This woman has been 'taken by the fairies,' leaving her creations in Labrador's nature

For seven years a Labrador woman has been making miniature fairies and leaving them behind in nature, and she says it's made her appreciate where she lives even more.

With the exception of taking 2024 off, since 2017 Sarah Papple of Happy Valley-Goose Bay has been creating her figures, posing them, taking its portrait and posting it online. She now has more than 18,000 followers on TikTok.

"Every part of this project has brought me so much magic in my life, in ways that I could not anticipate," Papple told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning.

"I called them fairies even though they don't have wings, for lack of a better word. They're little creatures that, in my mind, they're not something I make."

Papple started the project as a rejection of the cynicism in the world she was seeing, she said. By looking closely at the ground, she's adjusted her worldview.

"Labrador, as we know, [is] the 'Big Land,' but it's the big land with the tiniest little ecosystems," said Papple.

She said that means tiny little fungi and little berry blooms on the ground, and she wanted to remind herself she is lucky to be there and that Labrador is one of the rare places that has uninterrupted nature.

"I wanted to capture that magic that is inherent in the culture of Labrador," she said.

LISTEN | CBC's Andrea McGuire chats with Sarah Papple about her fairies: 

Labrador Morning9:54Handmade fairies hidden in Labrador’s wild

You might spot one nestled between moss and wildflowers. Every day for years, librarian Sarah Papple has crafted a tiny fairy — and photographed it outdoors. She shares how a small daily ritual turned into an art project with a global following.

'Cracks me up'

Papple said she takes the weekend to make the fairy's skins, which are little tubes, then dyes them in tea and dries them out. They are also biodegradable.

"Lining up a group of them, nothing gives me more … pure joy than just seeing a lot of these little faces. [It] kind of cracks me up, but they're all very serious," she said.

Papple said she makes time in her schedule for the project, with the aim of making one fairy every evening and then filming it the following day.

"Sometimes I'm making it like right at the 11th hour. Sometimes I have done pictures in the dark," she said.

There are plenty of things in her life that can wait so she can reach her deadlines, she said, even leaving parties. She jokes she's been "taken by the fairies" — a nod to popular folklore tales of fairies whisking people away.

"It's quite possible that I have been taken by the fairies and I am some sort of like a automaton, like 'must make fairies,' she said. "Because that seems to be higher on my list than anything."

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