A Garden for the Faeries

Kaia's really liking faeries right now, especially since making our little acorn and pine cone faeries. So we decided to make a place for them to visit, and a little piece of Summer to bring in for the Winter. Something for her to take care of that is her own. Something I don't have to worry about her dumping water on, heh. We had a good sized pot back behind the barn that didn't have anything but weeds in it, so we pulled those all out. There was this one funky little thing growing in it that we left. I have no idea what it is or what it will do, but for now we left it in to be a tree by the faeries' pond.

When the pot was ready for new plants, we went out back to the woods and gathered some different types of mosses and lichens. We collected all sorts of tiny stones. We also pulled up a couple little Sedums from the garden, their small size makes them perfect for her garden and they are so tolerant and hardy. We arranged them in the pot with room for a path, pond, and structure.

We'll probably move some things around some and add more as we go, but you have to start somewhere. After getting everything in to our liking, we started laying the stones for the path. First the larger stones, then the tiny ones in between.

We made a ring around where we would like to put the pond in, and left space on one side for a house. Kaia watered it.

Now we're ready to make a house and some furniture for the faeries! And find something for the pond. We don't have any coconuts or gourds right now, but we do have some watermelons and musk melons in the garden that I am going to see if I can dry. We added some little "chicks and hens," we'll see how everyone holds up to the transfer. As you can see in the below picture, not all the moss is quite as perky and green as it was, but hopefully it will pull through. We need to fix our path already, too, it got mucked about quite a bit while shuffling things around.

"I Need a Boat"

So Kaia's been on about boats an awful lot lately, and finally decided that she needed a boat. Desperately. Now. Well, I had some big pieces of cardboard hanging out in the garage just in case we suddenly had great need of a boat (right?) so I hauled that out. It was pretty exciting on its own.

 Not a boat, though, so not exciting enough. I got out yee old roll o' packaging tape, and while I got started taping everything together, Kaia got a head start on decorating. Once everything was put together, I cut portholes and a door. I think I should have given the door an arch, but oh well. Didn't think of it in time. 

I traced a CD spool for most the windows, but wanted bigger ones in the door and back of the boat. I used a tupperware lid for those, then cut them all out with an exact-o blade. Kaia loved punching all the holes out once I had cut all the way around, and kept all the circular cut-outs to use as plates in her boat. 

 

We hauled the whole thing outside to the front lawn, and got out our paint jars. Katalin was up and very happy laying on a blanket watching us and chirping at the trees. At one point I ran inside to warm up my coffee (I do this all day...) and popped it in for 30 seconds, so was gone for, oh, 35 seconds about. When I came back she'd moved on from painting her boat to body art :)

When we were done painting, Kaia wanted to, "watch it dry," so I pulled her little table outside for dinner. It was a lazy one! Veggie burger with ketchup and veganaise, broccoli, and apples.  

 

After dinner, the boat was dry and it was time to play!

The Making of a Faerie Family

 
Kaia spent most the day throwing up (ugh) and we spent a lot of time in the bathroom, curled up in blankets, reading books. She was feeling better come evening, though, so we decided to make a faerie family. First we got everybody ready and went acorn collecting for their little heads.

 

Then we gathered some rocks for the faeries to stand on.

We picked leaves to make the faeries' wings. 

 

After that, Katalin was fast asleep, so Papa took her inside to rest, and Kaia and I headed out back to find the rest of the things we needed. We gathered pine cones for their bodies, more leaves for wings, a few flowers, and small twigs to make arms. We were accompanied by two of our kitties, Olive and Stormy, who love to come along on walks to escort us and scout the perimeters.

 We also found a number of mushrooms that needed close inspectoring!

After playing with  a variety of sticks and then digging in the sand for awhile, we headed back home and spread our treasures out on the table.

 

Then we commenced with the hot gluing.  Kaia picked out the bits, and I glued them together. I even managed to do all of them with only one lasting burn. Those glue guns can be evil and vile!

 

And, voila! A family of faeries. Kaia headed to bed while they were still drying (I sprayed them with fixitif to try and preserve the leaves a bit,) but she spent all morning this morning playing with them. Win! I'm not sure how long the leaves will last this way, but as Fall sets in we will certainly be collecting and pressing many beautiful, colourfully painted leaves that we can use to replace these if necessary.

 

(Thank you Twig and Toadstool for the idea)