My fairy garden – for rainy or cold vacation days and broken teacups

Sunny summer afternoons. I close my eyes and I am lying beside a little creek that happily rumbles on by. Little flowers brighten the grass.

A cottage stands a few meters away, doors open, and inside the teapot stands, making a little chimney of damp up in the little kitchen.

A rabbit is eating clovers unders some bushes right behind me and I don’t move, not wanting to scare if off.

Butterflies and birds sing in the trees, the sun shines and everything sparkles in a calm, bright sort of way.

A loud crash sends me running to the kitchen to see what it is that broke and there it was, my most favoritest teacup, in a whole lot of pieces.

I gather the pieces and just before putting them in a bag to throw away, I change my mind and put them on the counter, consider glueing them together.

My smartness and brains and remarkable intelligence all tell me that is not possible. So I do what anyone would do in such a predicament.

I Google it.

Pinterest has some very pretty links, to make jewelry and mosaic platters out of broken china.

But then I need to buy glass cutters and things to glue and mosaic them, space filling stuff that I won’t ever use again.

That I don’t want to do. I only want to not throw away my prettiest cup ever.

A giveaway for a little fairy garden comes across my path and although it is very cute, it is obviously for children and I am wanting to return to my happy place by the creek and my cottage.

A thrift store, garden store and garage expedition later, I got the items needed. Because the boys were quite enraptured as well, wanting to play with my garden, I helped them make their own.

Because they are not touching my garden.

At first, it resided on the window sill for rainy days and washing dishes. Now it moved to my work table where the little rabbit whispers all sorts of stories in my ear.

Need sunshine and cuteness? Make a fairy garden. Like so:

My happy place stands on the window sill, for on rainy days.

I used succulents because I have some serious skills when it comes to killing plants. I have noticed that succulents don’t mind so much. They ignore me and keep on living anyway.

The little people came from themed Studio 100 box with chocolate eggs that have little gifts in them. Abel chose a Plop box, Gabriel Maya De Bij.

Whichever little creatures you use, take care that they are tiny enough. Otherwise a lot of the fairy-ness gets lost, if you put a big old giant in your fairy garden. I think, anyway.

Mine, a rabbit and a little pig, are many times more pretty, for adults at least. I got them from my sister who brought them from her honeymoon. So far, I haven’t found anything quite as pretty online. Let me know if you find some 🙂

You could make tiny things from clay and paint them, but we haven’t gotten that far yet.

For the rest, we used a whole bunch of single earrings I collected over the years. Butterflies, ladybugs, bees, a frog, flowers…just stick them in!Pinecones make good trees, the bark of a birch tree becomes a cute little bridge, blue shards of a teacup are a creek.

In secondhand stores there are lots of cups to be had for just a few cents. Get your hammer and hammer away for the creek. For the house you need to be more careful, as you want it to crack open down the middle.

The thingamajigs that the fairy gardens are made in also come from the secondhand store.

And then you still need a bag of dirt. It’s smartest to not randomly rip it open somewhere in the middle. Just sayin’.

So, there you go. Let me know if you make one too? I want to see it 🙂

Carolyn

Monday November 21st, 2016 at Mon Nov 21st, 2016 11:03 PM · Reply

I just saw this tonight-beautiful! I had seen some fairy garden ideas but all were so polished and put together. I love this a thousand times more! And I’m with you on the plant care taking =) I’ll have to check out the second hand store with El and see if she and I can put together one for the gray dismal season we’ve entered. I’ll send a picture one day!