Mrs. Mumsy The Flower Fairy

Earlier this week, I had the wonderful privilege of a spending the day with my young niece and nephew. Before I left for my visit I packed a bag with storybooks I wanted to share, a fall leaf rubbing craft along with my favorite block beeswax crayons, some fun Auntie snacks and goodies, and at the last minute I decided to grab one of the Autumn flower fairies I had made. I decided that I would give the flower fairy a name and that she could help keep little hands busy during story time- since she is made of an Autumn Mum, I went with Mrs. Mumsy, that's her in the picture above.

The kids really ended up enjoying Mrs. Mumsy, she went on a walk with us, she "flew" down the stairs, many times :) On our walk we took some wonderful pictures of all of us with Mrs. Mumsy, as well as Mrs. Mumsy sitting in bushes. This was a really fun way to take a nature walk, by showing Mrs. Mumsy different things they were spending more time observing nature themselves.

A bit about these flower fairies, I learned to make them from the book Felt Wee Folk by Salley Mavor. This is a wonderful book that shows how to make all sorts of wire wrapped dolls- from fairy tale characters, to flower fairies, to dolls for the dollhouse. The dolls are fairly easy to make, and it is really fun to sew their little clothing, the book is filled with wonderful little patterns. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has young children that they would want to craft for, as well as for any older child or adult who like to craft dolls- there are also other crafts in this book like felt embroidered wall hangings, little purses, and other projects.

Why Mrs. Mumsy has no face? The first thing the kids noticed was that Mrs. Mumsy has no face, I make many of my dolls with no face, for a couple of reasons. I learned long ago in an art class that whenever an artist draws a face of any kind for any project a little of their own face goes into that drawing, now I have no idea if that is true or not, and apparently it is a subconscious thing, but that has always been interesting to me. When a face is painted on a doll the artist is choosing a bit of the dolls personality, which then takes away the need for the child to imagine it. The idea is that if you leave a doll with no face, it leaves the play a bit more open ended, the child then uses their own imagination to create the dolls face in their mind as well as the feeling of the doll during play- if a doll has a smile painted on, how can is get angry, or sad, or extra happy. I did get many questions at first, especially from my five year old niece, as to why Mrs. Mumsy didn't have a face, I just told her that she had to imagine it, she then wanted to get her markers and put a face on the doll, which was so cute, but I told her to just imagine the face instead. It didn't take long until she was happily playing with Mrs. Mumsy, doing her hair, and bringing her around the house and yard, and having some very good imaginative play.

Here is another of the Fall Flower Fairies I made, I will have to bring her along next time.

I got so many wonderful pictures of the kids out in the garden playing with Mrs. Mumsy that I am making a little story book with all of their pictures. I think they will have fun seeing a story book starring themselves and Mrs. Mumsy.


We had such a fun day, I look forward to our next visit.