DIY a Fairy Garden for Your Dolls

The dolls admire the fairy garden they have built for the back porch.

        Your dolls can play and pretend among fairy gardens even smaller than the versions you make for your own play outside. This fairy garden pictured below is so small that it fits inside of a three by six inch pot! 

The fairy garden before the clay items and cotton
batting toadstools are painted.

Supply List:

• a few cotton balls 
• thin wire
• green felt
• cardboard scrap
• Sculpey oven bake clay
• tiny pinecones
• pebbles
• hot glue and hot glue gun
• a tiny plastic frog
• a ceramic pot 

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Aquire a small decorative pot to use in the craft. You may have one already in your possession. These are often sold for a few coins at thrift shops and garage sales. Make sure that it is large enough for a vignette. The pot shown on this post is 3 inches tall and widens at the mouth to a 6 inch diameter opening.
2. Turn the pot upside down and trace around the lip on top of a stiff corrugated cardboard with a pencil.
3. Cut the shape out to fit just inside of the lip of the pot. 
4. Stuff the inside of the pot with recycled papers until the cardboard cut out fits on top of the papers just an inch shy of the lip of the pot. 
5. Now decorate the doll-sized fairy garden with all kinds of materials. First I glued a rocky edged pond on top of the cardboard using very tiny gravel. This may be purchased at a craft shop or a pet store. This supply is commonly used in fish tanks.
6. Fill the pond with hot glue 'water.'
7. Use a nail to poke holed through the cardboard wherever you would like to stick a plant or toadstool.
8. Shred faux grass using fine cuts of green felt.
9. I shaped a tiny fairy hut from a curl of bark and used a pinecone for the roof. This was hot glued into place.
10. I then sculpted tiny plants and stones from oven-bake clay and glued these in place.
11. The toadstools were shaped from chenille stems and cotton batting. Go here to see this craft.
12. Paint the remaining plants and toadstools using acrylics.

Left, clay sculpted rocks for fairy path and some sculpted plants. Right, toadstools and
 tiny plastic frog for this display.

Left, the vintage decorative pot from the 1970s. Right, the fairy garden being assembled.

Left, polished mini gravel purchased from dollar store. Center, lovely brown and ivory
glazed pot; perfect for an 18 inch doll's fairy garden! Right, see cardboard insert
with holes for plants and mushrooms, plus the rock wall for our tiny pond.

Above, details of fairy garden, felt ground cover, pond and
 pretend water made from hot glue.

More Mini Gardens:

• Assemble a garden pond for your dolls!
• How to craft a doll size bird bath for her garden...
• Make a mirror duck pond for a picturesque table decoration
• Learn how to craft a little wire fairy doll . . .