Recently Maddie and I decided that we needed a fairy house, so we began to do some research. Many years ago I came quite close to ordering from the now defunct Toad Hollow Farms, makers of these fabulous Tree Stump Homes:

Oh how I wish I had (note the stained glass windows)! Their site can still be viewed here, thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive, and they remain a great source of inspiration to us. We also discovered artist John Curtis Crawford's Fairy Woodland ("Fine Handcrafted Homes for Discriminating Fairy Folk"). In particular, Maddie was drawn to this house, though she thought it a little austere:

Most importantly, she'd like something delicate enough to please the fairies, yet sturdy enough to play with. We discovered that there's a Fairy House book series, by author Tracy Kane, as well as a Fairy Houses Weekend in Portsmouth, NH (check out the photos in this Fairyland Set on Flickr). There is even a Squidoo lens on Fairy Houses. Here, we found instructions on how to build our own fairy house:

• How to Build a Fairy House: From Tracy Kane's website
• Fairy Houses: From Disney's Family Fun website
• How to Transform Your Dollhouse Into a Faerie House: From wikiHow
  

Oh my goodness, and there's this (found here):

Then, of course, there's the matter of furnishing our fairy house. Maddie loved this furniture from Forest Whimsy:

We were also greatly inspired by the designs at this Japanese nut craft site (perfect for a fairy kitchen!):

And we're in love with these fairy rooms, from Twig Wizardry (click on the photos to enlarge):

So, now begins the work of collecting materials and determining how best to build our house. Maddie thinks perhaps we ought to buy a house and then create our own, since it will likely take awhile to collect the needed materials (and she does have a birthday coming up). She envisions an entire fairy village one day. We also have a dollhouse cottage, waiting to be assembled, so we may opt to re-work that into something magical, but we're carefully weighing our options.

As for the fairy folk themselves, she's anxious to create them, too. She enjoys making these flower fairies from Felt Wee Folk, which ought to be just right:


All in all, it ought to be the perfect Spring project!