My First Fairy Garden

I haven't been able to get the Highfield Hall exhibit out of my head and have been dying to try my hand at a fairy garden.  

Found this old wood basket in the crawl space under my mom's house and she said I could have it, so I cleaned it up.

My first thought was to build the garden with the basket tipped on the side but I couldn't get my items to fit well, so it was back to being flat.  The only thing Russell asked me was to try not to glue anything to the wood b/c it's such a nice antique piece and he didn't want the integrity ruined.

After googling some pictures and ideas, I went to the craft store and got blocks of green oasis, a moss mat and some fake ivy and flowers.  Those fit nicely into the bottom of the basket.  All I glued was the oasis blocks to each other and then tuck the moss over it, and stuff ivy into the gaps and between some of the wood slats.  

The house is made from about 2/3 of a toilet paper roll, on which I glued wooden sticks, which were done with a light brown paint wash and cut to fit prior to gluing.  The roof is made from brown card stock formed into a cone with moss glued on it, and an acorn cap on top.  I had that metal fairy door for years, just waiting for the right project.  I added a purple metal flower to the top of it, and also glued some light green moss to the roof (which I plucked off a tree in my yard).  Then I glued the whole house to a rock, and put more light green moss on either side to hide the glue that oozed out from under the house.  Dipped into my rock collection for the stepping stones.  All are glue to the moss.

The house looked funny without windows so I used a couple silver metal gears, behind which I glued white lace to look like curtains inside.

Here is the yard.

Basket of flowers which really aren't to scale when you look at the other pieces but hey, it's a fairy garden.  Magic is at work!

Wind chimes made from a bead cap, chain, bugle beads and wire.

Finally, a garden bench, made from a silver finding, wood and silver beads, and a gazing ball made from an orange bead on top of a clear push pin.  There are a lot of things you can buy for your fairy garden projects, but I really had fun poking through all my bead and finding boxes to see what I could make myself.  

These are addicting....I want to make more!