Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome to Friday's Nature Table, a forum for us to share the nature inspired things we have done with our children... our nature ideas, crafts, activities, inspirations and photos. Nature is all around... her magic is everywhere!

I encourage everyone to participate, the more wonderful ideas we can share about how to enjoy our beautiful earth, the happier we will be. And thanks to everyone for their inspiring posts from last Friday!

Enjoy! and thank you for sharing today...

Blessings and magic.

How to make Colored Sand.

Mr T insisted on bringing home a bucket of sand from the beach. Unlike me, he loves sand so much and can play with it for hours. He really doesn't mind if it gets in his hair, his clothes, his bed!

So, to enthuse with this love, we decided to make colored sand.

This is what we needed;

a bucket of sand

a sieve

6 large Ziploc bags

6 colors of foodcoloring

spoons

paper towels

water

We made little bowls from the Ziplock bags like this...

We set our sieve in the Ziploc bowl and filled it with sand.

As the sand was from the beach, it was full of small shells that we wanted to separate from the sand. T loves to sift stuff. He took this job very seriously and meticulously sifted all the shells from the clean sand.

We arranged the sand-filled bags on the grass as the next step is to add the food coloring. We wanted to make sure that a mistake did not mean a permanently colored patio!

Granny helped Mr T wet the sand with water from a jug.
We added enough water to make the sand soggy. Too much water will make it hard for the sand to absorb the food coloring.

K joined us for the fun task of adding color to our soggy sand. We added food coloring liberally.

Then we zipped up the bags and massaged the color into the sand. K loved the tactile nature of massaging the sand through the bag. It was cool and squishy and made a wonderful scrunching noise if you listened carefully.

We added different colors to our bags of sand and then laid them flat for 30 minutes to let the sand absorb the color.

Then we turned each bag out onto a couple of sheets of strong paper towels to dry in the sand.

It dried in a day. Tomorrow we are going to use our colored sand to make something fun... stay tuned!
Blessings and magic.

How to make a Fairy's Washing Line.

A big question was asked... What if our fairies did their washing in the coconut pond in K's Fairy Garden? They might have to hang their wet clothes on the tree to dry and that would look untidy... that wouldn't do! A washing line had to be made!

We needed our pliers, thin wire and a couple of sticks.
We cut a length of wire with our pliers.
Wrapped one end around the top of a stick, like this...
We did the same on the other stick, connecting the two into a charming little washing line...
This morning we found a few fairy clothes drying on the line and the washing basket left under it... more evidence that fairies have moved in... Hooray!

Couldn't resist popping in these photos of my Needle Felted Terrarium that is packed up for it's journey to it's new home. The gnome living in it is resting while his washing dries on the line.

Here are the other posts in our Fairy Garden Series...

The Magical Fairy or Gnome Garden Challenge and Giveaway.

How to make a Fairy or Gnome Garden.

How to make Fairy Furniture... a table and a chair.

How to make a Fairy's Bed.

How to make a Fairy's Bath.

How to make a Swing for a Fairy Garden.

Be sure to enter The Magical Fairy Garden Challenge and Giveaway and get a photo or post of your garden to me before September 23 to be in the drawing.

Blessings and magic.

How to Make Fairy Furniture... a Chair and a Table.

K decided that she needed a table and chair, fairy size, for her new Fairy Garden. Magical Mommy was on the job.

We needed;

A few pebbles of different shapes and sizes (from Home Depot),

A glue gun.

Our pebbles in the above photo are wet as we keep a stash in our fountain. K fished the 'right looking' ones out and dried them.

First, we made the table. A round pebble was chosen for the table top and two smaller pebbles for the table legs.

I dabbed two spots of glue from my glue gun for the legs...
And stuck the small 'leg' pebbles into place, and...
Voila! The sweetest looking stone table a fairy will ever see!

It needed a matching chair. K lined up all the pebbles from biggest to smallest so that we could choose stones of similar shapes and sizes.

A round pebble was chosen for the seat of the chair, a rectangular pebble for the back of the chair and 4 small pebbles for the legs of the chair.

I dabbed 4 glue spots from my glue gun onto the round 'seat' pebble.
The 4 'leg' pebbles were stuck into place.
Another dab of glue from the glue gun and the back of the chair was stuck into place... a perfect little stone chair!
There they sit in the Fairy Garden, waiting for a fairy to come to tea.
Please join K and me in The Magical Fairy and Gnome Garden Challenge and Giveaway. We are having such fun with our Fairy Garden and we want to spread the magic! In the coming weeks, I will be posting more about our Fairy Garden and how to make some other fairy furniture.

Visit Acorn Pies for some more fairy magic.

Blessings and magic.

How to make a Fairy Garden.

Today we made a magical, miniature, Fairy Garden.

As you can see, Kitty's Fairy Garden was looking a little worse for wear. You can read about how it got this way in this post, The Magical Fairy and Gnome Garden Challenge and Giveaway.

To clean it up, First, we cleaned out all the dead moss. We have used an old wine barrel for our Fairy Garden. Kitty loves the big size as she plays in it for hours but you can use a much smaller container such as a planter, a tin basin or even a salad bowl. You do, however, have to make sure that the container has a hole in the bottom for proper drainage. Drill a hole if your container doesn't have one. You will be watering your Fairy Garden often and it is important that it can drain adequately.

Once you have picked out your container, fill it with potting soil, leaving it about 6 inches deep.

Next, plan how you want your Fairy or Gnome Garden to look. Kitty drew a detailed map, indicating where she wanted a hill and a valley, were the pond would go and even where she wanted the path to be placed.

We propped the plan up in the papyrus and got to work landscaping our garden. We created the hill on the left by mounding the soil and the valley in the middle by grooving the soil.

Mr T was in charge of finding earthworms in the veggie garden to put in the new Fairy Garden. He was very good at his job and found quite a few...

Earthworms are optional. They are great soil aerators and help for good soil drainage (plus, they give the little one something to do so that he doesn't keep destroying the soil hill you have so carefully built...)

Now, it is time to plant your 'trees' and plants. When choosing plants for your Fairy Garden, be mindful of the scale you are after. You want it to look like a miniature garden. Moss is the main ground cover and too many other plants may detract from the mossy atmosphere. Let your imagination run wild as you choose plants that you think might attract the fairies in your neighborhood. We used an immature Tea Tree for our tree. We know that it will want to grow very big and we need to trim it often to keep it stunted. The tree sets the scale of the garden and makes for that miniature feeling. If your garden is in a smaller container, a shrub will have the same effect as a tree. Also, keep in mind the color combinations... silvers, light greens, dark greens, browns... we like as many colors as possible as it adds texture and interest to the Fairy Garden. Another consideration when choosing your plants is to make sure the combination you choose all like the same amount of sun and water. If you are going to be using moss, remember that moss likes sun to part shade and lots of water... make sure you choose other plants that like the same. If you are going for a desert garden appeal, pebbles, rocks and various cacti look wonderful, but do make sure that too many prickles won't deter your little one from playing in his garden.

When your plants are in their place, set in your pond. Your pond can be any smaller container. We used a coconut shell but you can use a glass bowl, a porcelain bowl, a metal bowl... anything that lends itself to the magic and natural feel of your garden. Do not place your stones until you have planted the moss.

With the pond in place, it's time to plant your moss. We used a whole moss flat that we bought from Home Depot. Carefully break off chunks of moss and contour it over the landscaped hill and valley, around the pond and the tree. Remember to leave space for your path.

Then set in your rocks and pebbles for your path. All at once, your Fairy Garden looks like the magical wonderland that it is.

Water your Fairy Garden well...


And then put all the little fairy and gnome bits and pieces in place...

A rock that we painted into a toadstool. (we made this toadstool rock here)

A bench, a table and a chair.

An arbor...


A few fences and your Fairy Garden is complete!

Can you believe that we found all the above fairy furniture at various garage sales? If you have none, fret not as I am going to be showing you how to make fairy furniture over the next couple of weeks... a tiny table and chair, a fairy or gnome house and even an arbor. As we all know, things are much more magical and valued if we have made them ourselves!

Here are a few photos I couldn't resist taking... can't you just see the little fairy or gnome taking a skinny dip in the pond?

Resting comfortably on the moss?

K has been playing in her new Fairy Garden all day.


And we suspect that the fairies and gnomes will be playing in it all night!

Be sure to create you own Fairy or Gnome Garden and enter the draw to win some magical creations... Click on The Magical Fairy or Gnome Garden Challenge and Giveaway for the rules and more info.

Blessings and, especially, magic!
Donni

Friday's Nature Table.

Welcome to Friday's Nature Table, a forum for us to share our nature posts, our nature ideas, activities, inspirations and photos.

I encourage everyone to participate, the more wonderful ideas we can share about how to enjoy our beautiful earth, the happier we will all be. And thanks to everyone for their wonderful and inspiring posts last Friday... I am learning so much!

Enjoy! and thank you for sharing today...

Blessings and magic.