The Purple Fairy Visits

We have an adorable niece. Her name is Emily, and she's five years old. Her favorite color is "purple," and that's also her word for imaginary things. So if she tells you she's calling her "purple mommy" on her "purple cell phone," you know that's all in her imagination. So cute!

For Halloween, she wore a "Butterfly Fairy" costume that she picked out herself. Clearly she loved being a sparkly fairy. (Can you make out the sparkly butterflies at the end of her antenna? Click any photo to enlarge it.)

So anyway... Robin and I have habitually taken each of our nieces and nephews individually for one weekend each year and done something special with them: visited a museum, given them a surf lesson, taken them to Arizona in a convertible, whatever. We take them away for a couple of nights and do something really splashy for them.

Well, Emily hasn't had that opportunity yet. And after Halloween, we found ourselves in the local Ross store "channelling" Emily and thinking "purple." And so we went a little overboard collecting some purple things.

Now Robin's been traveling quite a bit lately, and it doesn't look like we're going to squeeze in a weekend visit with Emily before the end of the year -- so last weekend while they were out of town for Thanksgiving, we broke into my sister's house and did a "makeover" on Emily's bed.

What dya think?

FYI: this is the bottom of a bunk bed she shares with her older brother.

Now you would think that bedspread is scratchy, but it's not! It's smooth and cuddly. Serious! There was a sticker on it that said it had been available at Kohl's Department Store for $134.99 or something. (Are you kidding me?!?) I got it for $18.

The fuzzy pillow just felt good, the memo board seemed fitting. Can you make out the kidsize purple sunglasses we hung on it? The purple star is actually a lighted plastic Christmas decoration from Ikea.

We laid the butterfly headband from her Halloween costume on the pillow so she would connect it all together in her mind somehow.

And of course we couldn't resist the sparkly book about Christmas that cost all of a dollar!

Isn't it cute?

My biggest fear was that Emily might get upset about my demoting her "Dora the Explorer" bedding. So I folded it neatly on the end so it didn't look abandoned.

They got home yesterday, and I would have given anything to see the look on her face. All I know is that her older brother IM'd me last night and said [quote] "the purple ferry came by and gave emily some new stuff for her bed." So I figure Robin and I are representatives of The Purple Fairy now -- and I infer from my nephew's message that the bed was a hit!

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