How to make a Christmas fairy garden
This is a great 'I'm bored' activity for the Christmas period. A christmas fairy garden! Once made, a fairy garden is perfect for a sheltered spot in the garden, or on a balcony or even on a coffee table. If there are goblins, fairies or unicorns about, a fairy garden will attract them. Get all your ribbons, scraps and glitter - everything you have – because anything goes!
You will need
Soil
Pebbles or gravel
Some succulents to plant
Wooden dolly clothes pegs
Decorative pebbles and glitter
Packet of mixed colour plasticine
Embroidery floss/thread
Decorative paper
School glue (water based)
Glue gun
Paint
Wooden clothes peg
Scissors
3 terracotta pots, large, medium and small
Protective gloves
What Plants should I use?
Succulents are a great choice of plants for a fairy garden because they are pretty tough and can put up with lack of care. All they need to thrive is lots of light and not too much water. Use good quality pre-mixed cactus and succulent soil to help keep your plants healthy.
Step 1: Create a drainage system
To provide good drainage you will need to layer pebbles or gravel on the bottom of your pots before adding your spoil, repeat for all three pots and place inside each other as pictured.
Step 2: Plant and layout
Once you have planted a variety of plants, decorate with pretty pebbles, make stone pathways, scatter twigs and small pieces of bark. Go wild with your imagination, collect tiny objects while you are out and about, like sands, sea shells and moss. Then you are ready to make some bespoke figures and a fairy house!
You can buy tiny figures and fairy houses in garden centres and $2 shops but it is even more fun to make your own. You can always update and change your figures whenever you like.
Step 3: Make plasticine toadstools & snails
Roll a small ball of red plasticine
Squeeze it into a button shape
Roll tiny white balls and flatten them then press onto the red button shape to form white spot
Roll a log of brown plasticine and turn into the mushroom stalk
Plasticine Snails
Roll a coil of grey plastercine and put a marble, button or painted pasta on top of your ‘snail body’
Step 4: How to make a Christmas Angel
Draw a face on your wooden peg
Fold some decorative paper in half, and draw a simple dress out line, cut out and slip your peg through the hole you have made for the fairy’s head. Glue the sides of the dress shut.
Take some embroidery floss/thread and cut into a wig for your doll, glue on the top of her head
Cut out a pair of paper wings and glue onto the back of the fairy.
Step 5: Egg Carton Fairy house
Use a egg carton to cut out a pointy roof and a round domed structure, cut out a door for the fairies to use. Paint and decorate with lots of glitter.
Place your wonderful creations around the fairy garden and it’s ready to play with and add to – and even more fun than a dolls’ house.
A fairy garden is the perfect activity for a birthday party or event, if you feel like some expert help and to more ideas then contact classbunny for a workshop. www.classbunny.com