Last Wednesday Wisdom

With this week's post, I'm introducing a new feature called Last Wednesday Wisdom. On the last Wednesday of every month, I'll serve up a potpourri of advice, inspiration and other tidbits I've come across in recent weeks. 

This installment comes with a bonus: If you read all the way to the end, you'll get a sneak peek at a few more fairy houses created for the Camp Newaygo Enchanted Forest event, plus another surprise photo. So read on (and no fair jumping to the end to see the pictures first!).

Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.
-- John Updike

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
-- Ansel Adams 

Even work you consider to be your worst is good for something. Every effort teaches you about your desires and tendencies, or guides you toward some new possibility, or shuts the door on an avenue you mistakenly thought was the right one. 
-- Novelist Téa Obreht, quoted in The Writer magazine

The women whom I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because sh*t worked out. They got that way because sh*t went wrong, and they handled it. They handled it in a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes.
​-- Elizabeth Gilbert

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase. 
​-- Martin Luther King

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.
-- Pablo Neruda

Are you ready for your treat now? Me, too! But before the fairy house preview, here's a new creative challenge. Ray made up a fairy tale to go with his fairy house. Can you come up with one for your own or someone else's fairy house? (If you missed the earlier preview, find more inspiration here.)

Now take a look at these creations by "Sylvan Sally" Kane, "Elfin Eileen" Kent, "Diaphanous Diane" Sack, "Linda of Lilliput" Cudworth, "Spritely Sue" Schneider and her granddaughter "Artsy Ayla":

​SYLVAN SALLY

​ELFIN EILEEN

​DIAPHANOUS DIANE

​LINDA OF LILLIPUT

​SPRITELY SUE AND AIRY AYLA

Sue and Ayla gathered bark, moss, acorn caps, porcupine quills and more from the woods and fields to entice fairies to live in their house

The finished house, complete with garden, hammock and fairy bed

And finally, in response to last week's post on serendipity, Cindi McDonald of San Antonio sent this:

I have no story, but I do have a pic.

Cindi and Serendipity in Boerne, Texas

​Thanks, Cindi, fairy house builders, contributors of wisdom. . . and readers! Have you come up with any fairy stories or do you have discoveries from the past month to share?