OUT Chapter 4: Wild Wandering

Kelly of Wild Wandering (aka Sewing In No Man's Land).  Kelly is living my dream of living in France with her family, which works out perfectly when you happen to need a castle for your photo shoot backdrop!  Amazing.  Kelly is the queen of incredible photo shoots, with or without exotic faraway lands.  She's the type of friend you want to take on an adventure with you because she'll always make it an exciting one, laughing the whole way.  One day, Kelly, you will be my adventure accomplice ;)

Bonjour mes amis! Kelly here from Wild Wandering and Sewing In No Mans Land. I am pretty much giddy to be here on No Big Dill for Once Upon a Thread! Did you know it is the 200th anniversary of the Brothers Grimm tales? How incredible is that? These tales are woven into most of our childhoods, it is amazing! Because of this big celebration and our proximity to Germany our family is going on an exciting trip this fall along what is called the Fairy Tale Trail. Each stop is a city which inspired a different brothers Grimm fairytale. My husband wanted to make sure our children were well versed in the tales so he ordered the most beautiful book:

Each night he has been reading them tales from the book. Some are more gruesome then others though all varying greatly to what they have currently been transformed into. The pictures are incredible though and the lessons much more blatant, they really did need the heavy helping of sugar Disney added to them ha!

Of course when it came time for Once Upon A Thread I knew I wanted to create something inspired by the beautiful book and a Grimm's tale. One evening I sat down and read the children The Frog Prince. I don't know if any of the other tales have less in common with their Disney counter part ha! Though the kids were pretty upset about the Prince in Rapunzel getting his eyes scratched out and Rapunzel wandering in the desert... yeah, wow. Frog Prince on the other hand is a much milder fairytale involving a spoiled but beautiful princess and a frog. The story goes that the princesses favorite thing to do was sit by the water and toss a beautiful ball up and down in the air (this was before angry birds obviously).

One day while playing with the ball it fell into the water and quickly slipped out of sight. The princess began to weep because she loved her ball.

A frog hopped up and asked her why she was crying. She told the frog (after calling him a rude name) that she had dropped her beloved ball into the deep waters.

The frog responded that he could retrieve the ball for the princess but only if she made him several promises, including allowing him to sit at the table and eat next to her, sleep in her bed and for her to be his friend.

Of course the princess quickly agreed thinking the frog was silly in deed and would never truly expect such things.

When the frog returned the ball to the princess she happily ran home to her castle with the little frog chasing after her.

When the frog finally made it to the castle the doors are shut. He called out to the princess to let him in. She is dinning with her family at the time and her father asks her who is calling to her.

When she recounts the story to her father he demands she let the frog in and follow through on all the promises she has made to him.

I think that is a pretty great dad right there. Teaching his daughter the importance and power of your word, even if it means making your daughter sleep with a frog in her bed ha!

This is where the more common version and the original version differ the greatest. Instead of kissing the frog and breaking the spell the princess cannot stand the frog sleeping in her bed so she throws him against the wall... um so much for the good moral lesson. We decided to stick with the more charming kissing the frog for our version.

Either way, by throwing or kissing the prince takes his original form as a handsome human prince and they were of course married and lived happily ever after.

After reading the tale to the kids we had a big discussion about making promises, telling the truth and being kind to others. When I asked Evie if she wanted to be the frog princess she was very excited about the special ball she got to hold and was really nervous when I asked her to hold it out over the water.

I made her dress from beautiful fabric I found here in Paris. The tulle I found her is amazingly soft and fine, a really tiny gage. The ribbon selection almost drove me crazy because there was an overwhelming amount of beautiful options.

The dress it self is a variation of this gorgeous dress which I have been dying to make for a while. I love it because it is completely lined with no raw seams, thus no itchies!

Her crown is cut from thick glitter covered foam simply cut out and attached to a thin circle of elastic.

The castle/chateau is Chambord and is in the Loire Valley of France where there are literally over a hundred amazing chateaus and castles with in short driving distance's of each other. We had such a fun time walking around, being stopped often by the workers commenting on the Petite Princess. To see some more behind the scene shots and some of the hilarious events surrounding this shoot come on over and follow the fun on Wild Wandering and Sewing In No Mans Land !

Thank you so much Katy for including me in this fantastic series! I just love seeing the creations inspired by great literature!

Cheers!

Kelly

I loved picturing little Evie, afraid to hold the ball over the water's edge.  What a fun tale to recreate.  I'll be right over to shop for fabric in Paris.  Thanks for being here today, Kelly!