Maryland Faerie Festival, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, May 21, 2005

(Originally written on May 23, 2005)

Here are the photos I took of my Dollfie Dream dressed in a fairy outfit that I took at the Maryland Faerie Festival two days ago. I learned about this festival through a flyer that was posted at my church a few months ago and I thought it would be a cool place for a ball-jointed doll meet-up. So I posted a notice on the Den of Angels forum along with the URL of the festival and I proposed dressing up our dolls in fairy outfits. There was an enthusiastic response from other people on the forum to attending the festival so I went through the effort of making a fairy outfit in time for the festival despite the fact that I had a trip to Pennsylvania the previous week. (I finished the outfit about an hour before I headed off to the festival.)

The big snag came the day before when it rained the entire day and it was cold. But by the day of the festival, the sun was out and the weather forecasts said that it would rain in the evening. (By the way, the forecasts were totally wrong on that one.) So I decided to go to the festival and bring my Dollfie Dream, Sakura, along. The only problem was that I was the only one who arrived at the festival with a ball-jointed doll. No one else had attended even though some people had expressed interest in attending.

I ran into some friends of mine at the festival but none of them own ball-jointed dolls so I ended up explaining to a few of them about my Dollfie Dream. I also had quite a few strangers come up to me asking me about my doll as well as some of the vendors whose tables I browsed at while holding my doll. One person said that she had heard of Dollfies but it was the first time she had ever seen one in person. Other people asked me if I had purchased her at the festival and I had to tell them that I bought her off the Internet.

It was neat because I felt like some kind of ambassador telling people about my doll. But I also felt kind of lonely because I was the only person who had a ball-jointed doll and it would've been nice if I had ran into other ball-jointed doll owners. (I asked some of the vendors if anyone else carrying a doll like mine had shown up and every single one of them said no.) I don't know what happened since people on the Den of Angels forum expressed interest in attending the festival. The only thing I could guess is that people were too paranoid about the weather to bring their dolls (especially with the previous day's rain and more forecasts of rain storms that very same evening). It was too bad since it was a nice warm day that was a contrast to the previous cold and rainy day.

Here are some photos I took from the festival. (Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version of the photo open in a new window.)

The Maryland Faerie Festival was held at the Patuxent 4-H Center in Upper Marlboro, whose grounds included some llamas that can be seen in the background to the right of the doll.

Many participants arrived in costumes. This dragon costume was the most ornate one I saw at the festival.

My Dollfie Dream, Sakura, poses in front of a decorated car that belonged to one of the vendors who participated in the festival.

Sakura poses in front of a maypole.

There were lots of wide spaces at the festival, which provided opportunities for children to run around.

Sakura poses in front of one of the many vendor tents that sold all kinds of fairy and fantasy-related stuff, including t-shirts, handmade soaps, carved figurines, and much more.

Impromptu dances broke out along the festival grounds, such as the one behind Sakura.

One of the vendors had three life-sized mushrooms that were a hit among the children. In the background you can see a girl dressed as a fairy crouched on one of them.

I managed to get this quick snapshot of Sakura sitting on one of the giant mushrooms before some more kids rushed over to the toadstools and started sitting and stepping on them.

Maryland Faerie Festival, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, May 21, 2005

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