Children’s interests are a wonderful source of inspiration for play and art.  Fairies are featuring prominently in our days now that we have two fairy loving girls in our home and this means they are also included in many of our creative experiences.

Over the years we have done our fair share of fairy inspired art and these are some of our favourite art and play ideas:

Fairy inspired storytelling activities:

• Shadow Puppet Box

These shadow puppet boxes were a happy accidental discovery for us. They  are surprisingly easy to make and look oh so stunning. We really enjoy producing art that can be incorporated into play and this is a great example of this.

 

• Pop Up Fairy Lands

Pop Up Lands (scroll down to number 7 in this link) can be created by both younger and older children – they are very forgiving. Once a basic outline is created, it is then a matter of colouring and decorating the pop up pieces- the sky is the limit when it comes to choosing a method to colour these. You could use coloured pens, paints, water colours, crayons, oil pastels or collage materials. Once the pieces are created they are a fantastic source of inspiration for creative play.

I also shared some other examples of Pop Up Lands here.

 

• Creating a small world play scene in Kinetic Sand

Small fairy toys and kinetic sand make the perfect  combination for creating a magical kinetic sand fairy land for hours of  imaginative play.

• Sensory tile to inspire a small world scene

It is such an enjoyable, creative journey designing and making pieces for a special land. Many a fairy land have been created in our home and these small world scenes lend themselves to all sorts of fairy adventures.

• Fairy garden

• For some fairy themed storytelling outside, my children were lucky enough to have  Nonna and Grandad create lots of lovely pieces for an outdoor fairy garden (scroll down to number 3 in this link). Many fairy tea parties have been had with our collection of fairies and fairy furniture.

• Flower Fairies

Another way to create outdoors involves using flowers, leaves and twigs to create flower fairies. For these creations we used a mesh canvas. These wonderful little flower fairies make the perfect characters for any story.

Fairy Houses:

• Miniature Fairy Houses

These miniature fairy  houses are so easy to create and lots of fun to decorate.  All you need to create these houses is plastic eggs (usually available around Easter) and the outer cases  from matchboxes (matchboxes can usually be purchased at craft shops).  Combine these two resources with craft supplies to create one-of-a-kind, whimsical fairy houses.

• Light Up Fairy House

The light up fairy houses look magical with some light shining behind their beaded doors. These have been one of those creations that was (and still is) played with often.

• Paper Mache Tie Dye Tissue Paper Fairy House

This paper mache, tie dye tissue paper fairy house was another fairy house that proved to be very popular and has housed many fairy families!

• Contact Fairy House

One of the first fairy houses that my oldest daughter made was this contact fairy house (scroll down to number 2 in this link) . The resources used to create the actual fairy house were gathered from our yard. This makes for a fun treasure hunt as you collect leaves, flowers, twigs etc  from your garden to secure to the contact to create a fairy house.

Painting and Drawing

• Wax resist painting for fairy wings

We used the same technique that was used to create the backdrop for the shadow puppet boxes to recycle some worn fairy wings. These wax resist paintings produce an almost stained glass effect when the light shines through the melted crayons and make for wonderful art if you are looking to breathe new life into some old fairy wings.

• Squeeze sponge paintings

Squeeze sponge paintings are a lovely and inspiring canvas on which to create a colourful fairy land. This is a fun sensory painting activity that gives your biceps a good workout too as you squeeze paint out of  a sponge to create a dreamy painting.

• Fairy resist painting

Resist paintings are an enjoyable painting experience for younger children. These paintings give children the opportunity cover the canvas in paint and then remove, in this case, a fairy cut out, to reveal a picture. I gave my daughter some sentence starters for her to complete a poem about fairies which we added to this canvas. The sentence starters we used were: Fairies look like……; Fairies live……; Fairies eat…….; Fairies like…….. and fairies wear…….

• Painting on rocks

We have a boulder retaining wall and this makes for an excellent canvas to add a pop of colour to our yard. On one particular occasion we used the shape of the boulders to inspire a painting and some of the boulders were transformed into fairy houses.

• Creative drawing prompt – peek into a fairy house

Provide a canvas whereby children can let their imaginations run wild as they imagine what could be behind a door or window. Encourage children to brainstorm ideas as to what they would see if they opened the door and then invite them to illustrate their ideas on the paper. The fairy house pictured below has a door and windows that open. Behind them is blank paper waiting to be filled with drawings that make the fairy house come to life.

Fairy Inspired Play Dough Creations

• Picture scene

To create a play dough picture scene use some coloured paper as a canvas. Then use the play dough, as well as items to create different textured effects on the play dough, to create a picture.

• Using a  backdrop to inspire a play dough creation.

We have a stash of calendars and often use the picture pages in these as backdrops to inspire creative play and art.  Recently, my oldest daughter chose a calendar picture to inspire a play dough creation and spent a great deal of time coming up with different ideas for play dough pieces she could create to complement her picture.

Some additional creative ideas relating to fairies:

• Fairy land in a jar

It makes for an exciting creative challenge to transform a plain jar into a beautiful little fairy land. There is something special about a fairy land in a jar.

• Rainbow fairy jar

A jar filled with coloured salt makes the ideal setting for a rainbow fairy jar. The process we used to colour the salt can be found in this blog post.

• Hammer a collage

Gather some supplies to create a fairy house. Instead of gluing the pieces together on paper, hammer the pieces onto a piece of MDF.

• Outdoor treasure hunt to gather fairy supplies.

Set off on an adventure outside to gather resources from your yard to make fairy furniture, houses, boats and pieces. To inspire the creative pieces you may choose to add a fairy themed backdrop, such as a picture from an old fairy calendar.

That is a wrap for  fairy inspired art and play!