Secret Garden Party meets the FairyLand Trust!

Hello Fairy Followers!

First I must apologise for the lack of blog posts whilst the Fairy team have been at Secret Garden Party the weekend just past, we had technical problems with Wi-Fi and logging on to the blog. However I thought a retrospective collection of the three days the workshops were running would do nicely as a catch-up (quite a lot of update so sorry for the length of the blog post).

Friday: Fairy Blogger - Andrea Osborne

After leaving Latitude, the Fairy Fair crew headed across country to Cambridgeshire for the Secret Garden Party – a magical festival where ordinary life and beliefs have to be left at the gate. A perfect setting for Fairyland workshops.

The heavens opened Thursday night and the rains came – someone must have been rain dancing for hours! The next morning we ventured into the damp dark woods gathering greenery to decorate the Fairyland workshop area with lush green foliage. So much foliage was gathered that we have been able to create a wonderful green entrance to the workshop.

Friday's workshops were to make Fairy Crowns and we had a stream of children hoping to make perfect fairy festival headwear from willow, trails of ivy and leaves. Some children wanted real flowers but of course we make paper ones so the real ones remain for the fairies.

But one little girl said “I’m not sure I believe in fairies”. A chorus of children chimed up that even if you can’t see them, they still may exist”. One little boy went so far as to stand up and say: “But if you don’t believe in fairies, the tooth fairy won’t come”. And he should know, having lost 4 teeth in the last month!

Fairy helper Rachel writing on the board. 

The workshop all set up!

Pete on booking duty!

 

Saturday and Sunday: Fairy Blogger - Ben Reynolds

 

Saturday brought along sunshine and Magic Wands! The workshops kicked off with only a small group of Wand makers because of the Circus acts going on next door! Despite the size of our little group they all left with smiling faces and plans to cast spells on their brothers and sisters! One girl told us she was going to use her Willow wand (which is said to have healing abilities) “to cure mummy's aches and pains”

 

More Wand makers appeared in the afternoon ready to spin the season wheel and find out which type of tree their wand was going to be made of. Every season had a taker with winter being the most popular and one young girl was thrilled when she was given a birch leaf to tie onto her birch wand! The day finished as sunny as it started and the 6 Fairy Crew Gardeners ready for book making the next day!

The lovely weather on Saturday started to turn our green entrance crispy!

The 'wool tree' ready to add some colour to the Wands.

Many familiar faces appeared on Sunday, children who had already made crowns or wands (or both) were back to take home a little wildflower fairy book as well. With lots of colouring, glue and glitter this workshop is always a favourite, with boys and girls concentrating desperately to try and stay within the lines of their Musk Mallow or Red Clover outline.

Once we eventually got to sticking in the leaf samples, we were sticking in our Willow tree leaves when one bookmaker thought it was very important to announce his sister was called Willow too and so she wanted to stick her sister to the page instead. After we had pointed out that her sister would not fit on the page nor would this make the book practical to hang around her neck or carry in her pocket she decided it would be better to stick the leaf in instead.

We had an unusual bookmaker on Sunday too! Who was resting here whilst the last workshop was finishing.

 

After The rainy nights and Sunny days of the weekend, we had a cloudy day today, packing all the equipment away ready for more fairy fun and excitement at Camp Bestival! Off we go to spread more nature and magic to the little folk down south.

The end of Latitude 2013- with photographs

Due to more technicalitys here is Sundays update a little late!: On Sunday we had a gloriously sunny day of making Bug Bling in the Bug Bazaar and Fairy Books in the workshops. Bug Bling produced many children with sparkly arm/leg/hair/pram/whatever-you-wish decorations in four varieties: Violet ground beetle, Doc Leaf beetle, Wasp Beetle, and Ruby Tailed Wasp. The materials held out due to replenished stocks and the drop in workshop was a huge success, spreading the love of beetles around site. Fairy Books also proved very popular, as it provided children with a tiny place to store and record any flower, leaf or interesting piece of nature to treasure as their own. The fairy queen and the message tree were of course as popular as ever, by the end of Sunday afternoon the small Elder tree was covered in messages. A few photos of the Sunday makes can be found below.

On Monday we experienced high temperatures for the pack down, which produced a very speedy pack up in order for all crew to lie down in the shade! After a productive morning we managed to set off around lunchtime, with a set of tired but happy crew all in need of a good sleep. Now we are all settled at home the unloading and re-loading will soon begin for the next festival and adventure of the Fairyland Trust.

 Latitude 2013 has been a huge success for the Fairyland Trust, so thank you to all who came and visited us there! The festival has been three wonderful days full of busy workshops and drop ins which have equipped many happy children with their very own nature based make to enjoy and treasure. The crew have all been wonderful and had a brilliant time, enjoying the festivals music, beautiful surroundings, arts, performances and much more. It has all in all been a weekend to enjoy. The next festival the trust is attending and this blog will be following is The Secret Garden Party festival 2013, with the new Fairyland blogger. Stay tuned for daily updates from that one!

Bye from me! Amazon Rose- Fairyland Crew member and blogger for Latitude 2013.

Here are some photos I have quickly taken over the weekend... enjoy!

 

Latitude Moon

Fairyland Ben hanging up a message to the fairy's

Full moon after a sunny day at Latitude

The fairyland booth all set up

Flutterby makes

A few messages on the Elder tree

The Bug Bazaar tent

Fairyland Ayla with flutterby makes

Fairyland Ayla hiding behind makes

The Bug Bazaar and fairyland flags

Hard at work in the Bug Bazaar

The finished result!

Panorama of Latitude 2013 by the lake

Supporter signing in action

The woods in Latitude fairyland

The Elder message tree in all its glory

Fairy Queen of the forest

Fairy Queen reunion

Decorations in the Bug Bazaar tent

A happy owner of a complete set of bug bling!

The fairy Queen's baby yurt in the woods

To finish... a true message from Poppy

Latitude day 2 and 3

Due to technical difficulties and dying computers I was unable to update yesterday. However I am back online!

The past two days have been a whirlwind of unpredictable weather and a very busy fairyland. On the first day we had the crown workshop which provided children with garlands of ivy, willow and paper flowers. We also had flutterbys in the bug bazaar which offered two butterfly makes- Swallow Tails and Holly Blues, and two moth makes- Cinnabar moths and Elephant Hawk Moths. Saturday was a very busy and hot day which provided many happy children with a variety of fairyland makes.

On day two we offered a wand making workshop- individualised to each child with their own magical powers. In the bug bazaar we had the fussy caterpillars which were the exact follow ups to the butterflys and moths from the first day. Each child made a small, glittered finger puppet to wiggle through a cut out leaf whilst learning all about their very own caterpillar.

On both of these days we also had the fairy queen of the meadow and the fairy queen of the forest talking to children in their magical baby yurt. The yurt was situated at the end of a glittery woodland trail on which you could write a message to the fairys and hang it on the Elder message tree!

More technical difficulties mean I am unable to add photos today.. but hopefully I will add a whole group when I am able- I have many stored up...

Latitude festival has been wonderful for all crew, the nights and the days! Looking forward to the rest of the weekend

See you tomorrow!

Amazon Rose- Blogger for latitude 2013

Latitude day 1

Day one at Latitude has been a wonderful start to the weekend!

We had a very speedy and problem free set up despite the sweltering heat experienced here. The whole of our area in the kids field is looking very magical and prepared for tomorrow. Complete with coloured bunting, flags, flowers and insects.




 We have set up a large, beautifully decorated marquee for the Bug Bazaar, a medieval tent for the workshops, and a baby yert for the fairy queen! We have also cleared a wiggly path through the patch of woodland to guide you to her...







 The main Latitude site is also looking wonderful in the summer evening light. All stages, food stalls and multi coloured sheep are settling in to their new surroundings splendidly. Alas the mozzys are still with us, but we are luckily stocked up in Marmite (a supposed deterrent)!








Our crew at Latitude consists of around twenty people, all of which have been working hard today to assemble the set up smoothly. With no major incidents so far, and a rota for the next few days, we are all feeling very positive about the sunny weekend to come!

See you tomorrow

Amazon Rose- Fairyland Crew member and blogger for latitude 

Last minute preperations and arrival on site!

This mornings preparations for Latitude 2013 have consisted of mostly gathering a few wonderful wildflowers for the fairy queen. This will be the first year we are taking the fairy queen to Latitude. On site she will be hidden away in the woodland, do come and see her- it's all free!

 Here are a few snap shots of a few items we have been carefully gathering...

The sun was shining over our last packing and preparation day and there is a general buzz of excitement from all crew for this weekend! We all can't wait for Latitude 2013 and feel it is going to be a magical and sunny weekend.


We have also loaded up the fairy land trust vans and vehicles with our small mountain of equipment. After a fairly speedy packing we set off for the Southwold site....

After setting off at 3:30pm we arrived after a four hour journey at around 7:30, hassle free!

The site looks wonderful as usual and very peaceful. Set up here is almost finished and the site looks primed for the public's arrival tomorrow evening.

It's a warm- if slightly mozzy infested- night here in the crew camping area. We are all looking forward to the weekend ahead, hope to see many of you there!

Amazon Rose- Fairylandtrust crew member and blogger for Latitude.

Caterpillar mayhem & Seed Wand excitement

Today we have been hurriedly prepping workshop materials for Latitude festival 2013.

 Last weekend the trust attended the Three Foot People Festival in Chelmsford.We arrived with enough materials prepped for both Three foot and Latitude. However the workshops proved far more popular than we had thought and we ended up using all of our materials last weekend! The workshops popularity meant we churned out over a hundred felt caterpillars a day and left stocks bare.
However we have a trusty team cutting felt- above is a photograph of Fairy Land Trust crew member Caitlin creating caterpillar templates ready for this weekend.

In other news our fairyland booth is near completion and is looking very bright and colourful. It will be offering our latest product- The seed wand! When you become a supporter of the Fairyland Trust at any event you will get a FREE seed wand. Each hand made wand is topped by a star which contains wildflower seeds. Shake the wand and you can sow Poppy, Corncockle, Corn Marigold, Corn Flower and Corn Marigold. All these flowers will make the bees and fairies very happy.

















The next events you can acquire these magical seed wands are as follows: Latitude Festival 18-21 July; Secret Garden Festival 26-28 July; Camp Bestival 2-4 August; Gressinghall Festival on the Farm 10 August; London Zoo Little Creatures Festival 30 August- 1 September.

We can't send seed wands by post at the moment, but you will also be able to join and receive a wand at The Real Halloween in the autumn.
Please do come and see us at Latitude, become a supporter and spread these magical seeds with your very own wand!

Amazon Rose- Fairyland Crew member and blogger for Latitude 2013.
 

Preperations for Latitude 2013

With only two days to go the preparations for Latitude Festival 2013 are well underway. Today we have been painting the new fairyland booth (as pictured) which will be accompanying us throughout the summer festivals, including Latitude.

Latitude is a small, family friendly festival that we have been attending since 2010 and one that the trust always proves popular at. The site has a large kids area in which we will be featuring near the entrance- you wont be able to miss us! Tickets are still on sale for this wonderful festival which can be found via the website- http://www.latitudefestival.com/

We will be taking three magical workshops to Latitude 2013: Crown Making on the Friday, Wand Making on the Saturday and Book Making on the Sunday. We will also have three drop-ins within the Bug Bazaar tent, including Flutterbys on the Friday, Fussy-Caterpillars on the Saturday and Bug-Bling on the Sunday. Also the fairy queen will be hidden away in the woods! Our section of the kids area will be open from 10-4pm each day.

Hope to see many of you there!

Amazon Rose- Fairyland Crew member and blogger for Latitude 2013.

Other ways to keep up to date would be via:
 http://www.fairylandtrust.org/
 https://twitter.com/fairylandtrust
 https://www.facebook.com/fairyland.trust