Now THAT was fun!

After my little TV segment was rescheduled..... then postponed.... and then rescheduled back to the original time slot again I finaly got to see it myself! I had been very curious, INCREDIBLY anxious (Even at the advanced age of 62 I have at least a little vanity and much of the footage was shot right after I'd had surgery....) and rather frustrated at the end, thinking that most of my friend would have been so fed up with all the schedule changes that probably no one would see it at all!

So I sat there in front of the TV and all of a sudden the person on the screen was ME. I felt that the story focused too MUCH on me - and not enough on the actual Fairy Nana PROJECT itself - adn not nearly enought on the children. In fact they never even mentioned that we are looking for volunteers nation wide to join as Fairy Nanas or Fairy Godmother or GodPapas (Godfathers just somehow has a whole other meaning!) Still - it was fun!

So if any of you still want to see it and have not (and missed the 7 bazillion hints and messages I sent out) you can still view it on your computer by going to:

www.king5.com

Then click on EVENING MAGAZINE and look for the Fairy Nana story under videos.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PELASE if you can, email the show after you view it and let them know you want to see more stories like this - or that you'd like to see more about the Fairy Nana Project. Here is the address:

r.swanson@king5.com

Hugs and fairy dust....

The Fairy Nana

Tommy...This one's for you!

Watch out American Idol, move over Oprah, here comes....The Fairy Nana! That's right, alert all the paparazzi..... The Fairy Nana is being unleashed on the tube on Monday evening  (March 16th) at 7pm Pacific Coastal Time.....but for all her legions of fans worldwide who do not get the signal for Seattle's KING TV - fear not....a little fairy dust (mixed in with a bit of technology) will allow one and all to see give hours of film edited down to about 1 or two minutes of story on the Fairy Nana Project.

So----instead of tuning in your tellies....try tuning in your computer to:

www.king5.com

Then click on EVENING MAGAZINE and follow the links to the Fairy Nana Project story.

And once you have viewed to your hearts content - please feel free to send the station a positive email about the story! (in fact the Fairy Nana will cast quite the spell on you if you don't.....just how many toads DO you want on your doorstep tomorrow morning?)

Just kidding......or perhaps not.

see you on the red carpet next year!

eve

My oh my - in this day of reality TV you just never know who's going to show up on your television! And could it be, do you think, could it POSSIBLY BE?  Yup! It's the Fairy Nan on NBC!!!!! Sure - it's only going to be shown on a regional basis (at least until Oprah sees it LOL) - but I have it on good authority that by the end of March there will be exerpts on YouTube!

The feature is about the Fairy Nana Project - which was original my simple project to make and deliver 50 fairy costumes and 50 super-hero and prince costumes to Children's Hospital in Seattle.........but which has now taken on a life of it's own because the hospital has now started a Guild named the Fairy Nana guild to host fairly spectular fundraisers and to organize a team of fairy costumed volunteers to visit the patients (most of whom are suffering from life threatening diseases) and read them stories, etc.

The last portion of the feature was filmed this past week. The guys from the television crew picked me up (well not literally - the came and got me in their van) and took me to Children's Hospital in Seattle (which is about 70 miles from where I live.)

The entire day was a mixture of emotions - incredibly sad to see children suffering such terrible diseases....so many of them with such tremendous courage and incredible cheerfulness that you simply could not believe it. It just broke my heart over and over again. When I arrived - all decked out in my faerie costume - huge wings and faerie crown....there was a contingent of little children -many of them pushing their own I.V. poles - all dressed up in the fairy costumes I had made for them- waiting down the hallway. When they saw me coming they started running towards me, smiling and reaching out for me! I was nearly swept away! I knelt down to be at their level and was surrounded in no time by  these little fairies waving their little wands and calling out "Fairy Nana!" to me. I have never felt so good about having made fairy costumes in my life as I was at that moment!

The rest of the day we saw children who were far more ill than those who first greeted me..some of them far too ill to even life a hand...one could barely open her little eyes - they were so puffy from the medicines she was taking......I wished I could stay longer with each of them - but I was not allowed to - and of course, they needed their rest...it just made me want to go home and made a thousand more costumes.

The people a t the hospital know about the new FAIRY NANA Guild and have asked if it would be possible for us to arrange "Fairy Visits" now on a regular basis - because of the "magic" it created with the children.

It looks like I am going to be organizing a team of fairy nanas in costumes!

It WAS magic  I really saw it happen. I somehow felt as if all the faereis of my childhood were there with me and the kids. Little faces that lit up when I showed them what to do with a fairy wand.... and little hands that I put magic fairy coins into and then showed them how to close their eyes and make a wish while the fairy coin got warm inside their hand....and then open their eyse and release their wish to the universe......I watched them learn to do this and believe in the magic.  It was incredible. I know it couldn't cure them...but it did take their cares away for a little bit....and that in itself was magic.

Every one of us on this site understand something about this magic. And every one of us has the power inside of us to share what we know with someone else who needs a little boost....

That's what I'm going to ask from all of my friends in EF now....because I've just seen what it can do:

Please go out tomorrow and find someone to share a little of that magic with. For the Children.

Hugs and Fairy Dust for all of you....

I'm back from neurosurgery, with most of an ugly tumor removed from inside my spine. It was, thank heaven, thank the uiverse and thank whatever powers you may believe in, BENIGN! Long, ugly and deeply entwined around four central nerves is how my surgeon later described it....much like thorny vine that had already strangled three serves and was on it's way to paralyzing the left half of my body. He tells me that I am (something I already knew) one of the truly lucky ones.

There are to be lasting side effects - unavoidable - but simply consequences of having to remove so much of the bone of three vertibrae in order to access the tumor, as well as having to remove tumor attached to nerves that are both motor and sensory in  determination. I will always have weakness and limited use of my left arm and hand. I will always have nerve pain in my neck, and left shoulder, arm and hand. I figure it is a reasonable trade and one I can live with. In the recouperative phase they have put me on lots of corticosteroids which seem to have stabalized my vision for the time being.

You just never know when or where a silver lining may show up.

Just prior to my surgery I was contacted by a regional TV show - one that's been on for about 25 years now - that features regional people and places of interest. They wanted to do a story on the "Fairy Nana Project" - my working on 50 faerie costumes for Children's Hospital in Seattle which I had hoped to deliver in time for Christmas. One of their personalities and a film crew came out to interview and film me but because of my surgery schedule,  delivery of the costumes cannot be done now until after the holidays - so they will complete the filming in January.  During the delay a lady from the hospital contacted me to let me know they wanted to start a guild - a non profit foundation at the hospital named after me called the FAIRY NANA FOUNDATION so that other women (and men) could join and continue my "work" after I could no longer see or use my arms well enough to sew. I was stunned - and I felt incredibly honored. It was exactly what I had worried the most about - who was going to make the costumes for the children if - or when - I no longer could.

It will be a while before I can strap my wings back on - It looks like I have a big zipper down my back from inside my hairline down midway my back....but at the moment I've got lots of cool pain drugs - don't think I need the wings to feel like I'm flying.....

I'm getting tired now and need to go back to bed. I just wanted to check in with my friends at EF and let you know how things were going and give you the good news update. So many of you have been so kind with words, photos, and thoughts that have meant the world to me.

I love this site. I love you all.

Fairy Dust for everyone!!!!

The Fairy Nana will be going away for a bit....

flying away for a wee little "flit."

Another adventure? you might well ask...

or someone to visit, or some great task?

Will you go far....or will it be near....

do tell us, please tell us Fairy Nana so dear!

My Goodness, I think, as your queries I ponder,

Shall I tell them my reason - I really do wonder!

Oh well, no big deal, I'll share the news,

then they'll not worry - they can all take a snooze!

I'm going in hospital - just for a while,

it sounds worse than it is - so let's see you all smile!!!!

I'm all set for Neurosurgery on December the TEN

That will be the big day for me - the big day when,

a wee tumor that was found inside my spine

will be taken out-all well and FINE!!!!

It's NOT expected to be anything bad

so we'll have no negative thoughts nor anything sad!

Just lots of good wishes, and love and trust....

and, of course,,,LOTS and LOTS  OF FAIRY DUST!!!!!!!

I will communicate after the surgery.....but I'll be gone until after then. I love you all!

eve

"Nana," she asked, "Where do they go?"'

"Who?" I  turned and faced her.

"The faeries, Nana. Where do they go when it's raining so hard? They are so small. The raindrops must seem very, very big to them....so where do they go to get out of the rain?"

"Oh Sweetpea,"  I smiled,  " if they are too far away from their faerie houses they hurry under the nearest mushroom, toadstool or big leaf!"

"Just like little faerie Umbrellas? They are very smart, those little faeries, don't you think? But don't they get cold? What do they do if the rain makes them cold?"

"Oh, I expect they just flutter their wings very fast and it heats up the air around them."

"Oh No Nana, you have it all wrong!!!! That would be Faerie air conditioning! That would make it cooler! Now I am worried! How are they going to keep warm out there?"

"Oh! You are SOOOO right Harriet! I did have it all mixed up! Silly old Nana - That's what they use their wands and their fairy dust for! They sprinkle some fairy dust into the air and wave their wands around and POOF! Magically it is suddenly warm as toast under the toadstool until the rain stops."

"oh good." Harriet let out a contented sigh.  "I feel so much better now. I am so glad y ou know about these things......"

Only my family and a very few friends know this, but on October 1st, I had another stroke. Obviously, since I am able to write this blog to you all - it was caught early enough to prevent lasting severe damage this time! In fact - I was actually having an MRI in the hospital and they saw the stroke in progress on the MRI -= which is how it was discovered! It was an incredible stroke of luck, and may well have saved my life!

I had been under a great deal of personal stress for weeks, nd for several days had been having an incredible headache that I mistook for a migraine. I missed all the stroke symptoms - and nearly cancelled my appointment for the MRI because I was feeling so terrible.

I'm not quite back to "normal" (whatever that means) yet....and my photo spread in FAE magazine mysteriously was cancelled in the meatime - or moved forward to their spring issue - so I don't have to worry about finding a fairy like model for my costumes quite so fast...... I  stopped taking custom orders for the time being in my Etsy store, and have to take the time to step back and learn to deal with a few of the facts now about the reality of my health : The Fact that I now only have 10% of my vision left and that vision is blurry and not very dependable. (I am being encouraged to begin going to the Litehouse Training Institute to begin learning how to cope once al my vision is gone.) The fact that I haven't been able to drive now for a long time - that it is indeed time to sell m car...that hanging on to it is  useless because my visiion is NOT going to get better and I need to grieve my loss and move forward. The fact that my MS is progressing and that I am becoming very dependent. The Fact that I may not be able to design and make fairy costumes much longer. The fact that I will need to find a completely different outlet for my creativity.....another way to be useful....to give meaning to my life.

And I have to find a way to undersand and accept and then deal with my own fear, because it is very much there. And all the fairy dust in the world won't help me with the darkness.

So no more tears. I am back at work, and on Monday will be shipping out two costumes that I've made for wee faeries and one that I designed and made for a lady that just turned 47 and  wrote to me saying she had "always wanted to dress like a faerie and quite gotten up the nerve until I heard about Faeriecon, so I simply must have the most beautiful faerie dress now that I can find!"

I felt truly honored to be the one to help make her lifelong dream of "dressing like a faerie" come true  and I can hardly wait until she receives her costume!

When I first began making faerie costumes it was actually the "silver lining" of having had a (CNS) Lupus induced stroke that meant I (once again) had to reinvent myself. I HAD been a gallery represented artist (The result actually of a former reinventing myself - as I had previously been a nurse, which was a reinvent from haveing beeen - oh you get the picture....) ANYWAY - I had lost the fine motor control in my right hand and could not hold a paintbrush - or much of anything else. As I improved it was still evident that painting as I had once done was no longer a viable option, but out of one of the physical therapy excercises (sewing a basic stitch across felt squares) I gained mobility in my hand, aswell as a basic understanding of sewing.

 It eventually led to rudementary tulle fairy-princess skirts for my granddaughters 10th birthday party....so rudementary that I challanged myself to learn to sew better, and after a bit I was designing and sewing well enough to contact the local chapter of the Make-A-Wish foundation and making custom faerie and princess costumes for them. And so I began my fledgling cottage industry as the Faiy Nana.

In the past three  years I have designed and made nearly 200 costumes....most of which I have donated to charities like Make A Wish and St. Judes Hospital.  It has really only been since February 2007 (when I opened my Etsy Store) that I began to sell my costumes. And it's only been in the past three months that I have begun to actually sell them at a noticable profit!  (YIPPEE!) But the incredible emails, and the public feedback that  I get from my customers are woth their weight in gold. Many of the moms who buy costumes for their little girls send me photos, and I end up feelng like I have adopted extra granddaughters!

In addition, I keep getting convos from other sellers on etsy - (they are all young enough to be my grandkids anyway!) so I feel like the housemom. It's very rewarding. for someone who is truly housebound - I feel like my wings are taking me all over the world even though I can no longer drive and rarely can leave my home!

See? It's been a silver lining!

e

I was so excited when I was approached by someone to feature the costumes that I love creating in a magazine, that I agreed even though I had never seen or heard of the magazine before. And now I have heard from one of my friends here that perhaps I should not have gotten involved so uickly....that the magazine is an "inferiour publication" and that perhaps I should not be associated with them....

I sincerely hope I have not offended any of my beloved frinds here or at Faerie Magazine......and I would bow my head in shame if that is the case. I was truly just so delighted that someone wanted to show off the designs I work so hard to bring out - thinking, perhaps with my ego - that it would be just lovely to share them with a wider audience!

Now I feel embarrassed and sad hat I may have hurt my friends' feelings.

If that is the case. Please accept my heartfelt appoligies.

My wings are down.

eve