I love fairy gardens and have always wanted to make one for our home. Since the kids were on summer break, I thought making one together would be the perfect summer project. Plus, it’s a great way for me to show the kids that you can recycle things from around the house and make it into something new and wonderful.  Thus, the soda bottle fairy garden house was born!

Soda Bottle Fairy Garden House

Supplies:

• 2L empty soda bottle
• Duck Tape in your color choice for roof (suggestions – white, gold, brown, silver)
• Acrylic Paint in your choice for house/roof/door
• Clear coat spray paint
• Small rocks
• Twigs
• Twine
• Glue gun/glue sticks
• Paint brushes
• Fabric
• Exacto knife or scissors *If using an Exacto knife, make sure an adult does these parts of the project.*
• Sharpie pen

Directions:

• Remove the label from a 2L bottle. Don’t worry if some of the label remains because that will be covered with paint. Just try to get it as smooth as possible.
• Cut the bottom off of the bottle where you see a seam. The top half will become your house. I used the bottom half to hold the paint that is used later in this project, so don’t throw that out.

• Use a Sharpie pen to mark where you would like your door and windows. Then, use an Exacto knife or scissors to cut out two windows and a door. *Since I wanted the door to be partially open, I cut out about 3/4 of the door and folded the door open.*
• I sort of did this part backwards and painted the house after the roof was on, but learn from my mistake. Once you cut the windows and door, this is when you want to paint your house.
• The very top of the bottle will be covered with Duck tape, so that portion won’t need to be painted. Just make sure to paint at  least 1 1/2″ above the highest point of your cut out windows/door. Apply two or more coats for an opaque finish.

Tips:

• If leaving the fairy door partially open, paint the inside of the bottle too.
• To prevent the bottle from melting, use the glue gun on low temperature and use as little as possible. E6000 can be used in place of a glue gun.

• Now that the house is painted, it’s time to prepare the roof. Cut 6-7 14″ pieces of Duck tape. Fold the Duck tape onto itself, leaving about 1/4″ of the sticky portion showing. Then, cut out small triangles out on the folded edge at approximately 3/4″ apart (see picture above).
• Once all the pieces are cut, start wrapping them around the top half of the bottle for the roof. Make sure to overlap the tape over each other and stagger the cut out triangles. When you get to the top of the bottle, wrap the top with a piece of Duck tape and finish off with a circle cut out for the top of the cap.

• Paint the roof. I used the Martha Stewart Multi-Surface Metallic Acrylic Paint in Auburn Copper. When the entire house is painted, spray a coat of clear sealant over the entire piece.

Decorating:

Now, it’s all in the details. Start decorating! We used small stones (from an old fish tank we had), twigs (from our yard), fabric for the curtains, and twine. This is where you can let your imagination run wild and decorate the soda bottle fairy house any way you desire.

Here’s how we decorated our house –

• Twigs around the window
• Tiny rocks for the door handle
• Cut fabric for the curtains
• Twine around the door frame

Once we were done with the fairy house, we filled a large pot with soil and positioned our soda bottle fairy house in it, made a rock pathway, twig archway, and added some plants.

The bare spots are waiting for a fairy figurine and a fairy well, which I’ll be posting about next week.

Here is our soda bottle fairy house. We’re on our way to a full-blown fairy garden pot!

*To see the finished fairy garden pot, visit the Water Bottle Fairy Garden Well tutorial*

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Photo Credit: mypinterventures.com

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