Sticks, stones and imagination are the materials Charmaine Hefflefinger, Franny Hefflefinger, Monika Senn and Lenya Dowler use to build fairy houses, which will be on sale for the third year in a row at the Collins Hall Craft Fair.
Hefflefinger says the houses are inspired by Bowen’s magical forests, and also by a book of fairy houses she ordered two summers ago.
“I shared the book with Monika and the kids last summer, and we started collecting materials right away. Our fairy houses were so well received at the Craft Fair that we decided to keep making them,” she says.
Hefflefinger adds that the continuous search for things to build the houses with has turned every walk in the forest on Bowen into a search for magical materials, and trips off Bowen provide an opportunity to add new elements to the houses.
“When we first started this, Frannie and I found really big leaves on a beach in West Vancouver. We saved them and they became roofs,” she says. “Last year, during March Break, Monika and her family went to Quebec City and brought back birch bark. We also brought back birch bark from Manitoba. Because we protect and save these things, they take on a special value for us.”
The kids, Hefflefinger says, are especially good at adding detail to the fairy homes.
“They create gardens, chicken coops, sheep shelters,” she says. “They have the imagination to create a whole world out of this.”
This year they have 40 fairy homes to sell.
The Collins Hall Craft Fair will take place on Friday, December 12 starting at 4 p.m. and throughout the day on Saturday December 13.
