Grand Little Place

The last few years the boys and I have casually named one of our backyard planters a fairy garden.  In reality it has been an ignored planter that ‘special’ rocks, shells, and various ‘treasures’ are pushed into a pot of dirt.  Occasionally seeds and left over plants will get stuck down in there too.  Last year when I made my first visit to Colonial Gardens I saw that they had an entire section dedicated to fairy gardens and they had amazing ones set up all around.  When I took Chris and the boys over with me they all 3 were enchanted by the little settings and decided they wanted to make a ‘real’ garden at home.  We never got around to trying our hand at it last year but with the quarantine in full effect here in Kansas City I decided that it would be an easy and fun activity for the boys and I to do.  I looked up a few DIY fairy garden ideas for kids and then raided our stash of planters, broken pots, craft items and rocks for us to set up our own.

The boys were a bit reluctant to start the project (it had been months since they had seen the pro ones so their interest wasn’t at it’s peak) but by the end they were ALL IN!  This post isn’t a step by step since I didn’t think to take photos as we went, but I’ll explain how we did it after I show the pics.

My neighbor was getting rid of these two matching pots last year so I asked her if I could have them.  I didn’t have a great use for them at the time but the size was good so I figured it would be worth holding onto for a bit and seeing if I ended up using them.  They ended up being ideal for this project!  I also had a few pots that didn’t weather well through the winter and ended up with cracks or big breaks.  I hadn’t thrown them out because I knew we could utilize them for the fairy gardens.  The boys each liked the smaller round pots and chose them as tunnels and hobbit holes.  The other things that we used were glass bead rocks from my craft stash, moss from our patio, and 2 sets of plants I picked up for $3 each.  The plants came in a set of 8.

The first thing we did was to fill each pot to the top with dirt.  We ended up pulling dirt out of the larger pot for the smaller ones so the top garden isn’t as full.  We then chose 1 large item to use in the background of each garden.  2 of the gardens have rocks and the other has half of a broken pot.  After establishing our background we layered in the smaller sections.  Each boy put in their hobbit hole/tunnel and I took 2 halves of smaller pots and placed them in front of the big vertical rock.  Davis had a glass starfish that he wanted to add and he went ahead and poked it in too.

At this point all of our ‘structural’ work was done and we started layering in our plants.  I didn’t know what plants to chose so I went for things that were inexpensive and had some color.  The boys weren’t very interested in the plants (I thought that was something they would be into) and initially each chose 1 of each for their garden.  I think it worked out ok though since the larger pot needed more to fill it anyways and so I was able to put those in there. After the plants were in we began scavenging moss from our patio.  It grows like crazy over there so I didn’t feel bad stealing some for the fairy gardens.  The boys LOVED this part!  At this point the pots were beginning to really feel like something other than a pot with rocks in it and they could see the fairy gardens come alive.

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Once the moss was in place I pulled out the glass beads.  At first the boys were pressing them into place and the results were unimpressive.  I began lightly ‘tossing’ them into place and the boys lit up as they began to see how they looked all layered together.  I had 2 bags of the glass beads and I wish I had a few more because they gave the gardens a lot of depth.  I may go back at some point and pick up some blue glass rocks to add to simulate water too.

The last finishing touch on the fairy gardens were adding the statues.  I keep calling these fairy gardens but since this is a boy house (other than me, ha!) we actually have no fairies in the gardens, we have gnomes!  Earlier this year I found these little statues at the Dollar Tree (for real), they came in packs of 3 or 4 for $1.  I bought these in February and have been holding onto them in anticipation of this project.  They actually have a great online selection of fairy garden sets right now.  When I bought mine they had the little houses and some bigger accessories too but I just picked up the little figures of gnomes, animals, and signs.  The boys loved taking turns choosing which figures to add to their scenes.

All in all I give this project a 10/10!  Sometimes it’s hard to know what crafts and projects are going to be ‘boy approved’ but in the end this one was.  Even my older son who likes to play it cool about most things has been going over and checking in with his garden.  I’m so glad that we made these (and the memories).  This was an easy (stress free) activity that was PERFECT for passing time during the stay at home order (or anytime!).

When I googled ‘DIY Fairy Garden Ideas for Kids’ lots of kits came up. As you can tell I used a mix of store bought items and things I had on hand for our  gnome yards.  In the end we loved mixing the old and new items together to create these pots!

Don’t forget to pin these DIY Fairy Garden Ideas For Kids!