Autumn Indoor Fairy Garden

The autumn is probably not the best time to put together a fairy garden but I’ve been meaning to make one for so long I just had to bite the bullet and go for it!  This one is designed to be kept indoors, I will try to make another outdoor one next year. Please excuse the rubbish photos – I gave up waiting for a nice sunny day to take these.

I wasn’t really sure how to make the Fairy House but I knew I wanted it to look as natural as possible. In the end I decided to use an old tub of biscuits. I cut a door and some windows in it and then I used very thing strips of bark (which I peeled off our logs) to cover it with. I glued them on with my hot glue gun. I made a cardboard roof which I covered with lots of moss that we had collected from a walk in the woods. We made a doorbell with an acorn and a piece of string that you can just about make out on the side of the house.

When the house was finished I filled a tray with compost and planted up some ferns and other small plants. We put some gravel down and some shells and pebbles and soon had a path and patio area.  I sunk an old yoghurt pot into the soil to make a pond and Lily insisted that we gave it some sequin edging! This is just a basic garden to start us off but we are going to add to it over the coming months by making little bits and pieces for it. I will add more photos here as we do that.

If you are interested in making your own fairy garden you MUST check out these gorgeous pictures on Pinterest! I could sit and look at these all day…..

Garden Crafts for Children. Our favourite craft book ever!

Garden Crafts for Children by Dawn Issac

I have read many, many craft books. I usually order new ones from the library when they come out and most of the time I am disappointed by how repetitive they are. They always seem to include the same ideas and I’ve even seen the same photos!

So, it was with a HUGE amount of excitement that I came across Garden Crafts for Childrenby Dawn Issac.

The ideas in this book are original and exciting, the photos are excellent and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. The book contains 35 different projects and the chapters include simple crafts, growing projects and container gardening.  I love that the crafts are all garden themed so that children can be encouraged to enjoy the outdoors and develop a love of nature. I can honestly say that this is the best craft book that I’ve come across. If you enjoy creating things with your children then you should definitely have this on your book shelf!

We’ve been trying out many of the projects in this book.  I loved the idea of growing seeds in clear containers so that you can see how the root system develops. The instructions for this are really clear and we loved how it turned out! I did have a bit of a problem with condensation when I took the photo but hopefully you get the general idea!

Another idea that I really loved was planting up the children’s wellies! We always seem to have a few pairs that no longer fit and sometimes they are just too cute not to keep! The children loved being able to fill their wellies with soil!

How cute do these look?

Other projects that we have tried include the Dinosaur Garden and the Cress Cards. Next on our list is the gorgeous ‘Cress Caterpillar’ made from empty egg cartons. I think this book is going to keep us busy for a long time! You can purchase Garden Crafts for Childrenon Amazon for £10.49.