52 Weeks of Fairy Tales #48 - Sleeping Beauty

It has been quite some time since I have posted one of my 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales projects, I am still working my way through the final few, slowly but surely.  I am also working on getting a post together with links to all 52, so they will be easier to access.  For week #48, I have chosen the very well known classic tale of Sleeping Beauty.

Sleeping Beauty was told by Charles Perrault in 1697, and was also told by The Brother's Grimm as Little Briar Rose.  I grew up on the Disney version as many also have, I still have my old Disney Sleeping Beauty View Master Reels that I loved looking at as a child (I loved view-master reels as a child, and started collecting the vintage reels about 15 years ago).

The story of Sleeping Beauty begins with a King and Queen who have invited all the good fairies to bestow gifts upon their baby girl.  The King and Queen welcome the fairies with beautiful jeweled chairs and special table setting, and have made everything beautiful for the fairies invited. The fairies bestowed gifts of beauty, intelligence, grace, song, and dance, and other good traits on the baby princess.  As the kind fairies were bestowing gifts upon the baby girl, a wicked fairy arrives and inquires why she was not invited.  The Queen quickly tries to appease the wicked fairy and makes room for her at the table, but it is clear to the wicked fairy that she was left out, so before she leaves she puts a curse on the baby girl.  A curse that one day the child shall prick her hand on a spindle and die!

Luckily one last fairy had not given the baby her gift, and she used her gift to soften the curse, instead of the princess dying, she would instead fall into a deep sleep for 100 years, and be awoken by a prince.  The king forbids all spinning wheels and spindles throughout the land, in hopes that he can prevent the curse from happening.

One day, years later, when the princess was a young woman, her parents had left the kingdom.  She was wandering around the palace, when she came upon an old woman in a secluded part of the castle in a tower, the old woman was spinning.  The princess was fascinated with the spinning, and asked what she was doing since she had never seen a spinning wheel before. The princess reached out, and pricked her hand on the spindle, and falls asleep.  The old woman gets help, but the princess cannot be woken, so she is put to sleep in the finest room, upon a beautiful bed fit for a princess.  The good fairy who had softened the curse arrives at the castle, and decides that it would be best if everyone in the castle was put to sleep as well, so the princess will have her family and friends when she is woken.  The fairy also causes bramble to cover the castle to protect the sleeping princess.

One hundred years pass.  One day a prince is out on a hunting expedition and spots the bramble covered castle, an old man in his hunting party tells him the tale of the beautiful sleeping princess within the bramble covered castle, that can only be woken by a kiss from a prince.  The prince braves the bramble and thorns and makes his way into the castle grounds, where he sees the castle occupants sleeping.  Soon he comes upon the stunning sleeping beauty.  Overcome by her beauty, he kisses the sleeping princess, and the curse is broken.  The princess and everyone else wake up from their long slumber.  The prince and princess fall in love, and are married right away, and they live happily ever after.

~

As a child, the scene in the Disney movie where the princess is lured up to the tower, where she ends up pricking her finger on the spinning wheel, was one of my favorite memorable scenes, so for my fairy tale craft, I decided to do another paper cutting for my fairy tale scrapbook, of that scene, along with the beginnings of the bramble that grew around the castle.  I was very happy with how the picture turned out, however as I was gluing down the paper cutting to it's backing paper, using very sticky spray glue the wind caught my project and glued it down crooked! I worked quickly to try and peel it apart to straighten it, but the bottom corner got crinkly.  I always use my glue spray outside, next time I will wait for a non-windy day! :)

Luckily once the page was put in the page protector the crinkles were not as noticeable.  I was originally going to use red as the backing color, but I really liked the hot pink, so I went with that.  I so enjoy paper cutting, and have decided that I may try stamp carving next!

I hope everyone is having a nice summer, my daughter continues to heal from her car accident, which you can read about in my post Sarah's Accident .  We are starting to gear up for back to school season, and I will be posting soon about the progress of our garden and all the yummy garden recipes we have been trying. Right now we are in the midst of a summer storm, the sky was a beautiful orange color and has just changed to a beautiful purple, and the garden is enjoying the rain.

Thanks for reading!