Cinderella, My Way:

Trillian has received my Traveling Page for May, so I can finally share it with everyone else.  Her theme was Fairy Tales, and she specified that she wanted Grimm or Andersen fairy tales, rather than Disney.  

When I was very young, I had a collection of Grimm Brother’s Fairy Tales (as well as Hans Christian Andersen) and the book both fascinated and terrified me! The end papers were decorated with trolls and ogres and the stuff of nightmares . . . at least to my young mind! The images remain clear to me 50 years later.  But, of course, I loved the stories!

  I knew right from the beginning that I would do something about Cinderella. My first idea was the pumpkin carriage. But, when I re-read the original Grimm version – there is no mention of the carriage! That was when I remembered that the most fascinating part of the story, for me, was the search for the girl who fit the golden slipper. Yes, Jacob and Wilhelm’s Cinderella wore golden slippers. It might be interesting to learn how it evolved into a glass slipper, huh?

I acquired some collage art from Alpha Stamps and chose Cinderella praying at her mother’s grave as the image in the window.  I appliquéd the plush pillow and a golden shoe which I then filled with beads. The red heel reflects my favorite lines from the story:

Rook di goo, rook di goo!
There's blood in the shoe.
The shoe is too tight,
This bride is not right!

The collage art also included some black birds – although the Wikipedia Grimm’s Brothers version says the birds were pigeons - and I used my photo software to make a repeat and antiqued the color, then printed it onto silk for the backing page.

I really enjoyed refreshing my memories about this classic story.  I think it's a great story in all it's many versions.  Speaking of versions, if you have not read any of Gregory Maguire's slightly 'distorted' fairy tales, "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" is a very different way to look at the Cinderella story.  While I'm talking about favorites - I really enjoyed The Brothers Grimm, a fun movie with a lot of references to the entire collection of stories and a wobbly balance between dark adventure and magical fun. 

I'm busy working on the June page now.  Theme is the sea.  Lots of fun things I can do with that one!