Oh my goddah!!!

What a day i have just had!

Ups and downs and roundabouts and soooooo productive!

It started at 8 this morning, i went to check out some beautiful Thai bags for my Aussie Fairylove stock and then drove to my cargo to drop off some stock! Then it was onto the Immigration office to find out where my visa had got to after applying for an extension. (leaving in 2 days so a very good idea yes??)

Then driving off into crowds of hot smelly traffic to Denpasar city to buy more fabric! (Ahhh, how i am looking forward to getting back to my waterfall and being in nature!) I do business with some really lovely folk in Denpasar and they know me quite well now! Not all of it always goes so smoothly, i did have a bit of an altercation with an Indian man over some stretch lace…and breathe!

Stopped off on my way home into a beautiful mirror shop (I have wanted one of these mirrors since i started coming here 11 years ago!) I decided to get one for the Fairylove Australia stall and see if it ships ok and had a fantastic time with the fella in the shop! After my purchase we both discovered that we like to sing and we were doing amazing duo’s together! Great sponatneous, happy fun!!!

Next stop was Wayan’s,who has been supplying us with tu-tu’s, fairydresses and leotard bustles etc. for the last 11 years! I had wanted to change the design and have a rainbow one made but we were onto the 4th sample and all my everything was crossed that these ones were going to be the ones that i could say yes to! Wooooohooo! It must of worked because the work was great! So exciting! A really amazing product (http://www.fairylove.com/categories/Burlesque-Boudoir/bustle-leotards/)  just got way better!!!!! I was trying on all the samples in her house and it was just so hot! Panas sekali! (so hot) So hard to go around all day number crunching and making decisions when your brain is melting into your flip flops!!!

Then it was back to the Immigration office to pick up the passport, made it there just in time before close, Phew!!!

A quick yummy dinner at my fave cafe before meeting my tailor and my friend Sri. (she translates between me and Gusti the tailor) Sri is on time and Gusti is late,our meeting strats at 9pm at night (i have only had 4 hrs sleep due to lots of dancing last night!). The meeting goes great, lots of sample/ swatch making and instructions on what fabric is for what! We then pack it all into big bags and tie them all onto his bike. I am worried for him that it is all too much to take on the bike but he says sing ken ken. (No worries!!)

So now me thinks it’s time for bed! I feel so blessed to have such beautiful people here who i have so much fun with! They are my Bali family and it is so wonderful to have family wherever i go!!!! I love you all! Love is the law! x

Fairylove stands for our right to shine in the world! For ourselves and for others to be inspired by! It all started with making the wings and the creativity of expressing myself with beautiful colours and glitters, then it was dressing up in a way that was expressing the growing fairy within me and believing in myself enough to put it out there!

Our bustle tu-tu was our first fairy clothes design that we had made and people really loved them so much! The tu-tu introduced to fairylove that we could dress people up in things to go with their wings that would question how they felt about their bodies and the answer to that question in a tu-tu  was always YES YES YES!!!!!! Wearing a very short and playful tu-tu can make many a blssoming fairy think “oh no,i could never wear this in public…oooohhhhh but doesn’t it look amazing and i feel fantastic”. Next thing they are wearing them in public with their wings and they are getting lots of fun positive feedback and they start to feel better about themselves and their bodies and to see what an effect that can have on others and how inspiring that can be! People see you doing it and having so much fun that they think, ”well,if they can do it,maybe i can too!!”

Fairylove is also about getting in touch with our inner child/fairy. That magical place that is within all of us. Dressing up, having fun and feeling free to express yourself in a magical, positive way and having folk smile at you and talk with you makes you feel great and lifts your spirits and those around you! Once you get the feel for it there is no going back! It really is such a positive force in the world and the world needs more magic, more colour, more sparkles and positivity and for all of us to shine our light out!

With fairylove you get to share your most magical, fantastical self with others and shine your light in such a beautiful , expressive, alive and fun way! This is why our bespoke wings have always been one offs and why we now design so many fairy clothes, beacause we are all so different and can all express it in our own unique way! What does your fairy look like?

This fairy has just been on a very unusual adventure. The lovely Balinese girls who help translate between my tailor and i, (we have been friends for a few years now)  invited me to their local village near Singaraja (Bali’s 2nd city) to join in with their ceremony and stay in their family home. We drove motor scooters, 3 of us in convoy and i doubled Sri on the back of my bike. We drove up misty,steep,curvy,cold mountains and through pouring rain and it was great fun. I Saw some beautiful sights and after coming here for 12 years it was so nice to see more of Bali. It took us 3 hours.

  Wow!!! Such amazing hospitality and generosity! They are not a well off family but the family is huge (the girls are 2 of 10 children) and most of them come together for a few days at ceremony time in the family home. They all support one another and share what they have.I was fed constantly with their gorgeous ceremonial foods and on the day i was dressed in traditional ceremony clothing to join them at their family temple for the ceremony. It really felt very special. There was so many family members and the kids were fascinated by me as i joined in with the blessings and prayers. The ceremonies go on all day and so does the eating .

There are so many kids running in and out and they are so cherished and loved! There is lots of relaxed talking and chilling out as everyone catches up with one another and all the gossip. Such a lovely relaxed atmosphere. I feel so very blessed to have been a part of it and so very welcomed by the family! It was such a relaxing time and such an insight into the Balinese people and their beliefs and traditions! It always amazes me that folk with so little material belongings in their lives are so ready to share whatever they have!

It was a figure, you could make out wings and the shape of the head and the body. It rose straight up in front of us and then started to move along the horizon over the ocean. At one point we all looked at each other and tried to explain it away as something else but all three of us had tears coursing down our cheeks. The experience really made me believe and i felt like it was a sign that Zahia was o.k. A short time later i was shopping with friends and we went into a fairy shop in Bondi. It was full of things for little girls and there was glitter and sparkly things everywhere. I got myself a pair of kids wings having no idea that i would wear them until the fabric was flapping off the wire and long after i had started making my own. I started to wear the wings and started dressing more like a fairy. Meanwhile  the household was falling apart. My best mates boyfriend didn’t want us to talk about Zahia’s death at all,so it went from bad to worse and i ended up moving home to Nowra. I had left home when i was 15 and hadn’t thought to find myself back there. I moved in with my dad and stepmum and started making wings and doing fairy photoshoots in nature. (The first wings i made were huge). I then started to go to Sydney on the weekends to sell my fairy wings and framed fairy photo’s at the markets where i had sold my wares before and stayed with Zahia’s parents. (It was Zahia’s mum who named me Shelley fairy). The wings i made were all individual and took off straight away. Folk loved them, so i just kept making more. I was 22 at the time.

I had found something i loved to do and dressing up as a fairy made folks smile at me. (i had always wanted everyone to like me)

The teacher at the meditation school told me that when someone dies it always brings gifts and i have always felt that this was Zahia’s gift to me. Being a fairy and a wing maker has transformed my life in so many magical, creative ways and has given me the tools to inspire others to dress up and to be creative and to believe in magic and wishes. There is magic in believing.

I was living in Sydney, Australia making my living at the markets selling second hand clothes and hand painted light globes. It was a fun filled,social time and i was living in a big house in the city with great friends. A friend moved out so we were looking for a new housemate. Zahia was 17 years old and was looking for positive changes in her life. (her nan later told me that Zahia thought i was fabulous!) She was a friend of a friend and i had met her parents and really hit it off with them too. Zahia moved in and it was amongst excitement and positivity for the future as she had been involved with a guy and drugs and was really trying to change her life for the better.

She was a lovely sweet girl and we started to get to know each other a little as she was doing some work for me,helping me to paint my light bulbs.She seemed happy. 2 weeks after she moved in Zahia didn’t come down in the morning. We thought it was strange and then her work called to say she hadn’t turned up.I knew she was in,as i had said goodnight to her the night before and she had told me that she loved me. My flatmate and best friend Tamara and i thought we should check on her,but it was with great reluctancy that we climbed the stairs. (I think both of us could feel something was not right). When we went in Zahia was in bed but it was immediately apparent that she was no longer of this world. It was very shocking and none of us said anything as we waited for the police. They arrived and it was then decided that as i knew Zahia’s mum that the news would be best coming from me. I went to her mums workplace and somehow told her that we had lost Zahia. I was just numb. She had died from a methadone overdose.

I was just at the end of a week long meditation workshop,which i then did again a week later.The teacher and the meditation practise really helped me through such an intense time and also spending time with Zahia’s parents. Soon after Zahia’s death,i was at the cemetery where she is buried (her grave is beautiful and was decorated by her parents and all her friends)with her best friend Bindia. It was nightime and we were firetwirling and listening to music “dead can dance” on a stereo we had taken there. A man walking in the cemetery stopped to say hello to us. That is when we all noticed something in the sky.

I got all fairied up yesterday morning, jumped on my scooter and and went to a cafe with a friend. It was truly amazing! There was i in a corset, tu-tu, wings and flowery, feathery hairclips and smothered in glitter driving along the beachfront! It was such an incredible buzz!

I think because the Balinese people don’t really express themselves so much through dress (apart from the gay clubs here and their ceremonies) ,it is quite a novelty for them and they respond so absolutely positively! Everyone loves it! I felt like a fairy pop star!!! I could have driven around all day just soaking up the love and adoration! At the cafe we were greeted by lots of kids who had lots of questions! One little girl was insisting that i wasn’t a real fairy and that she didn’t believe in fairies…To which i replied “why are you talking to me if i don’t exist then?” She also went on to tell me that fairies don’t wear leggings and they don’t wear glitter on their eyes! She still wanted her photo taken with me though,and i covered them all with glitter! I shall definitley have to get out more in my full fairy get up!!Does wonders for my self esteem and feels like i am spreading lots of love and magic! Love it!!!