How to make a Christmas fairy garden

This is a great 'I'm bored' activity for the Christmas period. A christmas fairy garden! Once made, a fairy garden is perfect for a sheltered spot in the garden, or on a balcony or even on a coffee table. If there are goblins, fairies or unicorns about, a fairy garden will attract them. Get all your ribbons, scraps and glitter - everything you have – because anything goes!

You will need

Soil

Pebbles or gravel

Some succulents to plant

Wooden dolly clothes pegs

Decorative pebbles and glitter

Packet of mixed colour plasticine

Embroidery floss/thread

Decorative paper

School glue (water based)

Glue gun

Paint

Wooden clothes peg

Scissors

3 terracotta pots, large, medium and small

Protective gloves

What Plants should I use?

Succulents are a great choice of plants for a fairy garden because they are pretty tough and can put up with lack of care. All they need to thrive is lots of light and not too much water. Use good quality pre-mixed cactus and succulent soil to help keep your plants healthy.

Step 1: Create a drainage system

To provide good drainage you will need to layer pebbles or gravel on the bottom of your pots before adding your spoil, repeat for all three pots and place inside each other as pictured.

Step 2: Plant and layout

Once you have planted a variety of plants, decorate with pretty pebbles, make stone pathways, scatter twigs and small pieces of bark. Go wild with your imagination, collect tiny objects while you are out and about, like sands, sea shells and moss. Then you are ready to make some bespoke figures and a fairy house!

You can buy tiny figures and fairy houses in garden centres and $2 shops but it is even more fun to make your own. You can always update and change your figures whenever you like.

Step 3: Make plasticine toadstools & snails

Roll a small ball of red plasticine

Squeeze it into a button shape

Roll tiny white balls and flatten them then press onto the red button shape to form white spot

Roll a log of brown plasticine and turn into the mushroom stalk

Plasticine Snails

Roll a coil of grey plastercine and put a marble, button or painted pasta on top of your ‘snail body’

Step 4: How to make a Christmas Angel

Draw a face on your wooden peg

Fold some decorative paper in half, and draw a simple dress out line, cut out and slip your peg through the hole you have made for the fairy’s head. Glue the sides of the dress shut.

Take some embroidery floss/thread and cut into a wig for your doll, glue on the top of her head

Cut out a pair of paper wings and glue onto the back of the fairy.

Step 5: Egg Carton Fairy house

Use a egg carton to cut out a pointy roof and a round domed structure, cut out a door for the fairies to use. Paint and decorate with lots of glitter.

Place your wonderful creations around the fairy garden and it’s ready to play with and add to – and even more fun than a dolls’ house.

A fairy garden is the perfect activity for a birthday party or event, if you feel like some expert help and to more ideas then contact classbunny for a workshop. www.classbunny.com