Fairy gardens don’t have to be made from natural materials and they don’t have to look ‘realistic’ at all. Artificial fairy gardens give you the opportunity to create a colourful, vibrant and even garish place for your fairies to live!
Artificial fairy gardens can be made from any base big enough to hold artificial plants and fairy garden accessories. You can fill the base with sand, soil or dry foam to make a platform for the accessories. Use artificial flowers, plastic or glass beads, polymer clay canes, on top of the base to create a fairy garden.
Below is a quick bullet point list of what you’ll need:
- A container – use anything! I used a treasure chest I picked up from B&M (the UK equivalent to Dollar Tress) for £3, but you could use a jar, a basket, a small suitcase, a plant pot etc.
- Filling – you can use a dry foam brick (these from Hobbycraft are ideal for artificial fairy gardens) to fill your container, or just use sand or soil, or a combination of both! You could even use plastic packaging such as bubblewrap to fill the space – as long as what you use has a relatively flat top you can use anything!
- Decoration – your options are only limited by your imagination, but beads, polymer clay models, artificial flowers, pretty stones and kids’ toys are all good options.
The below tutorial is for an indoor fairy garden as it contains lots of plastic pieces that could be harmful to wildlife.
How I Made An Artificial Fairy Garden For Less Than £8
My daughter is nearly six and she loves unicorns, princesses and anything in pastel candy colours. So we decided to make a fairy garden together to indulge her cotton candy colour palette obsession.
Step 1 – gather or buy your supplies
After making a few natural fairy gardens, it was great to throw all the ‘rules’ of nature out of the window and go for it. We took a trip to our local B&M with a £10 budget and bought the following:
- Mini treasure chest – £3
- Artificial flowers – £2
- Bag of slime accessories – £6
- Set of paint your own fairytale figures – £4
I already had some pink and cream stones and the pink craft flowers. I’ve estimated that the whole thing cost about £8 in total as I didn’t use many of the slime accessories or flowers and only two of the paint your own models. I could have made it even cheaper if I’d made my own unicorn and rainbow out of the polymer clay I already have, but I’m not sure my skills are up to unicorn level yet.
Just a note on the slime accessories, below is what you get in a bag and if you don’t like plastic, avoid buying anything like this!! I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of plastic we use in our house over the past few years so this was not an ideal purchase.
It has glitter, plastic beads, foam balls, plastic squashy ball things, polymer clay slices and large glitter flakes. I’ll use it for many craft projects in the future but they really is the polar opposite of natural crafting materials!
Step 2 – Fill your container and plan your garden
I used a mixture of soil and sand as I already had these, but you could use floral foam if you have some. I covered the soil and sand mixture with cream gravel and pink rocks that I’d previously bought from Hobbycraft for £4 for each jar.
It’s wise at this point to have some idea of what you want the finished garden to look like. You can either write this down, or, in my case, be told exactly what you’re doing by a five year old!
It’s a good idea to have a focal point to draw in the eye and in the the case of ours, we had a waterfall on one side and balanced this with a flower forest on the other.
Step 3 – Create a feature (or two!)
My daughter and I knew we wanted a candy coloured waterfall in our fairy garden because…why not?! So we dedicated one side of the container to a waterfall. I used the pastel coloured beads from the slime accessories for the waterfall and stuck these onto the side and lid of the chest with Mod Podge. I don’t think PVA glue would work for this as it just wouldn’t be strong enough. You could use a glue gun though.
For the pool at the bottom, I used a plastic lid and filled this with the blue flat plastic pebbles from the slime accessories bag. I then made a mixture of PVA glue and water as this is how Google told me to make artificial water. Google, however, lied. It was meant to look like the pool was full of bubbles and the glue and water mix was meant to give it a lovely watery sheen. But it didn’t work, the glue seemed to dissolve almost or was so runny it leaked over the side of the pool. Whatever went wrong, it didn’t look how I wanted it to, but my daughter didn’t mind so we left it as it was!
I painted a rainbow from the paint your own model kit and placed this in the treasure chest lid, I then added some more beads to bring the ‘rainbow waterfall’ together.
If you want to find out more about how to make artificial water the right way, then I’ve written a huge blogpost covering every option How To Make Water For Miniature Models: Tips, Tricks And Tutorials.
Step 4 – Add decoration
Once you have your feature, you can decorate the rest of your artificial fairy garden. We chose to use some pale blue and pink artificial flowers as these complemented the colour theme. These flowers also helped to cover ‘seams’ in between decorations, such as the edge of the stones and pond to soften the overall look.
We used some of the green plastic pebbles and polymer clay slices to add details to the cream stones covering the ground. You can find out more about polymer clay slices and find out how to make your own in my blog post What Are Polymer Clay Slices And What Are They Used For?
The finishing touch was a pink and purple unicorn who is living its candy floss fantasy in our artificial fairy garden.
What I Would Have Done Differently
If I was to make an artificial fairy garden again, I would definitely paint the container so it matches the same colour palette as the fairy garden.
I would also stick the beads down so you can’t see the holes as I think this spoils the illusion of a bubbling waterfall a little bit.
Rather than buying a £6 bag of slime accessories, I wish I’d have looked a repurposing some existing craft materials, or even up-cycled some plastic waste instead.
Further Questions
How do you make a fairy garden without plants?
You can use artificial flowers or fake succulents or small plants if you want to make a fairy garden without plants.
Artificial plants cost a few pounds and everywhere from IKEA to Poundland sells them, as well as garden centres and hardware shops. You can cut pieces from artificial plants to match the scale of your fairy garden too.
You could even use fir cones or small branches for trees if you want a more natural look.
Can I use artificial grass for fairy gardens?
Yes, you’re best bet is to buy a small piece of artificial grass for a fairy garden supplier or see if you can get an offcuts from your local garden centre. On Etsy, you can buy small squares of artificial grass that are decorated with flowers and toadstools.
You can also use scenic scatter, grass and flock to create artificial grass, but this is designed to look more realistic than the flat sheets of artificial grass.
Can you buy miniature artificial plants for fairy gardens?
Yes, check out craft shops and dollhouse shops and for miniature plants which are just the right size for fairy gardens. I’ve written extensively about making plants, shrubs and hedges for dollhouses and miniature gardens so why not have a go at making your own? Check out How To Make Miniature Model Bushes, Shrubs And Hedges.