xoxo Grandma: How to Make a Fairy Cottage

I loved making THIS fairy house so much, I've come up with another fairy abode I'm dubbing a "fairy cottage." This little cottage was made from a felted sweater sleeve (though feel free to just use felt). With summer right around the corner, go ahead, cut off a wool sweater and shrink it to make this toy. Join me in the fun and make one too!

Craft Supplies needed:

Felted wool sleeve cut from a sweater.
1 small container like a Gerber brand item
Scissors
Thread or glue
Embroidery floss
1 button
Light green felt scraps for leaves
Dark green felt (9" x 9")
3 silk flowers
15 sequins
15 small clear beads
Pins

How to make a fairy cottage:

Cut a sleeve from an old sweater. If it's not felted, just rinse the wool sleeve in hot water and throw it in your drier.
Cut openings from the container using the patterns found HERE.
Cut off the excess of the sleeve from the bottom of the container leaving 1/3" extra length to attach to the leaf base.
Cut the cuff of the sleeve into 3 equal pieces. Make the edges of the cut pieces into points.
Using the downloaded patterns (see step 2), embroider the edge of 3 leaves and sew onto the ends of the cut-up cuffs.
Using the pattern, make a door as instructed HERE. See steps 8 and 11-14.
Cut netting about 1/2" larger than the window openings. Sew the netting from the back side of the cottage close to the edge of the window.
With 3 strands of embroidery floss, embroider around the edges of the windows with a chain stitch and the edge of the door opening with a blanket stitch.

9. Make a closure across from where you want a door knob. To make this, Sew six strands of floss 3/8" apart and loop stitches all around the floss. Then pull the tread tight. Once the floss is covered with the tightly pulled loops, tie the thread off from the back side of the cottage.

10. Opposite the closure, sew on a button to the door.

11. Cut out the leaf foundation from two layers of felt and one of stiff interfacing.

12. Using a different colored green thread from the felt, sewing around the edge of the foundation, using a blanket stitch. Use a blanket stitch to form the leave's shapes. Then use a durable stretch stitch. (This stitch gives the veins of the leaves more definition.) To save time, I used my sewing machine for all this stitching.

13. Pull the sleeve over the container. Around the edges, using an epoxy, glue the cottage to the container.

14. Now, the fun part, which to me is adding extra embroidered leaves and silk flowers to the cottage. I sewed sequins onto the center of the flowers and secured them in place with small clear beads sewn on top of the sequins. Then I tucked and tacked down leaves as I played with my design. If you don't want to sew the details down, you can simply glue these components onto your house.

This fairy cottage is so sweet and inviting. This toy can be used with welcome imaginative play or it can easily be turned into a night light by tucking in an LED light through the door's opening. Please join me tomorrow at Nap Time Creations for more fairy fun. xoxo Grandma

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