Finding Fairies

Last week we were visiting friends. When I went in search of Little Mr. B. to gather him up for our trip home, I found him & his little friend A. leaping around the room, plucking things out of the air and tucking them into little boxes. They were catching fairies (and magical fairy-leaf-hoppers which, apparently, are companions to these fairies.)

This put me in mind of an art project I had done with Little Mr. three-and-a-half years ago to welcome the winter fairies. Yes, our winter-fairy-welcoming committee has been perched on a bookshelf for these several years, and I decided it was time to re-visit the project.

For the winter-fairy project I took inspiration from the book (sadly out of print) Creating with Paper by Pauline Johnson, but today I was inspired by the book above (also out of print...)

I started by drawing a circle, 6 inches in diameter on a light weight card-stock...

Then I drew lines across the circle, vertically and horizontally.

Optimally, the eyes and elbows line up across the horizontal line. The skirt of the fairy will fall below the horizontal line and the wings will flutter above.

Little Mr. wanted a boy fairy, too, so I designed one...

I've drawn the cut-lines for you in dark pencil.

You will also need to cut from elbow to armpit, and then down from the armpit another 1/4 inch on each side.

Now this part is a little hard to explain... You'll slide the cut on the outside of the right wing into the cut on the inside of the left wing.

The skirt should bell-out in front...


And the wings will cross in back... Unfortunately, the pretty wing-designs will end up in back, but I like to think of this as an opportunity to start afresh on new wing designs for the front!

Here are the magical fairy-leaf-hoppers as imagined and designed by Little Mr...




On Wednesday we'll be celebrating the birthday of Little Mr. and we'll be finding fairies. Happy fairy-finding to you, too...

P.S. If you have any questions about how to cut the wings so they fold together correctly, please leave a comment or send an e-mail and I will get back to you with (what is hopefully) a better explanation.