If you have little girls in your household, chances are, you’ve heard of fairy gardens.   There was NO question what kind of party my 6 year old, Lucy wanted this year.  I’ll be sharing the party this week, so check back!
Pinterest is full of lots of ideas for fairy gardens, and while they are sooo cute, they can also be a little spendy.  You can buy lots of things for your fairy garden in craft stores or online, but it can add up quick.  We were at a local craft store, Craft Warehouse, and picked a few things up they had on sale, but I realized a couple things:
1. We live in Washington state.  If we put this stuff outside in a flower pot, it would be ruined.
2. My 6 year old would want it in the house anyways.
3. I could spend over $100 on fairy garden stuff without blinking an eye.

So, we made a few carefully thought out choices of what to buy and what to make ourselves. (Partly because of what was on sale cheap) 🙂
First, the fence.  I knew I had lots of wire, paint, and wooden popsicle sticks of different sizes at home, and figured we could make it ourselves.  So we did.
I used standard sized popsicle sticks, and also some short ones (they were 2 1/2″ long.)

Using some craft wire I twisted inbetween each short popsicle stick like this:

When I had the sizes I wanted I hot glued them to base sticks.

Then we had to have an arbor. 🙂
I used some regular sized and some more shorter ones for this.  Make a top and 2 sides in desired sizes by hot glueing together:
Now it’s missing something… maybe a gate?

That will work.
Use wire to attach the door on one side so it can open and close.

I used some soft pink spray paint I had, then finished it with a glitter spray coat.

We HAD to have a little tree, and luckily we had some clippings in the yard from a pear tree we took out.  I drilled a hole in a little piece of 1 by 3 and wedged it in.  Then it got the glitter spray. 🙂  For the bunting, I used some striped twine and washi tape, and the tire swing is just a big washer I found in the garage and colored black with a permanent marker.  I used some twine to tie it to the tree.

We used some rocks to write “welcome fairies” on, and of course you could finish them with glitter coat if you wanted to as well.

We made our own toadstools using an oven bake clay (fimo or sculpey are fine) then brushed on a glitter clear coat when they were done.

We finished it with some items we had purchased, like this little red wagon, filled with some shells from the craft box.

And this wagon filled with some silk flowers my little one found in my sewing room.

We couldn’t resist this little metal house, and it was super cheap on sale, but you could also paint or decoupage a mini birdhouse.

Everything else was little things we had on hand, some different mosses, marbles, wooden pots for a dollhouse, etc.  My mom bought them a little birdbath and fairy statue at Craft Warehouse to finish it off.   We put it all inside a wooden box I had (I think a toy or game had come in it, I always save these for craft projects).  You could also use a terra cotta pot saucer or tray.
Look around your garden shed and craft room, you might be surprised what you have on hand that would work!

I have had a system for quite sometime now of writing out 2 week menu at a time and posted it on the fridge, but I’ve wanted to do something more decorative for awhile now.   I finally got around to it, and I’m so glad I did!  For some reason my family seems to notice the menu so much more and is excited to see a favorite meal on the menu that week.
I used a 12 by 24 inch frame and lined it with 2 pieces of white paper with red polka dots.
Using my Silhouette Cameo and 2 shades of turquoise paper, I adapted a tag shape for the days of the week, and added text for the days.
I cut a couple banners from kraft brown cardstock too.

I glued it all to the polka dot background and put it back in the frame with the glass.  For writing out the menu I love  Bistro Chalk Markers, they write and erase easily, but don’t smear like dry erase markers.  But any dry erase markers would work fine.

There is enough room that I could easily write out each meal of the day, and I like to use the space under the word “MENU” to write out extra kitchen projects for the week, like cookie dough, soft pretzels, or granola.