Make an Easy & Inexpensive Fairy Garden

My girls and I have been LOVING the gorgeous spring weather we’ve been having here lately! It’s been so therapeutic to be out in the sunshine, work on our yard, and do a bit of gardening. One of our recent projects was a fairy garden for our front steps. It’s been in the works for a while, and I thought I’d share it with you today. My daughters and I made this potted fairy garden over the course of a few weeks, adding things on as we went and making most things ourselves out of things we had on hand or things we found in our yard. This fairy garden was inexpensive and easy to make, and I think the result is just as cute as something you might spend more money on. Plus, it’s fun to make all of the little props!

We chose to feature simple annuals in our fairy garden – alyssum, pansies and carnations. I liked their small scale and their price! You could use any sort of plant for your garden depending on your area. I’ve seen sweet fairy gardens that have featured succulents and even herbs.

Excuse the “rustic” porch and construction mess we have going on here – our porch is one of our current projects this summer. We’ll slowly and steadily continuing to finish Our DIY House as we’re able to. It’s been a massive, fun, exhausting & wonderful project!

Here’s how we built our easy + inexpensive potted fairy garden:

First, I found a wishing well garden ornament made out of bark and twigs at my local antique shop. The girls and I embellished it with twigs, moss, leather, faux flowers and leaves to make a little fairy house. We simply planned the project out, and glued everything on with a glue gun.

We decided we wanted a fairy garden featuring three pots of different sizes. For the first pot, my hubby cut a “U” shape out of the front of a cheap terra cotta pot. Then, I smashed the part he cut out into a few pieces, and put the cut piece inside the main pot as shown. I filled it with soil and my mom and I had a fun afternoon arranging stones and plants in the broken pot. We placed the fairy house we had made in the center of the pot and designed everything else to fit around it. We found some moss in our forest to fill in the empty soil patches. I love how the plants are settling in and growing in this pot!

Next, for our the second largest pot, I used an antique steel bucket I found at our local antique store. Then I filled it with gravel and then with soil, and planted four little plants inside. My daughters and I then covered the soil with found moss, and made a wee river out of blue marbles. We made a bridge from willow twigs and a glue gun, and a banner from twigs, twine and fabric scraps. We had these leftover little mushroom ornaments from this project.

Finally, in the smallest pot, we used a little planter we had on hand, filled it with soil and planted a couple of flowers inside. Then, we made a miniature pond out of a blue Tupperware bowl with a recycling bag smushed inside and some rocks glued around its perimeter. We covered the bare soil with moss.

The girls absolutely adore playing with their fairy garden. We’ll probably keep adding and rearranging things in it as we go along. I think that’s the fun of fairy gardens – you can tinker and fiddle and keep changing them around.

What I’m really liking about our simple version is that it didn’t cost us much at all, and it’s completely kid-friendly. The girls can actually take their little plastic fairy toys and wander through their tiered magical garden and PLAY!

Happy fairy gardening! If you have any fun fairy garden ideas, please let me know in the comments below!

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