Fairy Garden for my Daughter

My daughter is four and loves Fairies. Some of this love is just the love of little, tiny precious items to tuck away on special shelves and boxes. :)








We made a trip to Michael's Crafts yesterday and she saw these little fairy garden kits. Again, precious little items boxed for your convenience at a mere $30 each. hehehe  Single items - $2 to $5 each. If she were older, it might make sense to get a few, augment with found items and create a little potted fairy world for her. However, I tried it in the front for her last year and the little creation we worked on was far too small. She tore through it like a kaiju monster from Japan - ripping it all up and moving things around. This was fine - she's just playing, but I was going thought to larger items she could do this with in a garden she could actually explore.


So, I started making a game plan for something her and her sister could play in and around that had a Fairy feel. They have a little house they love to play in already - a big white plastic number we got from a dear friend. So, why not use that as a little base of operations for them, moving it towards the back of the "grass space" (...now mostly dirt and weeds to the the drought and tiny, stomping feet)  by our apple tree.

Now, spiders are all over the place here in Oakland during certain times of the year, so I have to make sure I don't send them off through webs and little red biting spiders for fun. I'd keep the space more towards the front of an area we're not making much use of currently - the space around our apple tree.

The tree is actually dead, but still producing fruit. It has a rather large hole area in the trunk. This will be perfect for little fairy goings on. I want to build a door into the base of the tree - custom and lovely with lots of flair and sparkly bits built into it. Shells, rocks and other items can be used around the area along with all the pine cones we have around behind the shed. They'll be able to move items around and play, but it won't be so tiny and breakable. URBAN ORE  will be looked through for some key, cool items.

I like the look and feel of this space. Great for a two and four year old girl to explore!

 I'd love to work on some fairy homes with the girls as well. I found a fun article on some DIY Fairy Homes I want to try out. Again, what a great way to play in the garden space and work on projects with the kids! 

http://inhabitat.com/diy-how-to-make-garden-faerie-houses-pixie-towers-and-toad-homes-from-reclaimed-materials/forest-fairy-house-lead/

Getting away from buying little pre-made items thrills me as well. I do the same when I can when I'm working on my train layout. I used to get boxed buildings that you simply unbox and drop on your layout. Not thrilling for me. I moved on to building out the building interiors and that was a lot of fun. Now, most of my buildings are built from paper or plastic kits and I'm planning to build a few custom buildings from scratch soon as well. Making use of found objects and things you dig up at places like Urban Ore is fun as well. The space you create is yours and unique. If you have the desire and energy to do custom work, why not!?

We'll see how this plan goes.

I think when they are older, I want to get into building some of these broken pot spaces. I love the look and I think the girls would love taking care of little spaces like this when they get to be a bit more mature about things like this. :)

Can't wait to get started, but the main gardening work comes first! :)