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.