A fairy house, constructed by myself and my father. I had the basic idea for this in my head for about a week and asked my dad if he would consider helping me make something like that. Lo and behold, he loved the idea. We began by choosing a log from our woodpile out back. We found the perfect log--one with a semi-dry-rotted inside easy enough to hollow out but the bark still being thick. After hollowing the log out, my dad cut holes for windows and doors. He then selected another log and planed it away until only part of the bark was left--this becoming the roof. From there, I did the twig windows(twigs), the window boxes (made with bark), the shingles (pinecone segments), and soforth. The chimney was made out of a knot of wood drilled down the center. And yes, those are actual plants in the flowerboxes. I individually plucked little weeds, like creeping charlie, shamrock, and the beginning sprouts of mountain ash, and literally planted them in the miniature flowerboxes. The picture shows only one of the flower boxes fully. The other you can see towards the right side of the photo, the other is to the back (each being accompanied by another window).

Thus the new fairy's house resides within a small portion of my garden, underneath the bowers of one of the two iris plants. The door's perminantly open, as to allow fairys to come and go as they please. I also collected some flattened rocks from our rock gardens to make the little stone path. I thought it was a cute touch. In the future I may also consider making a sign to place outside the door. I also will be putting a little table, made from the knot of a tree, inside the house complete with acorn-cap dishes, in which I'll be putting little berries, flowers, and whatnot...just to add a whimsical touch, and just because it's fun to partially believe in fairy folk.

We really have a very nice, very big garden. We're rather fortunate to. (our garden is the subject of photography for most of my little sister's ( ) photography (so check it out!). It used to be bigger, before we expanded our garage and built a sun deck. But now we've improvised and expanded the garden around the sun deck. We expanded it alot this year. We re-landscaped the entire garden area, making a new stone path, surrounding the garden with landscaping bricks, and hauling in a new load of dirt. Today we just began planting the vegetables. So far we've planted peppers, khal-rabi, turnips, rutabega, peas, beans, tomatoes, spinach, asparagus, and lettuce--along with a perennial abundance of rhubarb, raspberries, and various flowers. I also began a herb garden, consisting of basil, thyme, sweet herb, oregano, lavender, and peppermint. I've been into the herbalism thing lately. In a sense as well, our garden literally surrounds our house. We have flowers absolutely EVERYWHERE. Around the trees, around the house walls, around the garage, around the fenceposts, everywhere! And naturally, there's no shortage of lawn gnomes to help the garden grow. And lord knows we need all the help we can get. A garden is hard work, and I've already grown really tan. But heck, working with plants is fun. To see them grow and then to pick them and prepare them with dinner is rewarding. I lovers it!

BTW: Another fairy house is under construction/concepting.

Materials: log (not sure of type, will have to ask dad later), bandsaw, drill, bark, cedar chips, dirt (in flowerboxes), pinecones, tree knot, twigs, hot glue, kitchen scissors, and nice little weeds that grown between rocks that are perfect for petite planters!

Peace!

EDIT: sorry to my watchers if this thing hit multiple submissions! My computer was being an ass.