The Fairies have persevered through our winter of discontent and are resilient enough to come out of hiding this summer. A family of 5 will appear on Cape Cod during the Storybook Fairy Houses display at Highfield Hall and Gardens, June 25 – Sept. 4, 2017. And by the end of summer they will go to live with the lucky winner of the FAIRY FAMILY RAFFLE. I do not normally sell one-of-a-kind dolls, so this is a rare opportunity to have a unique set of your own. Tickets ($5.00) may be purchased online here. After the winner is picked on Sept. 4th, the Fairies will fly to their new home anywhere in the world!

The winged and festively dressed family, which includes Mother, Father, brother, sister and baby have been patiently awaiting today’s coming out announcement. Knowing that things would get busy in the studio, I made the doll family way ahead of this year’s Fairy House exhibit. Needless to say, it’s been a whirlwind of a time, so I’m sure glad that they were finished about a year ago.  All proceeds from the raffle will benefit Highfield Hall and Gardens.

This year’s family is similar to the one I made 2 years ago for the last Fairy House Exhibit in 2015, which you can see here. Patterns and directions to make the dolls are in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk – New Adventures.

Fairy houses have become an eagerly anticipated tradition at Highfield Hall and this year’s exhibit should be just as unique and varied as the previous displays. I had the pleasure of organizing and curating the first two exhibits in 2013 and 2015, with the understanding that those responsibilities would be passed on once the idea had been sufficiently launched.

Since I couldn’t spare a month to make a new house for this year’s exhibit, Grate Hall will be back for a second viewing, this time inside the museum. See the process of making it here.

This year’s exhibit, Storybook Fairy Houses is curated by museum staff. 25 builders chose a favorite children’s book that inspired their creation. I picked The Borrowers by Mary Norton. 

As a child, I devoured The Borrowers series, with its tales of little people living by their wits under the floor boards. I can still remember the book’s descriptions of making a bed out of a discarded match box and fashioning tables and chairs from wooden spools. The whole premise sparked my imagination then and still feeds into just about everything I make today, from my work in children’s book illustration to the creation of my wee folk world.

My fairy house, Grate Hall uses the same concept of reusing household items to make and furnish a small scale shelter. The cheese graters and whisk were saved when cleaning out a departed relative’s kitchen supplies and the single glove was found in a box of my grandmother’s lace memorabilia. Other parts include old door knob plates and a chandelier crystal. The overall structure is held together with wire that is covered with pieces of felt. Branches pruned from blueberry bushes cover the roof and the door is decorated with carved bone charms.  Using found objects is like editing a poem — it’s always challenging to decide what to include and what to leave out. Many very cool items were rejected in the process and they will just have to wait for another opportunity to shine.

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