With the idea of getting rid of more stuff, I was looking through two long plastic boxes full of artificial flowers for seasonal decorating and possible mini use.
Both boxes were open on the floor by my chair at my work desk as I looked through some really cool stuff and other flower bunches that made me wonder why I had saved them. Cutting off longish stems and separating clusters would really help in narrowing things down, I mused, and when I swiveled around to reach for my wire cutters my eye fell on a bin in my doll making area that was labeled Fairy Stuff. I pulled it out and lo and behold there were all kinds of interesting yarns and trims and strange gauzy fabrics and a couple of the fairies I purchased at a Christmas warehouse several years ago.
I had stripped away most of her clothing, leaving her looking rather ungainly. She was meant to be flying and her arms and legs were quite long, to my eye. However, since I wanted her holding something (in the beginning I wasn't sure it was going to be her baby), by the time I got the arms bent, they looked acceptable, so I decided not to cut them down. I did rip away everything on the arms but the wrapping. I also left the green satin which covered her upper legs
Her costume began with the sleeves, for which I used what I think were petunia blossoms from my artificial flower stash. I pulled the blossom off the stem, trimmed a bit off the hole at the top and slid each one up her arm. In retrospect, I could have perhaps cut away about a third of each blossom and not had quite so much bulk to deal with, but the original flowers were silk, so they glued nicely anyway.
I tried several different flower and leaf pieces for her bodice but was not satisfied with any of them so just decided to leave the green lace bodice that was already on her. By the time I had her hair on and her arms posed, much of it was covered anyway.
The skirt was made from separate leaves that I cut from other plants in my stash, with two larger leaves for the front and back, and smaller ones spaced at the sides. I left the wire in place and about a half inch of the stem to aid in gluing and manipulating them in the way I wanted.
I used another petunia bloom to make a peplum at the top of her skirt, and then covered the waistline with a bit of the green paper wrapping which I had pulled from a long stem when I was stripping away the leaves.
She originally had blonde hair, but I ripped it off and began from scratch. I tried various viscose and other fibers but couldn't find anything that suited her. Then I noticed a baggie of some awesome trims and pieces that I had saved for years, including a skein of a wild assortment of fibers and yarns that I purchased at the Art Doll Show held in Santa Fe years ago.
I spotted a green twisted yarn, pulled it out of the tangle of threads and yarns, began pulling on sections of it and found it unraveling in an intriguing fashion, and thus her hair was born. Here it is in its early rather fulsome stage!
Once I had her dressed, I tried her in several positions, but she just did not look realistic because of those rather long pointing feet. But when my eye fell on that tree stump, she worked out perfectly, long legs and all, once they were crossed at the ankles.
I gave the stump a dry brushing of various light browns, and although it hardly shows in the final vignette, I know it is there under her, anyway.
Her baby was first a little fairy from years ago when I took part in a fairy swap. She had yellow bunka hair and a little flower petal hat. She just did not look like she belonged with that mother, however, so I ripped off the hair and the hat and gave her green hair, too, and I thought she was okay. But both she and her mother told me they did not belong together, so I removed her and left the mother with empty arms for a while.
In the den one day my eye rested on the etagere where my Green Men and Women and fairies are, and there was the Rock-A-Bye Baby Fairy Tree.
Aha! I still have some of those little babies, I thought.
So I located one, gave her a bunting from a fun piece of lacy leaf shapes, added the green hair, and she fit perfectly in her mother's arms.
NEXT:>>
