A Faery Garden

Yesterday afternoon we started on a little faery garden. We decided to put it in the section of the girls' backyard garden pictured here. After cleaning away debris, settling stones back in their places and smoothing the dirt clean, the construction began.

We used pieces of cedar, small sections of the limbs and cookies, to make two houses. A large cockle shell (from Gran) was selected to become a faery lake. Large sticks were planted at the back of the garden as trees for hanging wreathes, flowers and garlands. A teeny tiny blue vase (from GG and GP) held cut flowers from our front yard beds. I buried it down into the ground to keep it from being knocked over constantly.

This morning the girls ran outside while I was making blueberry pancakes (again!) to poke around. With the foundation for the garden already in place, the fun of decorating could begin!

Lela settled some miniature flag stones into the ground for the faeries to walk on. These are actually tiles that our neighbor gave us after she tiled her kitchen. A tiny ear of corn is inside the house - Lela found it while shucking corn for last night's dinner, and put it out there last night.

Liv uses her trowel (from GG and GP as well) to "dug out a place" for a stone. Pictured is one of the three faery doors that we made during co-op. Small stones were added to make a path from one of the houses to the lake. More stones ringed the vase of flowers. Liv took extra care to put a few choice beads into a small scallop shell for the faeries.


When the mosquitoes were too bad, we went inside and made pinwheels. They were so simple - I used origami paper which had a slight waxiness to it. After being cut, the paper was pushed onto a bent paperclip. The paperclip was stuck down into a straw, and a bamboo skewer was pushed into the straw some stability. A little bit of hot glue secured a bead onto the end of the paperclip to keep the pinwheel on. All the girls could help with some part of the craft, minus the hot glue.


Lela and I used extra skewers to thread leaves on, and topped them with gum balls. These, she decided, were trees that the faeries could climb. Laurel and Liv skipped this in favor of the swings.


After lunch Liv and Lela snipped marigold leaves and scattered them over the ground of the garden. "To get the faeries to come," Lela said. As added incentive, a tiny blue faery that Mike made sat in the middle of the area of dancing.


It is finished, for now!





What faery wouldn't want to play here! I hope to get some close up shots of the individual aspects. They all put a lot of time and love into their creation. I had a lot of fun too! We sat in front of the garden and read _In the Land of Fairies_ by Daniela Drescher. A gift from Aunt Bec.

After cutting the grass, I walked by the faery garden and noticed three necklaces hanging from the stick trees! It also appeared in the darkness that there were tiny glittering baubles all over. The faeries had already come to dance and apparently appreciated their new home.