DIY: Teacup Fairy Garden (Birthday Party)

 

I want to welcome my wonderful friend Heather as my guest blogger today.  Heather is a mother to two wonderful children, a wife, teacher, a friend, a person who values the outdoors, physical activities and embraces life and all that it brings.  Heather has taught me to be more laid back and calm in my life.  She rarely seems to get caught up in the societal pressures of keeping up with everything and has inspired me to say 'NO' more often, in order to keep myself sane.  She is sharing how she made these adorable teacup fairy gardens for her daughters 8th birthday.

 

The birth of an idea

My nearly 8 year old was first inspired to create a fairy garden after a trip to our local Peavey Mart. We saw the fairy garden section and the large diorama on display, which led us to reminisce about one of our favourite summer activities at the cabin; painting rocks and creating fairy furniture from twigs and moss. 

We talked about the possibility of creating a fairy garden for her guests. I’ve seen beautiful fairy gardens made with succulents and real flowers but I knew the cost of doing that would be too much.  Although the fairies and the furniture at Peavey Mart were adorable, it wouldn’t be cost effective to purchase these items for a birthday party craft. So we took to Pinterest and discovered the Tea Cup Fairy Garden! 

 

 

 

Keeping it Cheap and Easy

I was a bit worried when I agreed to this type of craft before actually researching how to make a tea cup fairy garden and where to purchase the necessary items. The teacher in me knew that it’d have to be a pretty streamlined craft because we had a time limit. So off to the local dollar stores and thrift shop I went.

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-party Prep

 

*Tools needed: wire cutters (to precut popsicle sticks and doweling), hot glue and hot glue gun (to assemble houses ahead of time), pen, sticky tack, scissors

#1.  Create the house from popsicle sticks.

-         Use wire cutters to cut 1 popsicle stick in half to use as the backing of the house which is 5 popsicle sticks wide

-         Use wire cutters to cut 4 popsicle sticks (cut about 1/3 of the stick off) to create the roof of the house

-         Glue backing onto house, glue the handle onto the back of the house (this will later be glued or sticky tacked to the cup or stuck into a chunk of oasis at the bottom of the cup)

-         Glue the ends of the small sticks one on top of each other into v-shape to make a roof

-         Fit the house inside the roof and glue if necessary

-         Attach a chimney from left over popsicle sticks.

-         Place all houses in a bag for easy unpacking at the party

 

 

 

#2 Trace doors onto cardstock or provide a tracer for child to trace their own door.

-         Place all doors, door knobs, and stickers / pens and scissors into a bag for easy unpacking at the party

#3 Prepare the ladder for assembly

-         Cut doweling pieces in half, cut small sections of pipe cleaner so that kids can easily assemble the ladder together

-         Place all ladder pieces in a bag for easy unpacking at the party

 

#4 Prepare the sign

-         I opted to pre-glue the flag onto the dowling to avoid wait time at the glue gun at the party. Children will need a pen and probably some example words to copy (ie. Welcome, Happy Place, Home, Fairy Home, Hello)

#5 Use wire cutters to cut small flowers off of plastic stems and gather decorations.

-         Create a bag of décor (rocks, shells, aquarium gravel, gems, miniature mushrooms, plant pots, etc.) that children can rifle through and choose the ‘just right’ elements for their own tea cup garden.

#6 Trace a circle onto the back of the artificial turf tiles. I got 4 circles / grassy tile and cut them out ahead of time.

 

At the Party

At the party while the kids ate supper, I set out the craft items on the table. Then I gathered everyone around to show them the ready-made example and explain the steps. They used the pre-made pieces to create their own teacup fairy garden and we were there to support them.

 

 

Thanks Heather for sharing this cute idea with us.   My girls and I are going to be making these with their friends during their end of the school year party.