A Little Fairy Music

In response to all your requests following my post last week I’ve a couple of pictures of The Dress for you tonight. Before that though I just wanted to share my first proper attempt at digital collage. I was going to call this ‘Ceol na Sidhe’ when I uploaded it to Flickr, but considering most of my contacts on there are neither Irish nor fans of the fae I decided it might be a bit too obscure. If they were all like you folks then it wouldn’t have been a problem :)

I was actually going to save this post for my turn at fairy blogging over at The Whimsical Cottage on Tuesday, but I’m not really that pleased with how the picture turned out. Plus, I was planning on including links to some nice fairy-fit Irish folk music but couldn’t find any good stuff on YouTube or the like. The search made me realise the only way anyone should ever be allowed to listen to Trad music is in a packed pub with a few jars in them. Listening to it sober just reminded me of the boring ceilis I used to go to when I was wee. So instead I’m going to direct you to this lovely little written piece by Lady Wilde on the magical beauty of  the ceol-sidhe.  Hope you like it!

Right, so back to the dress. It’s living over in my mum’s house for now; it’ll probably be a while until it’s worn so it’s better not having it lying around here for Himself to try on when nobody’s home (hey, it’s unlikely but you never do know!).  I only managed to get a brief moment to grab a couple of snaps of it today and the ones I got are a tad dark and blurry. Just take my word for it that it's much more pretty in real life. Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long to get to wear it!

Czech Wonders

'Praha' by Benjamin Schmidt

“Asoka was an enlightened Indian king. Something like Rudolf II in Prague, and yet not quite like that. Because, of course, India is a land distant, and utterly strange…”

 

The words of a young Czech man named Benjamin Schmidt and, I have to say, the most wonderful introduction to a design company's website I’ve yet to come across! Mr Schmidt happens to be an old friend of mine, so I suppose this could be counted as one of those ‘shameless plug’ posts. Though when he sent me a link to his webpage a few days ago my first thought was of you guys.

The site is primarily an outlet for his design services, and if any of you are in the market for a professional page builder then by all means give him a shout. It was, however, his art gallery that caught my eye and which I thought you folks might enjoy also. You know, I always knew he was a creative soul but I was quite taken aback, and most certainly impressed, by the rather twisted feel to most of his work. Delightfully dark indeed!

Anyway, I just thought it would be selfish not to share him with you. Call over to his place for a proper nosy of his pictures and to find out more about the lovely fella. Feel free to say hello when you’re there!

 

 

Italian Whimsy

Visit Livio de Marchi’s Virtual Museum!

 

Ever have one of those days when you really want to be anywhere except where you are right now? Well that’s me this evening, metaphorically at least. In the literal sense there’s somewhere quite specific I’d like to be - Italy. In Livio de Marchi’s Venetian studio to be exact.

Don’t get me wrong, anywhere in Italy would do. I’m bloody well in love with that country; its art, its history, its landscape. It’s also where we got engaged and where we intend to wed. I think it’s a combination of buying my dress last Saturday and the fact I’m going to miss the marriage of a dear friend there shortly (for various annoying reasons!) that’s instilled this longing in me. And as for the wonderful Mr de Marchi and his whimsical wooden creations, well they’ve been on my Italian must-see list since I first started keeping one.

Since he’s actually world renowned I’m sure a very many of you will already be well aware of his work, but just in case any of you aren’t I thought maybe you’d like to be. Either way, I just felt like posting these images tonight because they make me happy and, well, that’s it.