The Sunflower Faerie is the fourth in my "Flower Faerie" series. She celebrates the brightest, most exuberant flower of the late-summer garden, whose blossoms and beneficial seeds linger on into Autumn. Flitting beneath a stand of golden-orange sunflowers and velvety-brown cattails, the Faerie carries a blossom whose seeds she will distribute to feed the birds and bring a new generation of sunny flowers to garden next season. A bumble-bee, whose colors mimic the brown and gold of the sunflower, pauses to dry his gossamer wings on the flower’s soft center.

The Faerie’s beautiful wings are crafted from real leaves I found at a craft store that had been dried so that only the delicate veins of the leaves were preserved and painted gold. Four of these leaves have been connected with a large golden "jewel" and then studded with smaller golden gems. These gossamer wings are attached to the doll with a snap. Accessories include a head-band of yellow ribbon with a bejeweled sunflower centerpiece, delicate twisted and spiraled gold-wire armlet and necklace, the necklace also having gold and copper beads, and finally, tiny silk sunflower anklets. Her nails are painted gold.

Sunflower Faerie’s outfit is an homage to her favorite flower. The background of the material is a warm shades of orange with golden leaves and russet outlines of sunflowers. Her ensemble is in two separate and removable pieces. Her full, ballerina-style skirt is embellished with the same rickrack as the bodice along the hem and an overskirt of petal-shaped pieces. Underneath the skirt are petticoats of yellow tulle.

The doll’s eyes and lips were re-painted to better complement the design. Her eyes are a soft brown with taupe and gold eye-shadow; her closed, softly-smiling lips are a neutral shade of coral-pink. Her pale skin is given the requisite fairy-dust shimmer.

The doll is very poseable, with jointed elbows as well as fully rotating shoulder joints; therefore, in order to maximize the ability to pose her in many different ways; she is held on her own doll-stand, separate from the custom backdrop. The stand has been customized to match the sunflower theme of the Faerie and the larger backdrop: the base is decorated with dried silvery-brown reindeer moss and a large silk sunflower, above which her feet hover Finally the final piece of the Sunflower Faerie’s tableau is a created by decorating an extra large doll-stand with dried reindeer mosses, green spaghnum moss and silk sunflowers in shades of orange and gold, cattails, and silvery-green "grasses." The doll and her stand can be displayed with or without the backdrop, and placed in any relationship to it.