Meet Audralina the Fairy

Manhattan Toys created Audralina.  She is one of the enchanting fairies from the  Beneath the Leaf fairy collection.  She is pocket sized and soft.

Her fairy garb is a polka dot dress, pink striped tights, green wings, pink hair, and a leaf shaped headband.


You can purchase her directly from the Manhattan Toys website at http://www.manhattantoy.com/product/0/141770/_/Beneath_The_Leaf_Audralina.

 Thank you very much for stopping by The Friendly Fairies!

Cheri

Good Night Fairies Book Review

Kathleen Hague wrote Good Night Fairies and Michael Hague illustrated the sweet bedtime tale with incredible details on every page.  

A kind mother patiently and lovingly explains to her curious child at bedtime what fairies do throughout their day.  I especially love the quote, "Hop into bed", said mother as she turned off the light, "and I'll tell you what I know what I know about fairies."

The mother goes on and tells her child about how fairies paint flowers, rescue lost toys, comb mermaids hair, teach unicorns to fly,  welcome children to dream land, and more.

You can count 321 winged fairies throughout the book.  You can also search for a hidden red-capped fairy on each page.

This is a treasure to add to any fairy book collection.

Thank  you for stopping by The Friendly Fairies!

Cheri Swing

Child of Faerie Book Review

Child of Faerie by Jane Yolen and Jane Dyer is a warm and engaging tale about a lifelong friendship between a faerie boy and a human girl.  The pointy eared faerie boy and earthy farm girl try to live in each other's world, but they cannot survive in the other's world.  Yet, they remain friends throughout their lives til their old age.

Jane Yolen writes in an alluring and enchanting fashion that will engage both you and your child.  You will be mesmerized by the whimsical illustrations of the gentle faerie and the wholesome farm girl.

Happy reading!  Thank you for stopping by The Friendly Fairies.

Cheri

How to Build a Fairy Cottage Link

A fairy cottage from the Disney Family website.

Here are instructions on how to make a quaint and cozy fairy cottage (source Disney Family website article by Cindy Littlefield).

• Empty cracker box (or similar cardboard box)
• Craft knife
• Scissors
• 4 wooden craft sticks
• 2 pipe cleaners
• Glue dots
• 2 flat buttons and 1 shank-style button
• Pushpin
• Paper or silk flower
• Thin ribbon or string
• Small bell
• Template for A Fairy Cottage
• 3 small paper cups (5-ounce size)
• Stapler
• Craft or scrapbook paper (shades of green for the roof leaves and brown or beige for the patio stones)
• Cotton ball or cotton batting
• Corrugated cardboard

Instructions: 1. Use the craft knife (adults only) to cut a 4-by 2½-inch door opening in the front panel of the box.

2. Create a door by setting the four craft sticks side-by-side and bending pipe cleaners around the tops and bottoms to hold them together, as shown.

3. Now attach the door to the box. Use a pushpin to poke hinge holes in the cardboard alongside the door opening, aligning them with the pipe cleaners on the door. For each hinge, thread one of the adjacent pipe cleaner ends through the hole and then twist the two ends together and trim them short, as shown. Top the hinges with buttons, and glue the flower to the face of the door.

4. For a doorbell, tie a small bell to one end of a short length of ribbon or string. Tie the other end of the ribbon to the loop of a shank-style button. Use a glue dot to stick the button in place beside the door.

5. Print out the template and use it to cut out a bunch of green paper leaves. Crease each leaf down the center to give it more shape.

6. Turn one of the paper cups upside down and cut out the bottom. Staple paper leaves to the cup bottom, as shown, overlapping and layering them to create a full conical roof.

7. For a chimney, cut off and discard the upper two thirds of another paper cup. Notch the cut edge of the remaining portion of the cup, and then invert the cup, as shown. For smoke, cut an X in the cup bottom, and insert a cotton ball or a bit of batting. Glue the chimney to the top of the roof.

8. To attach the roof to the cottage, notch the top of the third paper cup and then glue the cup to the box top, as shown.

9. Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard into the shape of a cutting board (if you have a small cutting board, you can trace around it).
10. Glue the cottage to the end of the cardboard cutting board.
11. Finally, glue on a pathway of paper patio stones leading to the cottage door.


http://family.go.com/crafts/craft-891701-fairy-cottage-t

Mary Cicely Barker Flower Fairies Official Website Link

The Flower Fairies website is a must have for fairy fans.  You can play games, visit the fairies, download wallpaper and screensavers, send e-cards, and learn more about Mary Cicely Barker. 

Here is the official website address:  http://www.flowerfairies.com.  Please let me know what you think about the site. 

Thank you very much for stopping by The Friendly Fairies.

Cheri

Ethereal Fairy with Crown of Butterflies Art

I just discovered this glorious fairy artwork entitled Claudia by Sophie Anderson and wanted to share it with you.  The full title is actually, "Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things."

Somehow, I have never seen this particular artwork until yesterday.  I love the pre-Raphaelite influence and the innocent look on the fairy's face. 

Please continue to come back as I build up a collection of art, craft ideas, poetry, etc.  

Thank you for visiting The Friendly Fairies!

Cheri

Fairy Quotes

When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl. ~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan

 Once upon a time, I thought faeries lived only in books, old folktales, and the past. That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday existence, causing glorious havoc.
~Brian Froud

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
~William Butler Yeats, "The Land of Heart's Desire," 1894

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies.
~Richard Dawkins

Through the years I have grown very fond of the subject matter that I paint., It is as real to me as life itself. Even now, as I sit here and write, the studio elves and faeries are cleaning my brushes and leaving fairy footprints all over my palette. Yes, faeries are as real as you and me, you only have to open your mind and use your imagination.
~James Browne, Artist

To open your heart to the fairies, you must nurture these feelings of wonder, reverence and love for every detail of your garden, for the airs which blow about it, the musical rain which falls gently upon it, the moon and the stars which silently look down on it, the great sun which is the source of its being and for the clouds and changing skies which provide it with a canopy. When you truly feel the sweetness of this magic, you will begin to discover the fairies, for they will make themselves know to you.
~ Claire Nahmad

If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be geniuses, read them more fairy tales.
~Albert Einstein

The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
~W. H. Auden

"Just living is not enough" said the butterfly fairy, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
~ Hans Christian Anderson

Where there is Joy, Laughter and Color, Fairies will be found!
~Author Unknown

The longing of my heart is a fairy portrait of myself: I want to be pretty; I want to eliminate facts and fill up the gap with charms.
~Mark Twain

The fairies break their dances
And leave the printed lawn.
~A.E. Housman

When the winds of March are wakening the crocuses and crickets,
Did you ever find a fairy near some budding little thickets,...
And when she sees you creeping up to get a closer peek
She tumbles through the daffodils, a playing hide and seek.
~Marjorie Barrows

Know you what it is to be a child?...It is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear, it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul.
~Francis Thompson

Every time a child says, "I don't believe in fairies," there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden.
~Rose Fyleman

A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer has passed onward: a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "

We call them faerie. We don't believe in them. Our loss.
~Charles de Lint


A rustle in the wind reminds us a fairy is near.
~Author Unknown

I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?
~John Lennon

Any man can lose his hat in a fairy-wind.
~Irish Saying

Garden fairies come at dawn,
Bless the flowers then they're gone.
~Author Unknown

I think that people who can't believe in fairies aren't worth knowing.
~Tori Amos

Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.
~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream