How To Create A Magical Shadow Box Fairy House

When I was little one of my favourite movies was Fern Gully, I was so in love with the fairies and the thought that they really did exist. I wanted to be Crysta and have all her magical powers. I wanted to fly around all day protecting the forest. Imagine being able to really fly, how cool would that be?

Isn't it amazing how the things that excite us stay with us for years after we've grown up? I still get excited at the thought of fairies living in the forest, and there's a teeny part of me that believes it's possible. It proves just how powerful our imaginations really are. I want bub to experience this magic for herself. I want her to believe in fairies and I want her to think that anything's possible, like I did. I also hope her imagination lives on long after her childhood. 

Now days there are new fairies on the block to entertain our kids. Bub's favourite is princess Holly from Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, closely followed by Nanny Plum {who just quietly is one of my favourites too}. Holly spends her days playing with other fairies and elves, doing magic and solving problems. Bub loves watching her adventures on tv each day and I'm fairly certain she thinks Princess Holly is just as real as I thought Crysta was.

What if we could take that magic out of the television screen and bring it to life? 

HOW TO BRING FAIRIES TO LIFE IN YOUR HOME

Building a fairy house or a simple fairy door brings fairy magic into our children's world by creating an entrance where fairies {and elves} can cross over from their enchanted world into ours. Miniature fairy products will capture your child's imagination and curiosity, and make the "make believe" believable. There are a number of products that you can use to create a simple {or elaborate} entrance to invite fairies, and elves, into your child's world. The most important piece is of course the fairy door. There are a number of different colours to choose from so the door can be matched with existing bedroom decor or you can get plain ones and paint them yourself.

Fairies are very mysterious creatures and only come out at night when children are sleeping, but there are many ways they let children know they've visited. Sometimes they leave a sprinkling of fairy dust, other times they leave notes in the mail box for children to discover. And of course the tooth fairy can come and visit via the fairy door too. There are a number of fairy accessories the fairies can leave behind to let your child know they came for a special visit during the night.

Fairy door's can be easily attached to walls sitting above the skirting board or attached to a bookshelf with double sided tape, blu-tack, or if you're game, glue. Because bub's only almost 3, and because I'm indecisive about where to put things, I've created a little fairy house in a shadow box instead. This way I can hang it up high out of reach of little hands, move it around onto a shelf in her play room and it can also be brought down to the floor once she's a bit older {when I can trust her with it unsupervised}. See below for step by step instructions on how I transformed a simple wooden shadow box into a magical fairy house with the help of some paint and a few accessories.

It's actually surprisingly simple to create a fairy house from a shadow box, it's just slightly time consuming, especially when you have a toddler trying to help you. These are the items I used to create mine, but you could make yours as simple or complex as you like.

SUPPLIES NEEDED TO CREATE A FAIRY HOUSE

* A shadow box {tall enough to accommodate the door}
* A fairy or elf door
* A fairy window
* A mail box
* Wooden picket fence
* Fake grass
* Paint {if needed}
* Glue

I used simple craft picket fences that I found at a local dollar store and I added some stones and tiny flowers from our yard. If you don't have grass and flowers on hand you can get fairy grass with flowers, stepping stones and small picket fences online. There are a number of really cute online fairy accessory stores that have even more cool accessories, such as The Fairy Garden UK, Nest In The Woods, Fairies of Tranquility, Steph The Fairy Maker and Smallhavens on Etsy.

HOW TO CREATE A SHADOW BOX FAIRY HOUSE

1. Prime and paint the shadow box {if needed}

2. Attach grass to the base of the box

3. Position and attach fairy door and fence

4. Position and attach window and mail box

5. Add any additional accessories

I haven't done a DIY project for a while so I did make a rookie error by not priming or undercoating the shadow box before I started painting it. This was only really a problem because my shadow box was originally aqua and I wanted it pink, so it took a lot more coats than I thought to get it to the right colour {and the final colour turned out slightly darker than it should be because of the aqua underneath}. Please learn from my mistake and at least use a white undercoat, it'll make your life so much easier. Overall though I'm pretty proud of my efforts, especially given I'm not an overly crafty person. If I can do this anyone can!

The miniature fairy products have really helped to make the fairy house come to life and look like real fairies live beyond the door. I wish they were around when I was younger because I can imagine just how crazy excited I would have been knowing there was a door for the fairies in my own bedroom. Can you imagine, having a door to a whole other world in your own bedroom? Needless to say bub is super excited and is already asking if she can go check her house every five minutes. All the hours of painting were totally worth it.

Did you believe in fairies when you were young?

MORE FAIRY ACTIVITIES TO TRY

• Fairy Treehouse Small World

You can also read how to turn shadow boxes into a sonny angel houses here

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