15 Fairy Garden Decorations that You Can Make

You don't need to spend money on expensive, wasteful fairy garden decorations. Make them yourself from natural and upcycled materials instead!
You don’t need to spend money on expensive, wasteful fairy garden decorations. Make them yourself from natural and upcycled materials instead!

You don't need to spend money on expensive, wasteful fairy garden decorations. Make them yourself from natural and upcycled materials instead!

Fairy gardens are super sweet and fun to make, but I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately, as the mainstream has picked up on what once was a completely DIY project:

There’s now a lot of STUFF to buy for your fairy garden!

At the local nursery where I took my kids to pick out a couple of plants each for their own fairy gardens recently, I had to steer them past a huge section of pre-made fairy garden decorations. I encouraged the kids to look at the pre-made stuff as inspiration, but if you don’t have a DIY mindset or a lot of confidence, it would be easy to drop a lot of money on store-bought items, and to get caught up in creating the “perfect” fairy garden.

Friends, that is NOT what fairy gardening has to be about! If that’s what you want, then totally go for it, but fairy gardening at its simplest consists of a container, a few small-scale plants, and homemade or found decorations. I think a fairy garden looks the cutest when it looks like something that a fairy could have made for herself–a cork bench, a pebble path, a seashell pond.

While the fairies could make all the following projects themselves, why don’t you help them out and add a couple to your own fairy garden?

1. acorn cap nestThis ornament would look very sweet hanging from a miniature shrub in your indoor fairy garden.

2. broken pot gardenWe put a broken pot in the bottom of my older kid’s fairy garden container for drainage, but this tutorial shows you how to make a multi-level fairy garden out of that broken pot.

You don't need to spend money on expensive, wasteful fairy garden decorations. Make them yourself from natural and upcycled materials instead!3. chia grassA permanent fairy garden will need some plants that are long-lived, but chia seed will sprout and grow within a week, making it a great option for a temporary garden.

4. containers. You don’t have to spend a dime on the container for your fairy garden. There are tons of DIY container possibilities.

5. kid-made fairy gardensIf you’re thinking of making this a kid-led, kid-created project, here are a couple of examples of what my own kids came up with when given free reign and a host of random supplies:

You don't need to spend money on expensive, wasteful fairy garden decorations. Make them yourself from natural and upcycled materials instead!

6. ladybug rocksEvery fairy needs a pet ladybug!

7. maple seed and twig dragonflyThis dragonfly needs to live in an indoor fairy garden, but it’s amazing how realistic it looks!

8. mushroom house votiveIf you used a battery-operated tea light, this would turn your child’s fairy garden into the cutest night light ever.

9. pixie houseStart with an old water or milk bottle, and use it as the base of a lovely little stone house.

10. plant tag framed picturesThis is a brilliant way to upcycle those plastic tags that come with your store-bought plants. Fairies LOVE framed photos of plants!

11. stone table and chairsPebbles from the yard and a little hot glue are all that you need to make a nice seating area for your fairies.

12. suitcase gardenIf you’ve got an antique suitcase that’s seen WAY better days, this project can give it a fun second life.

13. thimble potted plantsThese thimble plant pots may seem impossibly small, but they’re actually the perfect size to keep tiny little succulents that you’re propagating separate. Move them into larger containers when they grow, and replace them with more teeny succulents!

14. twig chairMy kid’s fairies sit on cork and rock benches in their fairy gardens, but more dignified fairies would undoubtedly prefer this lovely twig chair.

15. twig swing and rope ladder. Not only does this post have tutorials for a twig swing and a rope ladder, but it also shows the evolution of a kid’s fairy garden over the years.

1 thought on “15 Fairy Garden Decorations that You Can Make”

  1. These are such great ideas! I wanted to designate a spot in our garden for my son to make a fairy garden, but was put off by all the “stuff” required. Thanks for changing that!

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