Friday, July 25, 2014

Fairy House

So confession: I'm a huge nerd. And I love the renaissance festival (remember my kids' garb from last year?). So I admit, huge fan of the ren faire. Last year we seriously lucked out and got free tickets because our kids were so darned cute and attracted a lot of attention at the gate. This year we decided we'd submit a fairy house for two free tickets. After my oldest and I spent about an hour on Pinterest we sketched out our ideas and got to work.

Step 1: We got a random log from a wood pile in our yard. Hubby used a hatchet to point off the end and I screwed the log onto a board to make a solid base.

Step 2: We gathered TONS of sticks and twigs for the roof. I'd originally wanted to use pinecone shingles, but 7-year-old nixed that one. I did too after trying to break off individual shingles. Twigs it was. We assembled a door, nailed it into place, and hubby used his mad saw skills to give us a place for the steps.

After our first day of working on the fairy house this is what we had:
 The swing and stepping stones were my son's idea.


 A few days later I went and scoured the clearance section at JoAnns for flowers. Great time to buy, really, all the spring stuff was 70% off. I got several sprigs from a single piece and I didn't pay more than 25 cents per piece. Yay!

Step 4: Glue gunned everything in place!
 Hubby helped me make windows by making some rope and hammering in pieces of an old plastic strawberry lid backed with shopping bag onto the log. (Really, the only things I bought were the clearance flowers and moss. Everything else were scrap bits we already had on hand or repurposed for our house.)

After a few more mossy additions, a dig through my scraps box, floral arrangements, and a few coats of paint our fairy house was complete!

Front


 1/4 turn



 The nest was my 7-year-old's idea. He was giddy over that detail!


 This shell mushroom was his detail, too. LOVE that!

 Back

Another 1/4 turn



 The bell actually rings!


I fully expect a fairy to settle in soon. :)

7 comments:

  1. Cute! I think I spy a few fairies already!

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  2. I want to do this with my kids! How cute and fun.

    Love the clothesline, and the mushroom was a nice touch!

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  3. That fairy house is adorable! What a fun project to do with your children. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you had a fairy family move in real soon. :)

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  4. What a super fairy house - I would have loved to make that when I was a kid (truth to tell I would probably still love to make one...am going to pin it!)

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  5. That is one fancy, pretty, well designed house. You will have many fairies wanting to move in this house!! Love the details. Good job everyone, look at what this team can do when they work together!! Now to go swing on the swing and just enjoy the day!!! ;-)

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  6. When I read you were making a fairy house, I didn't imagine after scrolling down to read further that it would be anything like this! This is amazing and your son seriously has some awesome design ideas for fairies. My 5 year old is obsessed with fairies and has "made" quite a few temporary fairy houses out of items at hand in the moment, but I have to show her this - she will be begging me to help her find sticks and bird nests! I love it - very cool! Great Finish!

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