Legend has it that if you build a fairy house and leave it in your garden, you may attract a fairy to your area … However, even if you don't believe in fairies, it's a beautiful creative project that will warm the heart of anyone who loves projects in miniature and cute things for the garden. It is also a great project to get help from children.
Steps
Method 1 of 4: Drawing the Fairy House
Step 1. Imagine your fairy house
Fairy houses can be small and squat, tall and thin, simple and cottage-like, ornate like castles, rounded and soft, angled and flashy, and so on. Decide which style you prefer before you start planning your design.
Step 2. Draw your fairy house on a sheet of paper
Think about where you want to put windows, doors, corridors and fireplaces. Remember, it must be physically possible to build the fairy house for you, so don't overdo it!
Step 3. Decide what material to use to build the house
You can use a milk carton, birdhouse, cardboard, wood, or twigs to make the house frame. You can also turn a dollhouse into a fairy house. Remember that you will decorate it eventually, so even if you don't like the look of the house structure, you can cover it later.
Method 2 of 4: Find the Materials
Step 1. Gather materials from the woods or your garden
Find leaves, mosses, stones, acorns, dried herbs, and other natural objects to decorate the house. If you are going to glue the house together, make sure the materials are dry; glue does not stick to wet things.
Method 3 of 4: Building the Fairy House
Step 1. Build a home base (optional)
If you want to keep your fairy house indoors, it might be nice to make a base to put it on. Take an old abandoned piece of cardboard or wood and decorate it to make it look like an outdoor setting. Add moss to make it look like grass, twigs to act as miniature trees, and flints to act as boulders. You may also want to build the house in a pot arrangement.
Step 2. Assemble the fairy house
Glue cardboard, wood, and other materials together using hot glue or wood glue. It may be too expensive or time-consuming to make the entire house out of clay, but baking clay is great for turrets or windows, and they come in many useful colors. You can add turrets using tubes of toilet paper, toothpaste, or whatever else you can think of. Ex:
- Stack the branches like Lincoln logs. Place two branches at the base parallel to each other, then rest on the first two other two branches perpendicularly (they should look like a square with overlapping corners). Keep stacking them like this until the walls are as tall as you want them and then add a roof.
- If you're building an outdoor house, make the walls and roof of the house for the fairies and then cover the entire structure with soil or mud to make a rounded hobbit-style house. Crush flat stones into the sides to create the walls and add some moss on top to make a covered roof. Leave a hole where you want the door to be and add a hollow twig, cane, or piece of bamboo to make a canine. Crush a couple of small stones into the ground leading to the entrance to make a walkway.
Method 4 of 4: Decorate the Fairy House
Step 1. Create an internal world for the fairies
Cover the floor with sand, leaves or moss to create a soft floor. Make a hammock out of fern leaves or a piece of a sock and add fabric scraps as curtains. Turn over a cup or bowl to turn it into a table and use acorn shells as bowls. You can also add "parato" made of dried leaves, leather, or craft paper. If you want to add furniture, you can use doll furniture or make your own:
- To make a table, for example, gather some thin, thick dry branches from your yard. Cut four pieces and glue them together to form a rectangular frame that is the size you want for your table. When it's dry, spread twigs on top and glue them to the frame. When the shelf has dried, cut four pieces of equal length and glue them under the table to form the legs.
- Clay furniture is easier to make but doesn't look quite as rustic. There are no real instructions to follow - just carefully shape some air or kiln clay to form the furniture.
- For more ideas, search for how to make furniture for a dollhouse.
Step 2. Decorate the house with what you find
Once your structure is complete, you can decorate it with doors, vines, etc. Rustic and natural features will look more realistic. Birch bark looks beautiful and you can use both sides of it. Don't forget to include a landscape!
Step 3. Finished
Advice
- Make sure you add anything you can imagine a fairy would need. You can start thinking about what you would need such as clothes, (plastic) food, a sofa, a table, etc. Now imagine what a fairy would need. Maybe sprinkle some fairy dust here and there? Unleash your creativity!
- If you build in the woods, outside your garden or yard, be sure to use only natural and found objects (e.g. wine cork, sea glass, pieces of rope).
- Keep the house small. If it is too big, no fairy or gnome will want to live there, because it would be too obvious. A fairy house that is too noticeable would also attract trolls or other predators, which would injure fairies and gnomes. Also, some people who hate fairies, called "Stompers", will step on a fairy house that is too large and noticeable in the woods.
- Do not use plastic, electrical tape, compressed air stapler, hot glue, or anything that will make the fairy house intentionally permanent, or a possible danger to wildlife. Nightingales, small rodents and amphibians, as well as gnomes, could get stuck or injured on pins, glue and electrical tape.
- Avoid signing work, such as "Jenny's Fairy House, 2006". A fairy house should be anonymous so that the builder remains a mystery.
- You can shape clay around aluminum foil to save clay. It works for both the one that dries in the air and in the oven.
- It might help to go for a walk to find things like sticks and twigs.
Warnings
- Keep the house in a quiet, secluded place away from pets and babies.
- If you want to put the fairy house in your garden, be aware that it will return to nature unless you have used water resistant adhesives. Don't worry - if you keep it indoors, you'll still be able to attract local fairies. If there are any in your area, they are probably already accommodated!
