Make a Magical Forest Fairy House

Little fairy houses add the perfect touch of whimsy to any garden. This project can be done by older kids without much supervision, but it's also a great project for parents and children to enjoy together.

To build your fairy house you will need a dried, hollow gourd and some polymer clay. You can hollow, bleach and dry your own gourd if you'd like, but it's quick and easy to buy a pre-dried one at your local gardening store. (They are often sold as bird houses) You'll also need a strong, waterproof super glue and some aluminum foil.

Polymer clay comes in many colors, but you don't need to buy them all to get the colors you need. It is easy to mix colors by kneading bits of them together between your fingers. We mixed all of these colors using only six colors of clay, pink, orange, green, blue, brown and white. Of course you can use any color scheme you'd like and most colors can be mixed by just using red, yellow, blue and white.

Every fairy house needs a beautiful door to welcome little fairies inside. To create this door you'll need to flatten out a sheet of clay about a quarter inch thick. You can roll out the clay or just flatten it with your fingers. Cut out your basic door shape from that sheet. We created a curved door from light green clay. Roll out a series of different colored clay ropes to add details and a door frame. We used thin orange and dark green ropes to add detail to the door, and thicker brown ropes to create the door frame. A little orange ball makes a perfect door knob.