Fairy Garden Containers

The ingenuity of fairy gardeners in choosing containers for their gardens never ceases to amaze me. Wheelbarrows, logs, crates, shoes…just about anything goes. It’s all part of the fun.

This week at The Fairy Garden I’ve been very busy getting ready for an arts and craft show. My first. I’ve been rushing about gathering items to help me prepare. I spent a whole day scouring the second hand shops for likely containers for my fairy gardens. I poked through  my own collection of things I’ve dragged home – including one item that I filched from someones garbage – yes I’m one of those.  A pink enamelware wash tub.

At the shops I found a little chest, a miniature suitcase, an attractive wooden salad bowl and various pieces of glassware suitable for miniature garden terrariums. My rule is to pay no more than five dollars.

The hunt  is all part of the fun of fairy gardening and it allows me to make some little gardens with attractively low prices. My goal was to have at least two miniature gardens that I could sell for under twenty five dollars. By using my re-purposed containers and decorating with  handcrafted items I manged to accomplish this.

Now if only that snow storm that’s threatening to arrive will just hold it’s horses –

Happy hunting…and, as always…have a fairy good time.

Marthe

Fairy Name Generator

Whats YOUR fairy name. Try something fun..click on the pic to visit the The Fairy Garden Home page and try the Fairy Name Generator. It’s the only fairy name generator that includes descriptions of your fairy and your fairy’s personality.

Moss in the Fairy Garden ( for beginners)

I think the moss garden in Kyoto Japan is probably one of the most beautiful places on earth. Someday I hope I to visit …but for now I have contented myself by building a little moss garden of my very own. A fairy moss garden of course.

First I needed to learn a little about moss and how to care for it properly. What a delight it was to find that it so easy to nurture.

I discovered that moss is not like other plants. It does not have roots or a what is called a vascular system which other plants need to gather nutrients and moisture. Instead it absorbs everything it needs through its leaves. Indoor or out it never requires fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides. Out doors and in terrariums, once established, it doesn’t even require watering! In a planter indoors misting regularly is recommended to keep it nice and colorful.

The main requirements for moss to be happy are: to place the moss firmly upon its substrate or host – it does not like air under it;  plant moss  in shady areas outdoors and indoors place it where it does not receive direct sunlight – a few hours of morning light is all it needs; make sure it has good drainage – moss does not like to be kept wet. And that seems to be just about it. As it is not the first two seeks of August, it is still winter here in Canada :), and so I am going to make my DIY moss gardens indoor ones. To start ..being the seriously tiny lover that I am I just had make a little micro moss terrarium with the tiniest gravel ever and a bit of colored sand.

For a more thorough moss education and some other optional suggestions for moss terrariums I found this article from the Eugene Daily News very helpful.

As always, have a fairy good time!

Itsy Bitsy Fairy Garden Stuff

Pill Bottle Fairy House

I’m just nuts about seriously tiny fairy garden stuff. Micro things.

One day I happened upon an open tub of drywall compound (not at all unusual in our house) on my way to toss out an empty prescription bottle. The urge hit, and I quickly had the top half inch and the cap sawed off the bottle and dunked into the muck.

There’s always some buckets of pebbles and stone on hand where ever I am, so I poked a few into the muck – chopped up a bit of bark –  pinched a tad of artificial moss from my fairy garden supplies – a bit of glue -a drop of  paint – voila! A miniature fairy house.

It’s not fancy, and it’s not going to sell on Etsy …or anywhere else for that matter. But the few minutes taken out of a busy day to follow my whim was sheer delight.

Now, the teensy weensy miniature garden pebble chairs and table? That’s another fairy garden story. Now go make a 15 minute fairy garden story of your own!

As always, have a fairy good time! Marthe

FB Group Rescues the Stone Fairy House

In December 2013, along with picture below, I wrote a post on building a stone fairy house for your fairy garden. The instructions included using a technique for the main part of the house that I described in another post. Well , the main part of the house has worked out fabulous. Not so the roof!

I admit I am a little clumsy and I dropped it on a cement patio stone – the first time – and it hit the edge of a counter the second time. Still, I like to be able to put my fairy houses outdoors. I worried that the roof being on a different kind of plastic base than the bottom, was more brittle and determined that I would find a fix.

DIY Stone Fairy House

After trying some silicone suggested in an online article and not being happy with the mess and difficulty of working with it, I decided to turn to the experts. People who do these kinds of crafts all the time. Namely, the members of a great group on Facebook called Miniature and Fairy Garden Chat. I posted my pic, expressed my frustrations and not very long afterwards I had a wealth of great tips, suggestions and information.

Nanci Z-S thought I was on the right track with the silicone and offered a great tip to make it easier to work with. She says she squeezes her silicone into a dish of water with plenty of dish soap and pulls out what she needs with soapy hands. The silicone will not stick to your hands but will stick to everything else. I’ll bet this extends the working time too.

Several people suggested using a sealant of some sort and Melinda T said she uses mortar after gluing the stone down. She added  that using cheese cloth to wipe the excess mortar away does a good job of cleaning all the residue from the stone. Gluing something to the plastic before the stone was also suggested, such as plastic mesh…I tried burlap and it does seem to be helping make the stone adhere easier.

The first suggestion made was jewelery glue, and the discussion came full circle back to this when  Debbie G mentioned E6000 and Jill A-H and Colleen F started to sing the praises of this apparently very useful adhesive.

The product description found on Home Depot says  “Amazing E6000 Craft is a unique adhesive formulated to meet high performance industrial requirements, thus making it an excellent crafting tool. Amazing E6000 has exceptional adhesion to wood, metal, glass, fiberglass, ceramics, and concrete. It also adheres strongly to leather, rubber, vinyl and many plastics. Amazing E6000 dries clear and once cured, it’s waterproof, washer/dryer safe, can be painted and is safe for photographs.”

Sounds like ‘amazing’ stuff. What do you use for difficult fastening jobs?

Keep crafting, and, as always…have a fairy good time.

Marthe

 

 

 

 

Fairy Garden Terrariums

Building a fairy garden terrarium is a great way to chase away the winter blues. I quickly put this one together and forgot all about the snow swirling outside my windows.

With so many choices in sand colors, gravel , plants and ornaments to choose from, it’s easy to make one to suit any decor.

In my previous post – Fairy Garden Supplies – A Unique Source you can find some suggestions on where to buy some of your fairy garden supplies at a very reasonable price.

This 16″ H terrarium has one 2lb bag of colored sand, about 2cups of gravel and enough soil to make two plants comfortable in the middle. My succulents will want to be fairly dry so I used preserved moss for this particular fairy garden. I will need to leave the lid off for my plants to thrive…but the picture looked so much prettier with the lid:)

Well take a look at using live moss in a miniature fairy garden terrarium next time.

As always..have a fairy good time

Fairy Garden Supplies – A Unique Source

I wonder if many fairy gardeners also have fish? If you don’t keep fish, then you probably haven’t discovered that the aquarium store is a surprisingly great place to get DIY fairy garden supplies!

Mushroom Log Aquarium Decoration

The aquarium decoration isle will yield some interesting results.  This mushroom log is 8″ x 4″x 7″ and sells (in Canada) for $15. It just needs a little DIY fairy door to make it a wonderful fairy house for your miniature garden. Bonus – aquarium decor is non-toxic.

‘Aqua Sand’ Aquarium Substrate

Now for landscaping your fairy abode. The substrate section alone can fascinate me for an hour. The unbelievable variety of stone, gravel, and course sands- aka miniature landscaping aggregates- comes in quantities that are ideal for various sized fairy gardening projects. Many of the substrates are coated with 100% environmentally friendly resin, – no dust. The coating also keeps them looking pretty and prevents any undesirable elements leaching into your garden when you water. A 5lb bag runs around $7. Next, take a look over in the reptile section.

Small Reptile Feeder

Reptile feeders are designed to blend in with a rock, stone and wood environment and need to have uneven surfaces for reptiles to crawl on. This makes them ideal for use as a miniature fairy garden ponds! Add a little acrylic water and decorate with  some miniature lily pads, a frog or some fish. This feeder measures 4.5″ x 4″ x 1″ and retails for just  $4.

While you’re in the reptile department also take a look at some of the bedding. You can find some nice sized bags of bark chips for your garden or DIY fairy house project. They also have some reptile carpets that make nice lawns that are meant to get wet.

As always- have a fairy good time…this time at the aquarium store! Let me know how you make out…

First Name(required)

Comment(required)

Email (if you'd like a response)

Submit

Δ

 

 

Two Brown Thumbs?

Do you want a fairy garden but have two brown thumbs? It can be done. I have two suggestions; artificial plants and flowers,  really easy care inexpensive plants.

This fairy garden uses mostly artificial plants and flowers. The sunflowers in the foreground are commercially made miniature sunflowers. I’ve augmented them a little buy cutting little pieces from an artificial fern and tucking these in around the bottom. I wrapped a bit of wire around the bits and pieces to make them into little picks to make it easier to insert them into the soil. I used these along the edge of the stone walkway for a hedge affect as well.

The tree was also made from an artificial fern (from the dollar store) I butchered and reassembled it on some twigs from the yard to give it a nice tree appearance. The other yellow flowers and the trellis with purple flowers near the fairy house door are made of polymer clay and are very easy to do.

I’ve tucked a bit of artificial moss under the yellow clay flowers, under the windows on the house and under the tree.

Finally, for real plants, small succulents from your local nursery are usually very inexpensive, have a nice scale for a fairy garden and are almost impossible to …shhhh..you know. Moss is also a great idea for an easy care fairy garden, particularly in a terrarium where it should not even require watering… but more on that in my next post

So, brown thumbs or not..go make a fairy garden already. As always…have a fairy good time! Marthe

Business, I love Pinterest and Fairy Gardens

What does Pinterest have to do with fairy gardens? If you are not a ‘Pinner’ then you just don’t understand! Slide over there and put in a search term for fairy gardens, fairies, gnomes, fairy doors, fairy houses or what have you and you will soon see that Pinterest has everything to do with fairy gardens and miniature gardens.

I am a member of  quite a few groups that find things to say about fairy gardens. Social media groups, webrings, networking groups – in fact what ever group I can find that has anything to do with miniature gardening in general and fairy gardening in particular. It’s my business after all. And these groups are great , have good content and the means to start a conversation with other people in them.

Pinterest, however, is the eye candy queen of the world for fairy gardens. Micro, mini, full scale, outside, inside, in a tree, on a boat, you name it Sam I am. Its there! Bar none the best place to find interesting new ideas and inspiration.  Although you can’t message other people on Pinterest many photos link back to places where you can connect – or – find a group. Some link back to blogs, other photo gallery sites, stores and people. In short the content is rich with discovery.

And Pinterest isn’t monetized yet so no paid ads. They are looking at ways to monetize the site in the future. For now they  have Pinterest for Business with  some handy features, blogs, how-tos and some widgets for your site or Blog beyond the simple Pin It button. One of their newer features for business helps you adjust your sites product photos to include product, store and pricing information when they get Pinned from your site. Pin your site photos your self to a Pinterest board of you’re own and if it’s unique or interesting or just plain cute watch it  fly around  Pinterest getting collected on other ‘pinners’ boards where they share it with their friends both on and off Pinterest. And maybe they will ‘Follow You’ becoming an audience for your future Pins.

One day last week I did a search in Google images for ‘polyclay gnome’ and presto – there was one of my  pictures recently loaded up to Pinterest. The URL and link to my store was displayed and still embedded. The immediate source was listed as another ‘Pinner’.

Pinterest shows up in your Google Analytics  under Referrers in Aquisition>Social. You can see how much traffic it is generating directly and you can determine the quality of that traffic by looking at the various other information attached – things like average bounce rate, time on site, and how many pages viewed. Pinterest is my number one Social acquisition stat over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my other groups. It also out performs the many  business directories I’m listed in all put together! But even if this wasn’t the case I’d still be there to keep an eye on what my customers are finding that fires them up, to get inspiration for craft ideas and just enjoy the eye candy.

So I’m a ‘Pinner’

Screen Shot, Pinterest, Zoomed Out, Search Term: Fairy Garden

Fairy Garden Fun With Polymer Clay

Polymer Clay Fairy Door

I don’t know about where you are, but here in Kingsville Ontario, which touts itself as the most southerly town in Canada, the snow is up to my knees. The wind is howling and blowing snow about with a vengeance I almost take personally. At this time of year when my gardening activities are confined to the indoors I take solace in my indoor fairy garden adventures.

Lately I’ve discovered polymer clay and I am enjoying a return to my youth happily kneading and forming little objects to fit in my little fairy gardens tucked into my indoor plants.  Its surprisingly calming. I’ve made a little work station of my keyboard drawer and fiddle with the clay while I catch up on my mail and social sites.

Fairy Vs Gnome Tic Tac Toe Garden

Lets face it, I’ll never be the artist some are in this medium. Thats ok. I’ve managed to make a few little things that please me none the less.Fairy doors and gnomes and even cutesy fairies.

A bit of clay, a few simple tools and a few Youtube videos got me started – but I have to admit to buying a clay machine ( to soften and condition the clay) and a lot more clay shortly after my first sojourn into this fun and easy play activity for almost grownups:)

Fantasy Gourd Fairy House 2″

Fantasy Gourd Fairy House 2″ Back