Fairy House-- How I did it

I have always wanted one of these, but poison ivy and baby circumstances always seemed to get in the way. Not to mention that I really didn't know what I was doing.

But today the weather was right, the inspiration flowing, and I had just enough frustration to let out though the swing of a hammer. Flower Girl was thrilled and together we set out to build our first ever very own fairy house.

As fairy houses go, there are a few rules to follow:

1. They have to be small. Because, well, fairies are small.

2. They have to be made of natural things. Fairies, I'm quite sure, aren't familiar with shag carpet and nylon straps.

3. They have to be made with magic and love. I'd bet that's what really brings the fairies to them.

We started ours on an existing stump that we'd been using along with a fairy door that the kids got for Christmas.

After finding the right supports and sawing this giant limb into little pieces by hand (because I'm such a woman), it took somewhere around 52 nails until I finally figured out how to attach them to the stump. (I won't bother explaining, because again, 52 nails...

After some patch-up work on the sides and thankfully not running across anything with too many legs in the woodpile while prospecting bark, we had gotten the little house together. I should note that I tried at first to use the staple gun to attach the bark on the sides, but the staples weren't long enough. Good ol' hammer and itty bitty nails.

We dug up some of the johnny jump ups that had jumped up in the wrong places, dug up some moss for carpet and the fairy house is open for business!

Best of all, my daughter holds up her muddy hands at the end and says, "Look mom, dirty hands. Means I'm a kid. Real kids have dirty hands." She does listen.

Fairies Welcome!!!