20 March 2012

Fairy House

I stumbled onto a beautiful felt tree trunk Sunday morning while going through my reader at seven in the morning. Very, very impressive. It made me forget about all the projects I have in the works and develop a severe case of Craft ADD. I do not have the patience to take on such a project though. That's why I don't knit, it takes me too long to finish something and I lose interest.

But I did want to recreate that trunk, my way. Fortunately I had an alternative at hand in the shape of a pile of wood in my backyard. I figured I would cut some wood, clean it up, and concoct a way to attach the felt mushrooms (the Dutch fittingly call them 'fairy benches') to the stump. The mushrooms looked easy enough to make.

So there I was at 8 o'clock, sipping my coffee, eying up the branches and trying to decide which one to use. I pulled out the dead apple tree branch, deciding then and there to take advantage of its hollow core and turn it into a fairy house rather than a stump to use on our nature table. The roof I would make out of felt, and I would make interchangeable rooftops for the different seasons. I could totally picture it in my mind.

I wondered if it would disturb the church goers too much if I fired up the chainsaw to chop my fairy house to size. It didn't matter in the end because I couldn't get the smaller chainsaw to work and the large one didn't have a chain on it. Ryan wasn't there to help me out but I doubt he would have been willing at that hour.

With my trusted little hacksaw I silently cut off a piece of the apple branch and several more branches in various sizes to make toadstools with. Because what is a fairy house without toadstools? I took all the wood inside and baked in a 250 degree oven on a foil lined cookie sheet for about an hour. This gets rid of any bugs, a lesson I learned the hard way last year with my acorn collection.

Next I chiseled out the spongy stuff inside the branch, scrubbed it with a wire brush, cut a door with my jigsaw, and sealed the house with a clear top coat. The other branches I painted white. Meanwhile I sewed the toadstool tops and then hot glued them on.

I am truly in love with the results. I have already started working on another roof for the fairy house, a red and white polka dotted one per Lola's request. All that is left to make are the fairy bench mushrooms. And fairies, of course.














I am linking my fairy house up with A Little Birdie Told Me... at Rook No. 17 and Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions.

9 comments:

  1. Wat een mooi tafereeltje! En wat leuk dat je bent geïnspireerd door mijn vilten stronk! Eerlijk is eerlijk: het is een ontwerp van Septemberspring. Ik hoop hem binnenkort helemaal af te maken ... Lieve groetjes, Barbara

    ReplyDelete
  2. This moves to the top of my favorite list of things you've made, though I will not be replicating this one. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks great :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ik kwam hier via Magic Onions. Erg leuk project en leuke blog!

    Groetjes, Andrea

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hanneke, your fairy house is so wonderful and enchanting! You did such a beautiful job of creating fairy magic!

    Always a pleasure to visit here, my friend!

    Jenn/Rook No. 17

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is so fantastically great- I love it. I would've used that 250 degree oven tip with our acorn collection last year- we woke up to a not so nice surprise one morning,lol.

    ReplyDelete
  7. oh my goodness that is genius and so cute. I have to hunt me down a hollow log.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is adorable! Time well spent. Thanks for sharing it.

    Stopping by from SITS.

    ReplyDelete