Fairies are attracted to natural places, and to the energy of children (and childlike adults) who are engaged in creative play.

The combination of both nature and play is irresistible to fairies. In making fairy gardens for children, the main idea is to make a special place where kids can enter the world of their own imagination, where personal creativity is connected to natural things.

Basic Principles and Features

• Set aside a special place that is just for children, where adults may enter only by a child’s invitation. This is one of the most important things you can do for kids in the garden.
• Use natural materials, because fairies are drawn to places where the nature spirits live.
• Play with dramatic changes in physical scale, making some things huge and other things miniature. The giant things help kids pretend to be very small (or giant!), while tiny things lead them down into the world of the fairies.
• Avoid specific imagery from particular stories or fairy tales, inviting children to invent their own. (In Enchanted Woods at Winterthur, the Faerie Cottage means different things to different kids. Some think it's a castle, while others imagine it as the village grocery store. The huge Birds Nest has served as a spaceship, a desperado’s hideout, and a device for teleportation!)
• Include materials for making imaginative things, especially natural artifacts. Favorite sticks, stones, and seedpods can be transformed into scepters, toadstools, and fairy hats.
• Make a place where the fairies will store their stolen treasures. Encourage kids to collect interesting artifacts and bring them to the fairy garden. Fairies love unusual rocks, leaves and seashells. They also love shiny things like gemstones, mirrors and bits of glittery ribbon.
• Provide a child-sized table and chairs for craft activities as well as for fairy tea parties!

Favorite Fairy Craft Ideas for Kids

• Make a fairy house by gluing bark, stones, and small fake gems to a cardboard milk carton covered with brown paper, with holes cut out for windows and doors. Add a “thatched” roof of dried grass or pine needles glued to a tented rectangle of heavy brown paper.
• Populate the garden with fairy dolls. Craft stores sell small plastic dolls that you can dress in natural materials. Half-dolls (from the waist up) are sold on picks that can be inserted into fruits and vegetables to create apple fairies,” gourd fairies, etc. Tie a chiffon sash around the waist to hide the joint between torso and fruit, and add some wings fashioned from wire-edged ribbon.
• Make child-sized tiaras from slender wreaths of twigs, woven through with bits of metallic ribbon to make them sparkle. Glue on fake gems or flower buds, attached with slender springs if you want to make them jiggle.
• And don't forget the wings! Make a framework of heavy wire (coat hangers make small but sturdy wings), and stretch sheer white or pink nylons over the frame. Decorate with sequins and glitter. Attach the finished wings to your fairy with a colorful sash.

Photos and information courtesy of W. Gary Smith, 2001.