This year will be our third year building a home for fairies in our garden. Garden fairies are an important part of building our family garden at our house. My girls love the magic of fairies. In fact, when my youngest daughter asked me yesterday if pixies are real, my eldest daughter said "I believe in pixies and fairies". I have to say, I believe in pixies and fairies...why not? 
So, if there are fairies it makes sense that they might need a house. Three years ago we made fairy houses out of popsicle sticks. We also made winter fairy houses out of empty yogurt containers. This year we stepped things up...we decided to weave a fairy house for our fairy friends.
How to Make a Fairy Garden in a Container
We started our fairy garden by choosing our planter. We have two (perfect for two kids) low and long planters. They are designed to be window planters, but we keep them on our porch. They make perfect little containers for our fairy garden.
Once we had our containers filled with proper container soil, we planted some begonias and moss in our garden boxes. My daughters chose the flowers and helped to plant the gardens. Then strategically place the plants, allowing enough room for the fairy house and anything else you might have planned. We chose plants that are for a partly shady area. We tried to recreate a little woodland setting, with moss and "fuzzy" plants, that are rich with green leaves and tiny flowers. Imagine being a fairy...some of those flowers will look like trees to a little fairy.
Depending on the size of your container and the location of your container, you will want to fill your fairy garden with flowers that meet your needs. Be aware of how the plants will spread and how tall they will grow to be. The plant may seem small, but how big will it be by the end of the summer?
How to Build a Fairy House with Sticks and Cloth
After the plants were in place, it was time to build our fairy house. For these fairy houses we opted to make them out of sticks and cloth. We gathered up some sticks and made a stick tee-pee which became the structure of our fairy house made of sticks.
Then, my girls ripped our scraps of flannelette into ¼" thick strips. Our scraps were already cut pretty short, you might want to try and make the pieces as long as possible. Once the pieces were cut, my girls then tied each piece together...creating a long rope.
I stepped in to help with the weaving...it was a little too finicky for my girls. Start by tying the rope around the top of the fairy tee-pee and then weaving the rope through the sticks, leaving one side open, all the way to the bottom of the tee-pee.
I know the pictures don't really do these sweet little fairy houses justice. They turned out really well.
The finishing touches to the fairy gardens were are the little details. My girls added some rocks, a piece of an old aluminum container became a "pond". They even added an old windmill we had. The final fairy garden has everything a fairy needs - a protective forest, a pond, a fairy house and a place where the dragons live. 
We really enjoy making fairy gardens and fairy houses. This is something I never made as a child. I am so glad that I have introduced this to my daughters. I have a feeling that I will be making fairy gardens long after my daughters have lost interest. We build fairy gardens everywhere we go; in the schoolyard, in the park and at the beach. I mean really, you never know when a fairy might need a place to rest her head at night.
More fairy houses for kids to make
Transform an old pumpkin into a jack o'lantern fairy house
Write your own fairy tale with our fairy tale story writing prompts
rebecca at thisfineday
I love this idea. I've tried getting my daughter to try weaving (like through popsicle sticks or cooling racks) but she's not into it, but if she's building a fairy house... this may be a different story! Thanks for the post!
The Monko
What a cute idea. I keep intending on making a fairy garden, this would be a lovely feature