Fae World anthologies - Melusine Muse Press now taking submissions #FaeWorld

Fae World

This one will either be one large anthology or four smaller ones. 

The four themes are Autumn Court, Winter Court, Spring Court and Summer Court and may include both dark and light Fae (Seelie and Unseelie). 

The word count should be between 300 and 3,000 words. 

Not all submissions will be accepted. 
These are adult stories, but gratuitous sex, gratuitous foul language and gratuitous violence will earn a rejection. 

Depending on the quality of the stories sent in, there will either be a one volume, 50+-story anthology or four volumes with 25 to 35 stories in each (depending on average length of stories). 

At this moment, I cannot afford to pay for stories that are accepted, but there will be a $10 Amazon gift certificate awarded to the best story in each category ("court") and a $25 gift certificate for the best story overall (once the required number of stories has been submitted and accepted).

At the moment, the closing date remains open. Submissions will remain open until the correct number of acceptable stories is reached. Each book needs to be a minimum of 50,000 words (if broken into four separate books) or 125,000 words (if published as one book).

Once all stories have been chosen for the anthology, winners will be chosen. All those with stories accepted in the anthology will get badges for their blogs or websites.  Winners in each category and the over-all winner will get separate "winner" badges.

I am hoping to be able to begin work on the anthology during 2016, so the earlier submissions come in, the better.

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What Daddy Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him - contest entry by Robert Fyfe for the OUAT flash fiction contest

My husband doesn't blog often, but he wanted to enter the Once Upon a Time flash fiction contest. The word count limit is 350 words and the theme is Unexpected Fairytales. This is his submission to the contest.

What Daddy Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him
by Robert Fyfe

Kerrie didn’t really understand why her father would react so badly but she was determined that she would warn the fairies that he was coming to destroy them. All her life she had seen them but until yesterday her father had told her that she was making things up and to stop these fantasies.

She wished she hadn’t lost her temper yesterday, hadn’t been so determined to prove him wrong, but after all it was his fault that her two sisters had gone; he had driven them away to goodness knows where. She had promised the fairies that she wouldn’t tell and they had shared their fairy dust with her. She had gotten so angry when her father had grabbed her, telling her that fantasies and fairytales were just make-believe and she should be real and forget them.

 She had become so upset and had pulled the little bag of dust from her pocket, had sprinkled a pinch of dust over her head and had whispered the magic word; she had risen off the floor about three feet as she had looked into her father’s eyes. So proud, so righteous, so in trouble.

He had grabbed her and threw her in her room telling her not to leave for any reason till he got back. She had heard him in the shed and she knew he was looking for a weapon against her friends.

He hadn’t realised though that the fairy dust was still powerful and she opened her window and flew out of the room and down to the bottom of the garden, his screams for her to return easily heard as he came from the shed and saw her disappear behind the hedge.

The fairies were there waiting, laughing, arms open wide. Kerrie told them to run, told them to hide. But they came to her, held on to her. “You just have to wish it away,” they told her. “Just think about where you would like to go and we will all go with you. After all it is what we did with your sisters.”

348 words

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Make Your Own Fairy Magic Gifts

The holiday season is upon us. This year, instead of giving something store-bought to the people you care about, why not make something special to bring a personal touch to your gift-giving? And while you are at it, why not make your gifts extra special by making them fairy magic gifts? Here are just a few ideas for some homemade fairy magic gifts of your own.





- Make small bottles of "fairy dust." You can buy tiny bottles at any craft store, including ones that can be made into keychains or necklaces. Fill the bottle with glitter. Any color of glitter will do. You can layer the "dust" or you can put the cork or lid on the bottle and shake it up. You can leave it like that or you can paint a flower or a butterfly on the outside of the bottle, either with acrylic paints or with glass paint pens. Print the poem that is written below and using a hole puncher leave hole in the bottom of the piece of paper you print the poem to and then add it to a ribbon and tie the ribbon around the outside of the neck of the bottle.

A special little gift
Made just for you,
Filled with sparkle
And fairy magic too!
Whenever you have something
That you want to do,
Just wish on this fairy dust
And your wish just might come true!

- Make a dream jar. Clean out a jar. Any jar from home will do. Paint glue all over the outside jar and then sprinkle different colors of glitter all over the outside. Once it dries, use acrylic paint to paint the words "Dream Jar" onto it. While the words dry, start typing up different "dreams." Each "dream" should be something happy, a remembered fun time with the person you are making the jar for, thoughts you have that are flattering to them, hopes you know they have, anything positive in their life and anything else you can think of that will lift their spirits when they read it. Make as many of these as you can, then cut them out and put them inside the dream jar. Tie a pretty ribbon aorund the neck of the jar. Whomever you give it to can pull a happy thought out of the jar whenever he or she is feeling down to help lift his or her mood.

- Make Fairy dust candle jars. Find some empty small baby food jars. Paint them with glitter. Fill each one with a scented candle and tie a pretty ribbon around the neck of the jar and your gift is complete.

Hope you enjoy making these simple gifts, and I hope the people you give them to enjoy them too!

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Fairy Stories By Isabella

My daughter Isabella started telling me stories about fairies when she was three years old and since then has continued to come up with more and more fairy stories. Her daddy has drawn some sketches to go with her stories and I created a blog where she could share her stories.

You can find her fairy stories on her blog The Tangle Fairies. She also has a Tangle Fairies Facebook page. Later this month, if my husband finishes the last three drawings, I am hoping to create a book for her with the stories and drawings. It will be made available for sale and all of the profits will go into a fund for her education.

Enjoy her stories n her blog and like her Facebook page to keep updated on new stories and on when the book is coming out.

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See The World Through Fairy Eyes

Sunlight and morning dew,
The glistening of magical wings.
Moonbeams and starlight,
All sorts of enchanting things.

See the world through fairy eyes,
With magic and sparkle and glee.
See the power in every butterfly
And the life in every tree.

See the puffed up toad,
Who leaps quickly out of sight.
See the soft little bunny,
Who looks back at you without fright.

See the jet black crow
Who flies towards you without fear,
See the magic in his wisdom,
As he flies far and near.

See the grace in a flower,
It's beauty for all to see,
Filling the air with perfume
And giving pollen for the bee.

Hear the voices that whisper
Through the sighing of the breeze.
Hear the magic talking
Through the rustling of the leaves.

See the world through fairy eyes,
And find the magic that is all around.
See the world through fairy eyes,
A world of magic to be found.



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The Fairy Tree

We pass by a house with this tree in front of it every day while taking the kids to school and after picking them up at the end of the school day. the children have decided that this is a "fairy tree" and even tell me that they can see little fairies hiding within it.

Isn't it wonderful how imaginative and willing to believe in magic children tend to be?

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Some Of My Favorite Fairy Artists Plus Some Fairy Freebies!

There are a lot of fairy artists whose work I admire, and I thought it would be nice to share a couple of my favorites with you so you could also see their beautiful fantasy artwork.



First off, I want to share the art of my friend Connie Persampieri (Faye) with you.



From faeries, elves and dragons to vampires, zombies and gothic angels, Connie's art inspires and intrigues. Her faeries are delicate and strong, while her vampires are beautiful and fierce. You can find her artwork on her Facebook page and also in her DeviantArt gallery.









I've known Connie for many years, and I have never tired of viewing each new painting that she completes. Her artwork is available for purchase on a number of gift items and can be found in her Etsy store too.





Next, I want to share with you the art of Selena Fenech. She shares some of her art and her artistic methods on her Facebook page, but I first met Selena on DeviantArt.



Her faeries and sprites, mermaids and other fantasy figures have always enchanted and inspired me. You can see more of her artwork on her website and you can buy her art on prints, jewelery, keychains, mugs, bookmarks and lots more in her store.







One of the really great things about her website and store is that she has a page that shares some freebies with you. There is a game you can download, coloring pages you can print for your children, desktop backgrounds you can use, free decorative alphabet letters with a matching poem and free avatars for you to use non-commercially.







So what about you? Who are some of your favorite fairy and fantasy artists?

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Why We Need To Believe In A Bit Of Fairy Magic

"Children are creatures of magic. In a child’s eyes, anything is possible, from the mundane to the truly magical. Through their innocent eyes, the world takes on a whole new presence, full of mystery, magic and wonder." ~Rebecca Fyfe

The world is full of magic, but it is easy to get lost in the mundane responsibilities and chores of everyday life and to become blind to the magic and beauty that is all around us. When this happens, we run the risk of letting ourselves become cynical. When we let ourselves lose that part of ourselves that can see the miracles in everyday life, we let a part of our soul escape from us.

One of my favorite quotes is found in the book series The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. In it, the wizard Harry Dresden states, "There is more magic in a baby's first giggle than in anything the most powerful wizard can conjure." It is this simple magic, the beautiful miracles that happen every day, that we tend to miss when we let ourselves grow cynical and let our souls grow blind to these everyday enchantments.

All it takes is opening our eyes and appreciating what we have in this world, grabbing the innocence from our childhood that we may think we have lost and embracing it anew. And when we let the fairy magic back into our lives, it blossoms and grows until we begin to believe again, and our lives become sparkling and fresh and full of wonder once more.

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Christmas Wishes For You!

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Moonlight Fairy Art - How You Can Make A Silhouette Fairy

I have been inspired by some beautiful silhouette fairy art that I have seen lately. My husband Robert created some silhouette fairy art a year ago or so, and I've recently seen other artists' versions of silhouette fairy art. I am not very good at drawing, but I wanted to create some fairy art of my own.

So here is what I did, I took a photo of a beautful girl who one of my teenage daughters is friends with in which Robert had already cropped the girl out of the photo and added fairy wings to her when he created this image:



He had saved a lot of the different elements as one piece, so I had a lot of work to do to bring it back to just the girl and the wings. Then I used the "fill" tool in Corel PhotoPaint to turn her into a silhouette.

Of course, then I still needed a background. That's when I realized I had a moon and stars in the night sky graphic that I had created many years ago. It was perfect as the backdrop for my silhouette fairy!

And the resulting silhouette fairy art (which I will be adding to my shop right away) is this:



If you have a photo editing program and know how to crop something out of a photo, then you can do this too. You just need a pretty background. Maybe a sunset or something full of light and color would work. And then you need a photo of a girl; you will have to crop her out of the photo. Next, if you, like me, are not very skilled at drawing butterfly wings, find a photo of a butterfly and crop it's wings out. Paste the wings onto the fairy at a realistic angle. Then use the "fill" tool in your photo editing program, using the color black, to turn them into a silhouette. Then paste both onto the background photo and you're done!

Fairy Party Ideas

Design Dazzle posted about how to create this beautiful Woodland Fairy Birthday Party via Kate Landers Events.



The post includes tips on making or buying some of the decorations and party favors and also includes some woodland-fairy-themed games to play.







My four year old daughter Isabella would absolutely love a party like this! Her birthday is coming up soon in August. I do not have the money or space to create a party for her that is quite this elaborate. However, this has given me some great ideas for stuff that I can make and do to create a simple but fun fairy-themed party for her this year!

Fairy Bedroom

I just had to share this. (Images via here.)



I found this Fairy Bedroom at Design Dazzle. The room is made by Kidtropolis. This fairy bedroom that is so pretty! Wouldn't your daughter love a room like this?







If I'd had a room like this as a child, my best friend and I would have spent hours upon hours pretending to be fairies. Children are capable of so much imagination even without the assistance of decorating that creates a setting. I was such a dreamer as a child, always fantasizing about far-off and magical lands. This room would have been ideal for me. And I know a couple of my daughters would think this room was a dream come true!