Building a fairy house doesn’t need to cost a lot, or even anything. It just needs some imagination.
Fairies love creativity. They also love nature. And if they love nature, that means they really like recycling. It only makes sense, then, that the perfect fairy house is a recycled container, creativity decorated with things from nature.
Start with a plastic container that you are planning to throw out. We used empty apple sauce jars, baby snack containers, juice bottles, soda bottles, and more.
Wash them out well. You don’t want insects or other wildlife to infest your fairy’s house.
We cut most of the containers in half because bottles are really tall and narrow, which would make a funny looking house. A half a bottle looked more like the shape of a proper house. Be careful, the cut edge of plastic is sharp. I covered that edge with masking tape before any smaller fingers handled it and cut themselves.
Coat it with a paint made for plastic. This is important because if you just put craft paint on plastic, it won’t stick properly and it will peel off. No fairy wants a peeling, run down-looking house. (Rust-Oleum Universal paint is awesome for plastic, like our batmobile. And, yes, it would be nice if they paid me for saying that, but they didn’t. It’s just true.)
The coat of paint doesn’t need to be even or solid. As long as every part of the surface has a little, it will be enough. I had a few drips too, but they didn’t matter.
Before we painted, we covered a few spots on the bottles with a painters’ tape. After the paint dried, we peeled off the tape, and since the plastic is clear, we had a cute little window.
Now we get to the creative part. Finally. And the part where the kids took over. Grab some acrylic paint, and make your fairy house beautiful. Fairies love color, so let out your inner artist.
Then, you can add a natural coating while the paint is still wet. Dirt, sand, and dry grass stick well to wet paint and will make the house blend into nature.
Add a fairy door. We watch a video on making a fairy door by Emilie Lefler, then decided to use what we already had instead of buying craft embellishments. We cut a small piece from a board that is 2 inches wide and half an inch thick. After painting the door, we added a tack for the door knob and glazier points for hinges.
When the paint on the house has dried, add other, larger natural elements with white glue or a hot glue gun (with parental help, of course). Pine cone parts make great roof tiles. Nut shells add texture. Flower petals add beauty. Use sticks to put a frame around the window and door. And, of course, moss looks good anywhere.
We added a few dollar store accessories we already had too. Fake butterflies. Decorative glass beads. And glitter. These may not be natural elements, but they made the fairies’ houses extra fancy. And who doesn’t like fancy?
Place the house in a fairy garden, and wait for a fairy or two to move into their new home! We made small, portable fairy gardens. See everything we added to those at my Fairy Gardens in Flower Pots post.
The houses in the pictures were made by 8 to 11 year-old girls at my daughter’s fairy garden birthday party, you can read more about her party at my Fairy Garden Birthday Party post. Everyone of them had so much fun creating a fairy house, and they were so proud of their finished work. And they should be. Their fairy houses are beautiful.
Take a look at these other posts about fairy gardens:
