We love making fairy houses. My girls have made many fairy houses over the years. When we visit parks we like to leave houses, built from twigs and leaves, behind. Every spring, we build fairy houses for our garden. This fall, I thought it might be fun to build a fairy house jack-o-lantern. After all, fairies need a place to rest on Halloween night. These fairy house jack-o-lanterns are a super cute Halloween craft for kids, tweens, and teens - to make.
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I grew up in a house where we believed in garden gnomes and garden fairies. These mythical creatures have always fascinated me. So, it only seemed natural that I would pass this love onto my kids. Whether you believe in fairies and gnomes or not, I think everyone will agree that these little jack-o-lantern houses are adorable. They are a cool way to carve a pumpkin, that's for sure.
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How to Make a Pumpkin Fairy House
You will need
a small pumpkin
pen
pumpkin carving knives and scoop
battery powered candle
With a little planning, we transformed a little pumpkin into a beautiful home, fit for any fairy to enjoy. I started off by cutting open the pumpkin and emptying the "guts" of the pumpkin. I cut out a circle from the bottom of the pumpkin and emptied the seeds and pulp from the hole in the bottom of the pumpkin. This is a very easy way to empty everything out of a pumpkin. Once the pumpkin was emptied, we got to work drawing our fairy house plan for the pumpkin.
My daughter drew a few sketches of how she wanted our pumpkin fairy house to look. Once we had a plan drawn on paper, we used a pen to draw our windows and door on the pumpkin. Be sure to draw on any trim and details that you want to carve into your fairy house. I liked the idea of creating a chunky trim around windows. Then I did the carving.
Best tool to cut a pumpkin
I used a basic pumpkin carving kit to do all of the carvings. Look for a kit that has the basic double-edged, serrated blade. This kind of blade works like a little saw. There are usually different widths of knives in the kit. Start by poking the thinnest blade into a corner of your window. Once you have a little break in the skin, you can use the wider blade to saw through the pumpkin. While I let my daughter help with the cleaning and the design, when it comes to operating the knives, I took over. Be sure to supervise young children around pumpkin carving knives - they may look cute, but they are quite sharp and accidents could happen.
How to cut trim around windows on fairy house jack-o-lantern
To cut the trim detail, once you have cut the window opening, poke the knife gently and quite shallow into the pumpkin. You really want to just remove the skin of the pumpkin. This will give you a two-toned effect of the trim around your windows.
How to create the fairy house pumpkin stairs
Keep any scraps of pumpkin that you make when creating the windows and doors. I used the piece of pumpkin that we cut away from the door to create the staircase at the entrance. You could use the window scraps to create little window boxes. I used a toothpick to secure the stairs to the jack-o-lantern.
How to light a pumpkin fairy house
When we were done with the carving, we set in a battery-operated votive candle inside the jack o' lantern, and we were done. I love using battery-powered candles in jack-o-lanterns - this way, you don't need to worry about the pumpkin burning. Especially since we didn't cut an opening on the top of the pumpkin, if you don't have a battery-powered candle, be sure to cut the top off your jack o' lantern.
Where to put a fairy jack-o-lantern
We set our fairy house outside in our garden, near our front porch. We wanted it to be in a location where people could easily see it. And, of course, where the garden fairies could find it.
Doesn't it look like a magical little fairy house? I couldn't get a good picture at night, but believe me it looks even more magical when it is lit.
I love how the fairy house jack-o-lantern looks tucked into the fall foliage. We even tried making even smaller pumpkin fairy houses with the smaller gourd-sized pumpkins we had. Check out the flowers we added to the fairy window boxes.
Then we popped them in our garden boxes. We got even more creative, using pieces of other gourds for the fairy house roof. Will you be inviting fairies into your garden this Halloween?
Check out all of these super cool Halloween crafts for kids to make
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