It's soon to be half-term in my little corner of England, so I though I'd share with you the secret of making a fairy garden so good that real fairies come and visit it. Oh yes.
First you get your box. A long flat one is ideal.
Then you fill it with mud. Magic Mud of course. The sprinkling of glitter whilst singing 'Come out, Come out, Wherever You Are' is especially necessary at this point.
Then a bit of landscaping. We created a slate pathway and stone table, a bit like Aslan's How in miniature. You can also create two levels, steps, walls and BMX humps for the street fairies.
Then go mad with bits from the Big People's garden. The neighbour's Pom Pom Bush contributed greatly to the flora. We also created a leaf fence at this point, and an oriental fish pond of sorts.
You can see we are getting in the swing of things now. We have a glass table top, up-turned pinecone seating area, daisy garden, curtain ring tunnel, lantern summer house (in case it rains), rope bridge over the pond, razor shell railings to keep baby fairies out of the Deep Water, sea shell hidey hole, skeletal leaf fishing nets and pom pom street light. This photograph was taken after I removed a few hundred white petals (someone had got a bit carried away).
And now some Fairy-Eye Views.
The seating area. Contemporary chic, with glass table top and sculpted wooden seating.
Later that night...
We set up our camera on a tripod, pointing it at the fairy garden. We attached the shutter to a movement detecting burglar alarm sensor. Any visit to the garden by any living thing would set the camera off. Maybe, just maybe, we could catch a fairy in our garden.
The next day we expected to find photographs of hedgehogs, a fox, maybe a badger but NO!
This is what the camera recorded, no word of a lie...
Yes, real fairies had visited our garden. Ha!
If you make a garden, and take pictures, please send me a link through the Comments form below or via Twitter, I'm @Angpang.
And if it's a rainy half-term, you could always try our indoor adventure, Making Gormley's The Field in a Shoe Box.
First you get your box. A long flat one is ideal.
Then you fill it with mud. Magic Mud of course. The sprinkling of glitter whilst singing 'Come out, Come out, Wherever You Are' is especially necessary at this point.
Then go mad with bits from the Big People's garden. The neighbour's Pom Pom Bush contributed greatly to the flora. We also created a leaf fence at this point, and an oriental fish pond of sorts.
You can see we are getting in the swing of things now. We have a glass table top, up-turned pinecone seating area, daisy garden, curtain ring tunnel, lantern summer house (in case it rains), rope bridge over the pond, razor shell railings to keep baby fairies out of the Deep Water, sea shell hidey hole, skeletal leaf fishing nets and pom pom street light. This photograph was taken after I removed a few hundred white petals (someone had got a bit carried away).
Later that night...
We set up our camera on a tripod, pointing it at the fairy garden. We attached the shutter to a movement detecting burglar alarm sensor. Any visit to the garden by any living thing would set the camera off. Maybe, just maybe, we could catch a fairy in our garden.
The next day we expected to find photographs of hedgehogs, a fox, maybe a badger but NO!
This is what the camera recorded, no word of a lie...
Yes, real fairies had visited our garden. Ha!
If you make a garden, and take pictures, please send me a link through the Comments form below or via Twitter, I'm @Angpang.
And if it's a rainy half-term, you could always try our indoor adventure, Making Gormley's The Field in a Shoe Box.
This is just lovely. I wish I'd had a mummy, or even an auntie, like you when I was little.
ReplyDeleteLovely, just lovely :-)
ReplyDeleteAlas, my children are in their teens and in college.
ReplyDeleteSome of my most cherished memories, however, are of the fairy huts they built and the little gifts they left for the fairies.
Amazingly, the fairies often left small treasures in return. Sometimes at nap time, the fey folk found their way into the kitchen and baked fairy cakes. Here's a photo of the Fairy Cake recipe they left one day…
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4667651600_5c14f75fe7_m.jpg
Thank you all for the lovely comments and those on Twitter! A few have promised to make a garden and send me some pics - I hope so.
ReplyDeleteLorraine, that fairy cake recipie looks magical, clearly you have some gifted culinary fairies in your neck of the woods.
I should add that only last summer, when visiting the grandparents, the children were amazed to find a tiny doorway had appeared in one of the trees in the garden...
I have always believed there are faries at the bottom of the garden........
ReplyDelete