Dusting is a very special thing for Spirit Fairies. It's our way of letting the fighters know we care, we wish them the best, and that we value them as teammates. This area is for why we dust, general dusting information and some quick tips on dusting.

Why does a Spirit Fairy dust?
Of course the obvious reason is that we, as Spirit Fairies, help the staff of The Site Fights check on the Fighters' web sites to ensure they have everything in order and working properly. But aside from that, it serves a much better purpose. We took time out of our week to visit someone and let them know we were there with a special spirited greeting.

General Dusting Information:
When you were training as a Spirit Fairy, you created a special greeting using some basic HTML coding. Now that you are a Cherub Forest Fairy, maybe you would like to spruce up your greeting, add a picture or two, or create something as special as your team to share your spirit.

Have a heading in your greeting. Something like "Sprinkle, Sprinkle!" or "You've been Dusted!" are some commonly used ones.

Have your dusting rhyme. Rhymes are cute to read and it will probably be easier for you to write a special dusting using words that rhyme.

Adding special graphics to greetings is a great way to add personalization to your dusting. You can grab some dusting graphics in the "Dusting Graphics" section. These graphics are pre-made small for greetings. You don't want to overload your greeting with graphics or the guestbooks will load very slowly (the main reason the fighters disable the HTML feature). One or two graphics is more than enough. Always keep your files as small as possible.

Quick tips for dusting:
Creating more than a single greeting isn't a bad thing. Some guestbooks don't allow the HTML coding or need the coding written differently to show properly. Also something especially for the holidays, or when you know a fighter has reached the Warzone or Dome, can add to the fun. To make life easier with so many different dusting greetings, I create a folder on my desktop called "Fairy Dusting".

Right click your desktop and "create folder" then name the folder to what is easiest for you to remember.
Inside of this folder, I create different ".txt" files of the HTML code for each greeting. I have my spiritbook.txt, bravenet.txt, christmas.txt, warzone.txt, birthday.txt, etc. I also save these files as ".htm" so I can see what the dusting looks like in Windows. When I am on my dusting assignments, I open the appropriate ".txt" file I wish to use. That way I can just copy/paste it to guest books as I am spreading my spirit! Within each ".txt" file, I also have the non HTML coding for my greeting below the HTML coded one. This way, I can easily dust the non-HTML enabled guestbooks.

Remember that people use all sorts of different colors on their web pages. Be sure to choose neutral colors for your dusting. And be sure that your graphics have borders or appear to be "pictures". Creating transparent graphics is a great way to ensure your graphic shows up properly as well. But remember that there are light and dark backgrounds out there, so use those neutral colors!

Link to your web site using a small graphic or by linking your URL to a bit of your dusting text. Since you MUST always use 'DRealm of the Fairies' as your URL when singing guestbooks, this is a nice way to allow the fighters to visit your personal site.

You don't always need to have a reason to dust someone. Dust other teams, other fighters, make some friends across the Site Fights!