Decorate your Elf Door for Christmas!

Decorate your elf door with dollhouse accessories for Christmas!

Happy Turkey Day!

Wishing you a relaxing Thanksgiving!  Make way for those holiday elves...

Christmas Elves.

Are you a fan of The Elf on the Shelf?  Follow our new Pinterest board for tons of ideas and fun!  We'll be adding to it every day through the holiday season.

  

Build a Fairy House!

It's International Fairy Day today!  Why not craft a fairy house to celebrate?  It's the perfect project to keep little ones busy and the process is so fun and magical!  Here's some ideas to get you started:

Image via momfluential.  Head on over for great tips on how to put together your own fairy house kit.  Not only do these make great gifts, they are great to have on hand when you need something quick to occupy the kids!

Left to right:
1.  Via kiwi crate.
2.  Enchanted Fairy Garden Kit.
3.  Via Crafts By Amanda.
4.  Via Musings from A Stay at Home Mom.
5.  Fairy Houses...Everywhere!  By Barry & Tracy Kane.
6.  Via Fiskars.
We hope these ideas inspire you to get out there and build a fairy house this summer! Happy Fairy Day!

A Golden Easter Egg.

Just yesterday, during the last minute hustle and bustle of Easter preparations, a thought popped into my head... I HAD to find a golden egg.  I thought it might be fun to start a new Easter tradition with my boys this year.

My husband and I could hide two golden eggs (one for each child) the night before Easter.  If the boys found them (among all of the Easter Bunny's surprises), then they'd receive the "golden egg prize."
I made a quick detour to the local craft store in search of the supplies I would need to pull this off.

I wanted eggs that would last for many years to come, so I knew the plastic variety wouldn't work.  I settled on this paint in gold and these wooden eggs.  With coupons and last minute discounts, I spent less than $4 on the entire project and we have 3 eggs leftover to paint and share with friends.
The boys are thrilled with idea and can hardly wait for Easter morning!
Is this a tradition you already share with your family?

Create Your Own Indoor Fairy Garden.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is the first official day of spring and right now it's snowing here in New England!  After a week of sunny bright skies, I think it's safe to say we have spring fever!

Lately I've had an obsession with fairy gardens and I've been pinning them like crazy on Pinterest.  I can't wait to create one of my own in our garden this year!  

Having A Little Lair® makes it easy for fairies to visit inside our home, but wouldn't it be fun to create a garden space for them too?  Since we won't be able to plant outdoors for the next few weeks, I thought it would be fun to create an indoor fairy garden.

Here's what we used to get started:

Craft stores have tons of affordable dollhouse accessories to choose from for decoration.  Here's a few of our favorites:  Park Bench, Fencing, Garden Tools, Birdhouse, little terra cotta pots.

I already had this great old table/planting container in my attic, but really you could use just about anything.  Just make sure it's easy to water and you have a nice bright location to place it.  Covering the planting soil with sheet moss is key to creating that little garden feel.

I love that this project can be a "work in progress" and we can add to it or make changes whenever we want to.  I already have some fun ideas that I'll share with you later this week.    

We plan on leaving a little note outside our fairy door tonight in hopes that a passing fairy may stop by for a visit.  Who knows, we may even find a sprinkling of fairy dust tomorrow morning. 

Building a Leprechaun Trap.

OK, so this post is late.  Really late.  However, we're thrilled with the outcome of this year's leprechaun trap and we still wanted to share it with you.  If you like the idea, you can "pin" it for next year.

This trap required a bit more work than last year's cardboard box version, but the boys are older and like to be more involved.
Here's the quick rundown of how we did it:

1 & 2.  We decided to use a green standup display board for the background of the trap.  We wanted a bright and happy background, so we crafted a sun, rainbow, grass & ladybug using colored cardstock.  We adhered these pieces to the display board using foam mounting squares (to provide a little dimension.) Cotton balls were glued in place for the clouds.

3.  Next we created the basket to trap the leprechaun using green pipe cleaner, careful not to leave the spaces too large.  We simply twisted the pieces in place.

4, 5 & 6.  We built the frame of the trap using PVC pipe that we glued together and spray painted green.  We added some eye hooks along the pipe frame and ran clear fishing line through them.  We attached the pipe cleaner basket to the fishing line and used a washer for some added weight.  Another washer was placed on a gold glitter circle and tied to the fishing line.  The fishing line was strung the entire length of the left side of the trap and all along the top under the clouds.

7.  We placed a bottle full of gold glitter on top of the washer to hold it in place.  We hope the leprechaun will find the bottle of gold and be so distracted by it that he won't look up to notice the green cage.  When he lifts the gold bottle, he will release the washer which will drop the basket on top of him.

It was fun to put a little extra effort into this year's trap.  The kids are very hopeful this will be the year we catch the elusive leprechaun!

Did you build a trap this year?  We'd love to hear about it.