We’ve been making pumpkin fairy houses…

…and having a blast!

They are actually made from “Fun-kins“, those carvable foam pumpkins you see around Halloween in craft stores.

I like to use silk flowers because the colors last so much longer than dried-important for pieces that are intended to be use year after year. This piece has some silk Rudbeckia, silk grass and oak leaves.

In case you think I’ve completely sold out to the ‘faux’ flowers don’t worry! There are also some dried everlasting herbs like lambs ears, baby’s breath and statice tucked here and there amid the moss. This pumpkin should last indefinitely since nothing will rot.

Now for the housing specs-

The model in the photo above is a two story home complete with bedroom loft, mini fairy lights, a dining area, and an outdoor fire pit. Spacious and roomy for one or two occupants or a young fairy family.

How do we do it?

Hmmm, well since each one is different the final appearance depends on what materials we have, and the size and shape of the ‘pumpkin’.

Once you saw apart the Fun-kin and attach it to whatever base you are using, you can add all kinds of fun stuff. Here are some photos of the week-long process:

Floor and Loft Support in Place

Next came the loft and stairs. Those stairs took awhile to complete!

Stairs, 2nd Floor and Firepit

At this point mini LED lights were installed inside and the exterior wood, moss, and other little bits added to the outside.

Almost done!

Here I had one brown mouse made. These little guys can be made from paper mache, polymer clay, sewn or even needle felted if you like.I finally decided on two mice…just because they were so cute.

Above you can see the loft bed. It is actually half a walnut shell with a silk leaf /curly ‘vine’ canopy and a Lamb’s Ear leaf for a comforter.

And finally this Pumpkin Fairy house is complete!

Finished Pumpkin Fairy House

The brown mouse is now grey and he has a young companion.

I think they like the place, how about you?

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If you can’t find Fun-kins in your area they are available online here:

Beautiful Fairy House

We spent a wonderful weekend at Lincoln Memorial Garden’s Indian Summer Festival. 

 As part of the Master Naturalist classes we’re taking through the U of I we worked as volunteers at the Fairy House building tent. 

Getting Ready for Fairy Houses

Our supplies were things like bark, sticks, rocks, shells, leaves, flowers and other natural objects. We collected our building materials over a period of several weeks and were ready for business on Saturday morning!

We even had our own fairy on hand.

On most days she is actually daughter # 3 and has smaller ears.

Kid#3 as Woodland Fairy

 Over the weekend there were nearly 350 fairy houses built by some talented architects!

Early Morning Fairy House Builders

Here are a few of the fabulous houses the kids built~

Raffia Wrapped Fairy House

Double A-frame Fairy house

Fairy House Interior

Aren’t they great?

The only ‘ extra special’ thing we did was to cut out the little chairs and lots of wood discs for the kids to use as furniture.  

You can see from these examples that nothing fancy is needed to build your own little fairy structure. It’s such a great activity for the kids and so many of the parents had a blast and planned to do it at home.

We loved that some of the boys rolled their eyes at making a fairy house but were more than happy to build a Fairy Fort.  Most of the little girls were all about building a house for Tinkerbell and they loved using lots of flowers and interior embellishments for their houses.

If you want some more inspiration for building your own fairy house, here are two really great books to give you ideas and get you started:

 Fairy Houses… Everywhere! by Tracy Kane

Fairy Houses of the Maine Coast by Maureen Heffernan.

Happy building!

Yummy Meatballs with Herbs

These meatballs are so darn good!

They have parsley, onion, garlic and a yummy ‘secret sauce’.  The secret sauce cracks me up because the main ingredient is just silly. The original recipe came from one of these Workbasket magazines, but I couldn’t tell you which one without digging through the lot of them.

Lots of Workbasket Mags

Anyone remember them? I have a few… dating back to 1964. Are you digging that snazzy Red Riding Hood holiday get up from the 1975 cover I pulled just for you?

If you don’t recognize Workbasket, it was a great little publication that ran for years. Each issue had several projects including a knitting, crochet, and random or seasonal craft project. They also had a recipe page and sometimes a garden section- depending on what decade you were in. I noticed when I took this shot that the magazine was $.15 in 1964, $.35 in 1975, and by 1994 the price had skyrocketed completely out of control to $2.95. Can you even buy a magazine for $2.95 anymore?

Anyway, some great food and crafty gems were found in these little magazines, including the original meatball recipe (which did not have the parsley if you can imagine that!)

 Yummy Glazed Meatballs with Parsley and Garlic:

These meatballs are hefty- but you can make smaller ones if you like. This recipe will make 12-15 jumbo meatballs. I could probably eat a whole tray myself, but usually do a side dish or two to prevent that from happening.

Preheat your oven to *350.

*For the meatballs you will need:

• 3 pounds ground beef
• 3  eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
• 3 (or more)  cloves finely diced garlic OR 1 Tb garlic powder
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley or 2 Tb dried parsley flakes
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup finely chopped onion (how much do you like?)
• 1 Tb salt
• 2 tsp pepper

Secret Sauce Recipe:

• 2 cups ketchup (this is the ingredient that cracks me up)
• 1-2 cloves minced garlic OR 1 tsp garlic powder
• 3/4 - 1 cup brown sugar (adjust to your sweetness preferences)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon Liquid Smoke flavoring  (all natural and you can add more after tasting if you like)

Mix together all the meatloaf ingredients. You will need to really put some muscle into this and mix it with your hands.

Roll into balls a bit smaller than a baseball- or about the size of a healthy tangerine if sports aren’t your thing.

Big Fat Meatballs!

Mix up sauce ingredients. I make extra to serve on the side because my family thinks every bite should be swimming in sauce. I have to agree-it’s pretty tasty stuff!

 Bake at *350 for 10 minutes to lightly brown then pour sauce all over and bake for another 35 minutes. You will probably need to cut into a meatball to check for doneness at this point.

Make sure you lick the testing fork. Mmmm. Put that fork in the sink. Now get a clean one out because double dipping is gross.

If the meatball is still pink at the center (not from the sauce) bake another 10 minutes or so. 

Now remove them from oven and devour- try not to burn your mouth!

* The original recipe called for evaporated milk. I don’t remember how much and since I never seemed to have it on hand and we omitted it from the recipe eons ago. There has been nary a complaint over the years so I don’t think it’s suffered any

Fairy door of twigs and more!

OK, these Gnome and Fairy doors are just too much fun.

Fairies and gnomes in the garden are just a natural. Completely magical and charming, kids of all ages find them irresistible.

When my kids were young we would all hang out in the kitchen on freezing blustery days and create clay ‘stuff’. Fairy doors, small dolls and all the things that would belong in a mini world were our projects of choice. They still are!

These days I plan what items are decorative and can go in the herb garden… although I still have a box full of all the little ‘stuff’ for the grand-kids to play with in the fairy gardens.

If you try any of these projects, invite a kid to join you. They have such a good time making them and I bet you will, too!

We’ve made several videos for you (under the Growing Herbs for Beginners label) I hope you enjoy both of them.

Part 1 – Creating the oven bake clay doors

Here is Part 2- Making the wood doors

Sometimes I get emails. Some are from people about the class over at GrowingHerbsForBeginners.com. Since I never post this kind of thing on the blog there, it goes here.

Often they have a question, or they may have deleted an email with their handouts. I fix and answer what I can.  I also get some ‘thank you’ emails that are so darn sweet. Those are the ones that make the occasional website and techie frustrations all worthwhile!

Today I got one that almost made me cry. Here it is:

Thank you for answering a newbie’s questions with kindness. I am trying to learn to garden again after quitting several years ago. At the time I joined a garden club thinking it would be fun and educational. That was a mistake. There were some nice people there, but the ‘experts’ beat me over the head with their knowledge when I had a simple question. I quickly learned that asking questions lead to feeling stupid and belittled because someone had to show me how smart and ‘right’ they were. Thank you for not doing that.
I am a beginner and am not interested right now in every botanical name change or which specific type of Praying Mantis I have in my yard. I just want the basics, so thank you for giving me that and for always replying to my questions.

Candy P. 

PS. The links you sent are very helpful!

I’ve been in this situation many times and am ashamed to say I have been on the giving end a time or two. After reading this I felt awful about ever having behaved that way and vowed to always do a good job in the ‘kindness to newbies” and “people in general” departments.

I suppose that includes not poking bossy-know-it-all’s in the nose?