A Fairy Cottage
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It doesn't take much to make a fairy feel at home. For this cozy cottage, an empty cracker or pasta box is fitted with a craft stick door and topped with a paper leaf roof. Then its ready to finish off with pintsize details, such as a dangling doorbell, a chimney with cotton "smoke," and paper patio stones.
Download A Fairy Cottage TemplateWhat you'll need
- Empty cracker box (or similar cardboard box)
- Craft knife
- Scissors
- 4 wooden craft sticks
- 2 pipe cleaners
- Glue dots
- 2 flat buttons and 1 shank-style button
- Pushpin
- Paper or silk flower
- Thin ribbon or string
- Small bell
- Print out the template and use it to cut out a bunch of green paper leaves. Crease each leaf down the center to give it more shape.
- 3 small paper cups (5-ounce size)
- Stapler
- Craft or scrapbook paper (shades of green for the roof leaves and brown or beige for the patio stones)
- Cotton ball or cotton batting
- Corrugated cardboard
How to make it
Use the craft knife (adults only) to cut a 4-by 2½-inch door opening in the front panel of the box.
Create a door by setting the four craft sticks side-by-side and bending pipe cleaners around the tops and bottoms to hold them together, as shown.
Now attach the door to the box. Use a pushpin to poke hinge holes in the cardboard alongside the door opening, aligning them with the pipe cleaners on the door. For each hinge, thread one of the adjacent pipe cleaner ends through the hole and then twist the two ends together and trim them short, as shown. Top the hinges with buttons, and glue the flower to the face of the door.
For a doorbell, tie a small bell to one end of a short length of ribbon or string. Tie the other end of the ribbon to the loop of a shank-style button. Use a glue dot to stick the button in place beside the door.
Print out the dis and use it to cut out a bunch of green paper leaves. Crease each leaf down the center to give it more shape.
Turn one of the paper cups upside down and cut out the bottom. Staple paper leaves to the cup bottom, as shown, overlapping and layering them to create a full conical roof.
For a chimney, cut off and discard the upper two thirds of another paper cup. Notch the cut edge of the remaining portion of the cup, and then invert the cup, as shown. For smoke, cut an X in the cup bottom, and insert a cotton ball or a bit of batting. Glue the chimney to the top of the roof.
To attach the roof to the cottage, notch the top of the third paper cup and then glue the cup to the box top, as shown.
Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard into the shape of a cutting board (if you have a small cutting board, you can trace around it).
Glue the cottage to the end of the cardboard cutting board.
Finally, glue on a pathway of paper patio stones leading to the cottage door.
