The faerie house created by the children.

A friend linked me to this article about a family who built delightful faerie house in their yard, and I thought it was absolutely adorable. (That’s a great website, by the way, for design ideas for children.) The faerie house is not only a great idea, but the article also contains a good step-by-step description of how they went about creating it. Just about everything they used was gleaned or gathered, nothing bought from a store: discarded seashells from a neighbor for the roof, a “fairy bed” made from a boxwood bush rootball, cattail, twigs, and bark for stuffing and wall coverings, etc.

This particularly amused me: “Underneath the house sits a little stage. This is where they hold tiny Bluegrass Festivals when we’re all asleep, of course. Bet you didn’t know that fairies love Bluegrass, did you? Well, it’s true. (at least for Virginia fairies).” How cute is that?

I don’t have children yet, but this is just the sort of thing I look forward to doing with the children I eventually hope to have. What a wonderful way to let them express their creativity, use their imagination, and also encourage them to find ingenious ways to use the materials around them, rather than automatically heading for the store.