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.

Leprechaun Treasure Box.

Have you heard of the leprechaun treasure box tradition?

On the eve of St. Patrick's Day children are encouraged to leave out a empty "treasure box" in hopes that a leprechaun will find it.  Should your box be discovered, the leprechaun is required to fill it with treasure.  Then he hides it.

If you are lucky enough to wake up on St. Patrick's Day to discover your box is missing, you have all day to find it.  Leprechauns are known to be pretty sneaky, so this won't be easy.  If you find your box by nightfall on St. Patrick's Day, the treasure is yours.  If not, the leprechaun gets to keep it.

Our boys were very excited to try this, so we started crafting some treasure boxes right away.

You can make a treasure box out of just about anything, but it must be small enough that a leprechaun can carry it.  We found some small inexpensive wooden boxes at our local craft store and started with some green paint and glitter.  We know that leprechauns are attracted to bright and shiny things, so we painted some rainbows and added some sparkles and stickers.  If you're short on time, you could even construct a box out of paper.

We're pretty sure you don't need to make this many boxes, but we couldn't seem to stop with just one.

We are definitely counting on having a leprechaun visit us this St. Patrick's Day.  We decorated our Lair door for the occasion and plan to leave our treasure box right in front of the little door so it can't be missed.

Leprechauns leave all sorts of things for treasure:  chocolate gold coins, money, glitter, colorful stones, small toys, stickers...just about anything that will fit.

Is this a tradition that you are familiar with?  We hope you'll try it!

Backwards Leprechaun Note.

Leprechauns love to be silly and play pranks.  Awhile back we spotted this backwards leprechaun note and thought it would be fun to create one of our own.

See if you kids can read it- it's backwards!

Place it in front of a mirror to decode it's secret message:
I may be wee, but I am big on having fun!
Can you find the 10 gold coins I left for you?

Hide some chocolate gold coins around the house and send your kids on a leprechaun inspired treasure hunt!

Click here for the free printable.
Personal use only please.

Get Crafty: Mini Heart Mailbox

Wouldn't it fun to leave a little Valentine treat for some visiting fairies?

Here's what you need to get started:
Print our free template in color on white card stock.
Cut and secure it with some tape or glue.

We've sized the template to fit two Hershey's Gold Nuggets, but really, you could put just about any tiny treat inside.  Even a mini letter or note would be cute!

Leave it outside your little fairy door and wait and see what happens!

These would also make a cute little treat to hand out to family and friends!

Template is for personal use only.

Teacher Resource: Free Desk Fairy Printable

Have you heard of the clean desk fairy?

As a way to encourage students to keep their spaces neat and tidy, the desk fairy will pay a visit after school hours.

The students will know she has stopped by when they find a little note tucked inside their desk or cubby.  She's a great motivator to help kids stay on top of their personal spaces while at school.

Quite a few teachers use A Little Lair® to welcome desk fairies into their classroom.

We've created our own little desk fairy notes to help you get started.  Click here to print the free templates in both color and black and white.

Personal classroom use only.  

Enjoy!

Happy New Year & DIY Fairy Slippers!

Happy New Year!

We thought it would be fun to kick off January with a focus on fairies.  Aside from the ever popular tooth fairy, garden & woodland fairies are a favorite around here.

It was love at first sight when we spotted this fairy slipper tutorial!

Although we don't have any little girls of our own, we can only imagine how fun it would be to craft these adorable little slippers together.  They are the perfect accessory to a crown of flowers and ribbon for the ultimate in fairy dress up play.

Be sure to stop by The Nature of Grace blog for the DIY instructions.  We love that her family also receives fun visits from a leprechaun!

Elf Hats at Dinner.

My boys love it when I put a little extra effort into setting the dinner table. Usually, this just means lighting some candles and drinking sparkling water from the "fancy glasses".  I definitely plan to fold up these elf napkins sometime during this holiday season.  Very festive and easy.

The full instructions can be found here on the Good Housekeeping website.

Mini Gingerbread House.

We decided it might be fun to make a mini version of our gingerbread house this year for the fairies and elves that visit our home.  It's hard enough to assemble a full size house with real gingerbread, so we opted to use graham crackers.
I'm not going to lie, the decorating was time consuming on this one, but the end result is really cute!

I started with a serrated knife to gently cut the graham crackers to the desired shape and size.  Everything was held together with white frosting.  Using a plastic sandwich bag, I filled it with frosting and cut a small hole in the end to pipe on the frosting.  With a pair of tweezers I added some red & green sprinkles (this was the time consuming part!)
The end result - a super cute mini gingerbread house that our holiday elf is sure to love!
Another great way to have fun with A Little Lair®!

Baking Fun: Elf Cookies.

One of our favorite ways to kick off the holiday season is by baking cookies. We love the smell of cookies in the oven while decorating the house. This year we decided to add a new twist to the tradition-- elf cookies.

It’s no secret that we have a thing for miniature food. There is just something so adorable about leaving little snacks out for our Lair visitors. Christmas cookies are the perfect addition to our ever-growing list of mini treats.  More here.

Our children just LOVED doing this (and it’s very easy). While preparing a batch of cookies, add a few little ones to the cookie sheet. A cookie about the size of a dime bakes up just perfect. The elf cookies can bake along side their larger counterparts; no need to adjust cooking time. Make sure to bake a few extra- kids love to sample these!

Apparently our elf enjoyed them too; we only had a few crumbs left in the morning! We will definitely be slipping a few of these onto Santa’s cookie plate this year. After all, his little helpers deserve treats too.

Two cheers for holiday magic !

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…yes, we know it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet!

We have been busy gearing up for one of our favorite times of year. The holiday elves are coming! 

Like many families, we both welcome one of Santa’s elves into our home starting the day after Thanksgiving.  Our elves report to Santa daily updates for his naughty/nice list. These elves, like all elves, love to play pranks and spread holiday cheer. 

Starting the Friday after Thanksgiving, be sure to visit us everyday for lots of new and original elf high jinks (and some freebies too).  

Two cheers for holiday magic!!

For those of you interested in sending your little ones a letter from the big man himself, we think it's important to use his official letterhead. 

Click here for the free download from Design Editor.

Enjoy!

A Little Rope Ladder.

We have been getting a lot of emails from people asking about the little rope ladders that are in some of our fairy door photos. These might just be our favorite little A Little Lair® accessory!

The best part...they are so easy and inexpensive to make! All you need is some kitchen twine or raffia string (widely available at craft/hobby stores) and the ability to tie a basic knot. 

1.  First cut two long pieces for the sides of the ladder. These should be cut to whatever length will help your wee folk reach solid ground. 

2.  Next cut several shorter pieces for the steps.  Make these about 3” in length. 

3.  Working your way down the longer side pieces, double knot each step into place, making them about 1" wide and 1" apart.  This should keep the scale of your ladder just right for the size of your little door.

4.  Trim any excess twine.

5.  Adhere the ladder to the backside of your Lair door with a small piece of tape.

Usually these ladders just “appear” overnight, as though they were left behind by a magical visitor.