At her booth this weekend at the Bigfork Festival of the Arts, Cleo Maloney, 12, has a bit of magic in the form of small creatures called sprites.

Maloney, of Los Angeles, hopes her handcrafted sprites help people through tough times or illness.

“Basically its purpose is to watch over children who are sick — or anyone,” Maloney said.

Maloney is on vacation with her family and visiting relatives who live in Bigfork.

Her goal is to sell the approximately 60 sprites and donate proceeds to charities that benefit children. She also hopes to start a nonprofit to continue making the sprites for sick children.

Over two years Maloney estimates she has made roughly 500 that she gives to children’s charities and hospitals.

The little boy and girl sprites have clothespin bodies, with hair of yarn. They are dressed in clothing made from fabric flower petals. Some sprites have freckles and all have big, black eyes but no mouths.

This is so that the sprites have no fixed emotion, according to Maloney. This leaves a kind of blank canvas for the owner of a sprite to feel any emotion.

“This way the sprites adjust to their emotions,” Maloney said.

Maloney came up with the idea for the sprites from a YouTube video.

“I put my own twist on the facial features and kept working on them until I finally got my finished product,” Maloney said.

The inspiration to help sick children stems from a time Maloney was in the hospital with a kidney infection around age 5.

“I was noticing I would get flowers, but the flowers would die. I would get balloons, but the balloons would pop. I would get stuffed animals, but they would fall off the bed,” Maloney said.

But there was one stuffed animal that didn’t fall off the bed — a cat that lay flat on its belly.

“It sat at the foot of my bed and watched over me. That made me feel safe,” Maloney said.

She hopes the small, portable sprites impart the same feeling of security.

The Bigfork Festival of the Arts will be from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. today and Sunday in downtown Bigfork. Shuttles will run starting at 9 a.m. both days from the Potoczny Baseball Field east of the post office and from Bethany Lutheran Church.

For more information about the festival, call 881-4636 or visit www.bigforkfestivalofthearts.com.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at [email protected].