Sew! I love your big fairy garden. How fun it must be to lay it all out. Did you see my post (about 25 posts before yours here with the great pciture ideas for fairy gardens? The post is titled Fairyland. I think you'd love it.

I need directions to your village, for akup_a tea with thee. I love your chair stair, going nowhere, where I'd love to be. I've just started settling my fairie island. I guess that makes me "the mayor". hehe To get to the island you have to go through the tunnel which is made from a cinder block that I painted black and glued stones to the front. In the top hole of the cinder block stands the gate-keeper with his lantern. He used to be a wise man with a ceramic nativity set that got broke. I cut up some landscaping logs in different sizes. Those will become fairie houses, some day. I save my used, loose leaf teas, dry them completely and will glue them onto the cut log pieces. That's as far as I've got. I really enjoyed looking at your village and discovering your talent.

See if your library has a copy of Tracy Kane's book, Fairy Houses, which is the first in a series. Nice story, lovely illustrations, inspiration for children and adults alike. At our park we have an event every June (as close to Midsummer's eve as I can make it) in which children (aided by adults, and I don't know who really has more fun) build fairy houses in the gardens using only natural materials. No staples, wire, glue, etc. We read Tracy Kane's book first, for inspiration, and review the fairy building codes (never pick or otherwise harm anything growing, and only use artificial materials) before going outside to build. After about 90 minutes of building, we tour the "community" and the children can tell about their houses while we hand out "fairy food" (bird seed mixed with different colored split peas), which is served up in seed pods. Anyone is welcome to stay as long as they like, of course, but they're usually finished and happily pick up coloring sheets with pictures of different fairies and a handout on how to create a fairy garden at home (which, coincidentally, is also friendly to butterflies and beneficial insects) as they leave their creations behind. Some come back later in the week to visit; most visitors often find them charming. The houses - or remains thereof after the forces of nature have had their way with them - remain in place for at least a week. We've held three such events now, and I'm still amazed at the originality and creativity displayed.

mine - or should I say my daughters - Ah! who am I kidding! It may be enjoyable to the girls and any little kids who stop by sit and stare for HOURS, but essentially it was my idea, I designed the whole thing, and have been the driving force behind having it at all... And I continue to think up and create new things for it... Anyway - mine has ended up being placed under a 2 year old corkscrew willow tree instead - It's closer to the house and is much much bigger than originally anticipated. For now the sweet woodruff and wild strawberries are filling out the area around the base of the willow, there's a violet and elfin thyme covered hill with a small lake at the bottom of it and a small gravel path leading to the top (a gazebo and miniture roses pruned to look like climbing roses are being added to the top of the hill later this fall) and a flattened out hollow covered in irish moss for a "meeting place." I have variegated forms of thyme and melissa lavender as shrubs around the edge of the garden and a few branches from my over zealous pink and white weigela hangs over the "hollow". The fairy garden is actually an extension of my butterfly garden, just slightly shaded (and will be deeply shaded when the willow fills out over the next couple of years) I just added some rembrandt tulips I hope will give a nice dramatic splash of color next spring before the freesias, columbine, violets and roses bloom. (and after years of plain colored tulips I can tell the girls that the fairies painted these ones!!!) I will post pics as soon as I can but right now I'm being selfish - want to keep it to myself till I feel it has some semblance of being ready for public viewing... :) Also waiting for the plants to fill out and really look like it does in my head (did that make sense or did I just seem nutty???) As well as the gazebo I'm working on 4 houses to put nestled in the sweet woodruff and a "bait shop" for beside the lake and looking for some small stumps or seats to put around the thyme hollow, maybe even a little swing for the fairy babes? Next year I'm hoping the willow will be big enough to dangle twinkling lights in and lots of birdhouses of course... Soon as I figure out where to put it I'm adding some white heliotrope that I grew from cuttings and have slightly too much of. Now I'm just hoping that the wild strawberries calm down cause they are going bananas and I fear they will choke out the rest of my plants... I'm 30 years old, mother of 4, a criminal psychologist in training and I am no afraid to admit that I love my garden. I am envisioning a few years from now laying in soft green grass in the shade of my contorted willow tree staring into the little village and seeing if I can see the sparkling glint of gossamer wings, or hearing the giggling of fairy children in the rustling leaves of the willow tree.....