Not a Gnome...a Fairy!

I just got back from a short trip back to my parents' home in Nebraska.  I am so excited about all the treasures I found there!  First off, Mom let me go through her yarn and I found more than enough colors to go ahead and make my solar system!  A trip to Hobby Lobby had the balloons I'll need.  I think to make the sun I will still try to find an inflatable exercise ball I can borrow from a friend, since it should be a lot bigger than the planets.  If I could find a second exercise ball in a smaller size that would be nice for Jupiter.  I am going to start working on them tomorrow evening.

Mom had also finished the small blue and white quilt I asked for to cover my story chair.  It has more white on it than I anticipated but that's okay, it's still gorgeous.  I'll take a picture of it over the chair when I get to the school later this week.

And last but not least, Mom provided me with a perfect answer to the gnome problem.  I had pretty much decided to take the gnome out of my yard and use him at the school, even though he isn't reading a book - which is what the one I loved from Amazon had.  But anyway, right after I got to her house, Mom took me on a tour of her yard (she has a slight problem with collecting yard decorations...)  She showed me a very pretty little girl reading a book!

As you can see, she's made of resin and has some wear, but I like how her paint is faded in places.  There are a few things to fix, the hole in her sleeve and the crack on the book, and you can see she at one time had wings attached to her back.  I will make new wings for her before she goes to school with me.  Something like this:

I do think I'll need to use a better wire though.  This is wire I got to make jewelry with and while it is easy to shape, it will also be harder to keep in shape.  I think maybe "sculpting" new wings for her out of wire hangers might work better.

I have even come up with a name for her.  Ceridwen the Book Fairy.  She is actually named after one of my favorite characters from Kim Harrison's Hollows series.