fairy door – Our Beautifully Messy House

White Picket Fairy Fence

August 18, 2015September 24, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

Well, I couldn’t show you how to make a Craft Stick Fairy Door without telling you how to make a WHITE PICKET FAIRY FENCE to go with it! The fence is simple to make and looks adorable out in the fairy garden!

Materials needed:

small craft sticks
regular-sized craft sticks
wood glue
Q-tips
white acrylic paint
acrylic sealant

First, lay out your sticks…4 small craft sticks in the middle with 2 regular-sized ones on the ends. If you don’t have small craft sticks, just cut some regular-sized one’s in half. The two craft sticks on the ends are left long, so that you can easily stick them into the ground, keeping the fence upright!

Next, think about where two craft sticks that will lie across the other ones will be and use a Q-tip to put wood glue in those spots across each stick. Lay the craft sticks on top of the glue and press to secure.

After the glue has dried, paint the picket fairy fence white.

Finish up with a coat of acrylic sealant spray.

Now for the fun part…while sneaking a fairy door into your neighbor’s garden, add a little white picket fairy fence as well! Gently push the ends of the fence into the soil. Enjoy!!!

Craft Stick Fairy Doors

August 16, 2015September 28, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

It’s no secret that we LOVE making fairy/gnome things at Our Beautifully Messy House…fairy houses, fairy furniture, fairy doors, gnome doors, flower fairies, fairy folk…need I go on? We just can’t help it! What I love the most about making fairy doors and gnome doors is surprising people with them! L and I made an abundance of CRAFT STICK FAIRY DOORS this week as we prepare to spread them around the neighborhood. Of course we enjoy surprising our friends and close neighbors, but what I really love is putting them on strangers’ front porches and sneaking them into their gardens! We rarely get to see people discover the fairy and gnome doors, but the surprise, the magic in it all makes L and I giggle for days! We’ve had a great time making these craft stick fairy doors…aren’t they the cutest!?!

Materials needed:

crafts sticks (big, small, colored, any or all)
wood glue
Q-tips
buttons

Optional materials:

acrylic paint
sealant spray
wire & nails

First, lay out your craft sticks in a door shape. If you have colored sticks, your kids will enjoy playing with patterns!

Using a Q-tip, put wood glue onto a small craft stick and carefully lay it across your door. If you don’t have small craft sticks, you can always cut a normal-sized one in half! It’s best to put at least 2 sticks across, but you can play with the angles and directions that you put them. Remember, fairy doors don’t have to be perfect!

If you don’t plan to paint your door, you can glue a button-handle on now too!

After the glue has dried a good bit, flip your doors over and smear wood glue all across the back for extra support. Let them dry for a few hours or overnight.

Next, if your craft sticks are plain and you want to, paint the doors. We especially like to add glitter paint to ours…helps the fairies and gnomes find the doors of course.

After the paint has dried, glue on button-handles if you have not done so yet. We like to spray our doors with some acrylic sealant as well…makes the wood a little more durable outdoors and gives them a more finished look.

Now for the fun part, hide them around town…or give them to friends! These would make an adorable party favor for both kids and adults! Enjoy!!!

Fairy Doors and Gnome Doors (#2)

June 30, 2015September 24, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

After making a fairy door out of sticks and hiding it in our neighbor’s garden last Summer, L and I thought we’d spread the fairy love a little farther this year…we’ve been making FAIRY DOORS and GNOME DOORS and hiding them all around town! It’s so much fun surprising the young and the old — just imagine the look on anyone’s face when they’re out in the garden and suddenly discover a teeny, tiny door that wasn’t there before. Ha! These fairy doors are so simple to make and all you need is rocks, paint and clear sealant (which is optional). To draw a little more attention to the fairy doors, we like to leave a tiny button or painted rock trail as well.

Materials needed:

medium-sized rocks
acrylic paints
clear sealant spray (optional)

After cleaning any dirt off your rock, start by painting on a door.

Next, add some windows, if you have room.

If adding any glitter paint, apply that next. We like to paint a little glitter over our windows.

Next, outline the door and windows carefully with black paint. Add a doorknob as well.

Now for my favorite part, paint connecting black lines on the rock, resembling a stone wall.

If you’d like to add a flower pot or lil window box, add one now.

Finally, finish with some green vines, leaves, and flower details.

Once all your paint is dry, you can spray the rocks with a coat of clear sealant to make the fairy doors even more weather resistant. Permanent paint usually doesn’t wash away, but I always like to add a coat of sealant just in case.

Now for the real fun…time to hide your fairy doors and gnome doors. (Gnome doors go on trees, generally speaking.)

I like making some of our fairy doors to resemble our neighbor’s front porches and gardens…

Enjoy!!!

Gnome Village Advent Calendar

November 17, 2014September 28, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

I’m so super-excited about our GNOME VILLAGE ADVENT CALENDAR this year! Starting on the 1st of December the kids will lift up a gnome home each day…the house numbers will correspond with the day. Underneath each house will be a little surprise: a hershey kiss, a candy cane, a miniature ornament for the tree, or a special message. The “special messages” may include,

“Make cookies for a neighbor.”
“Make Christmas cards for friends and family.”
“Leave little notes written in chalk around the neighborhood.”
“Make a Gingerbread House today!”

Making the GNOME VILLAGE was a little time consuming, but very easy to make. You could always make your gnome houses very simply with a standard door, windows and house number and they’d look just as cute! Just mix up the colors for some variations!

Materials needed:

mulit-colored card stock (or you could use toilet paper rolls)
doilies
markers and/or paint
glitter
Elmer’s glue
hot glue gun
sequins, stickers, etc (optional)

First, cut the card stock in half horizontally, then take about 3 inches off the end. I like using card stock instead of regular construction paper because it doesn’t fade as easily and it’s sturdier. I’m hoping to use our GNOME VILLAGE year after year!

After your paper is cut, it’s time to decorate! We decorated some of our gnome houses with markers, some with paint and embellished them with sequins, jewels and glitter. Have fun and be creative! They certainly don’t all have to be Christmas-y, just colorful!

Once the houses have been colored and painted, shape the paper into little tubes and use a hot glue gun to secure them in place.

To make the gnome house roofs, make a cut to the center of a doily. (I actually used two doilies stacked for a sturdier roof.) Overlap the ends and glue into place…should make a little rooftop-cone.

To add snow to the roofs, very gently roll each roof in Elmer’s glue and then sprinkle with glitter. This was definitely L’s favorite part!

Using the hot glue gun again, attach each rooftop to a house. All done! Pretty easy, huh?

We plan to display our GNOME VILLAGE ADVENT CALENDAR on one of our mantels this year…with a little snow, mini-pine trees, and a few gnomes it will surely become one of our favorite Christmas decorations for years to come! So. Much. Fun! Enjoy!

DIY Fairy Door…Gnome Door…

July 29, 2014September 29, 2015 Porter Leave a comment

In our garden the fairies and gnomes live amongst each other. Their village spreads around the yard with lil houses, patios and ponds hidden beneath the flowers. Throughout the year, L and I like to collect and make things to add to our garden…this morning we made a lil fairy door.

Materials needed:

sticks
florist wire
a button

First, have your kids collect some sticks and twigs around the yard. Sort through the sticks, finding ones that are particularly straight. Lay these sticks side-by-side, getting an idea of what your door will look like.

Next, cut two pieces of florist wire about 2-ft long each. Fold them in half.

Take the first stick you have laid out for the door and place it in the middle of one of the wires. Wrap the wire around the stick, about an inch from the bottom, and twist the wire once to secure it.

Do the same with the second wire about the an inch from the top of the stick. Continue adding sticks, one-by-one, wrapping and twisting the wires as you go.

When all the sticks are connected, hold the door in two hands and very gently squeeze the sticks together.

Cut the end of the wire, leaving about half an inch, and fold back the extra.

Next, have your child select a button for a door knob. L chose this cute lil heart button…probably not the one I would have chosen, but it was perfect for a fairy door! (Kids just know when it comes to these things.)

Thread the button onto a 4-inch piece of wire, twisting the wire a bit to secure it. Then, deciding where you’d like the door knob to be, wrap and twist the wire around one or two of the sticks.

To ensure that the button won’t slide down the door, you can thread the excess wire up and over the wire that holds the sticks in place as well.

Now the fun part…find a little piece of wall, fence, or a tree trunk to prop the door up against! Add some buttons, pennies, or broken tile pieces for lil fairy stepping stones… Adorable!

This project was so quick and easy, I think we’ll make another to sneak into our neighbor’s garden. He’s got the perfect tree for a fairy or gnome door…