put cork bottoms on them to prevent them from sliding on the bookshelf. My small round stamp was put on the bottom of each bookend to finish them.
I worked on the portals on and off over 2 weeks, waiting for glue to dry etc, was the most time consuming. I included a collage pic of the WIP’s
list of materials used for portals:
UV resin, resin tape and UV curing lamp.
2 round wooden plaques cut to size,
outer ring of embroidary hoops to use for portal
small stones, small colored glass pieces for portal (nail art pieces)
4 different color silk leaves mixed together (model train terrain items)
craft plastic mesh to use as a lath frame for the stone work
tacky glue, loctite adhesive, sanded tile grout and modpodge
Floral wire
artificial silk flowers
wooden beads
cotton crochet thread and some yarn
cork for backing of lathe mesh and to put on the bottom of the bookends
black velvet box lining for back of portal
alcohol inks for color stain on the base.
