Dust off your fairy wings, your bejeweled headdresses and safari vests and return to Chimney Park Saturday, May 5, for the fourth annual Fairy House Festival sponsored by Friends of Newton Parks. The springtime event attracts hundreds of young and old alike who get into the swing of things by dressing up as their inner child. Or, come as you are and people-watch the day away in the enchanted forest behind the Newton County Library on Floyd Street.

The agenda devised by Fairy Festival Chair Linda Shore includes storytelling, visits to a Gnome Home, a wide assortment of crafts for boys and girls, such as decorating fairy wings, face painting, hopscotch, a wind chime forest, decorating the twig forest, bubble-dancing and sidewalk chalk art. Crickets Mobile Petting Zoo from Rome will showcase miniature goats, sheep, rabbits, chickens, ducks and a pint-size horse for little ones to feed and ogle. The highlight of the afternoon is always the May Pole Dance staged by the popular BB Fuzz. Refreshments are also provided.

Special care is taken to decorate the forest and the remains of the once grand house that formerly stood on site, as well as a Fairy Tunnel and handsome bridge built by Eagle Scout Sam Hay, IV that joins activities in the front and back areas of the park.

Friends of Newton Parks, a nonprofit, has established a tradition of providing each school in the county with an imaginatively created fairy house and age-appropriate book to spur interest in the festival and fairy lore. Fairy houses are made of all natural materials and can be tucked into sheltering coves found at the base of tree trunks to attract little sprites and gnomes. Attendees can make their own at home and bring them to the park to share or find materials in the park that day and construct them on-site. The advice is to let your imagination take flight. Create tiny vignettes with ladders, swings, fairy furniture, one-room wonders or fairy abodes as many-faceted as the most engaging doll houses.  Use seeds, berries or corn kernels for fairy food.  Fairies need places to sleep, play, eat and work at their varied tasks.

Entrance fees are $3 per person. For more information, contact linjshore@gmail.com or check out the Chimney Park website at www.chimney-park.com. Donations toward the construction of new features at Chimney Park will be gratefully accepted.