Introduction: How to Make Fairy Doors/Fairylands and Open Up a Whole New World!

By www.facebook.com/lonnie.sikes
About: Retired, doing art work now. Great. Have the time and the money to spend doing what I want to do.

Fairy doors are an opening to another space and time. Fairies are out there, it is just up to us to provide them with homes...we do that by giving them a door, a portal as it were, to their living space. They can live anywhere, but prefer wooded areas, trees especially, but can live in your home if you choose. This instructable shows how to make a welcoming entry way for the Fairies.

Step 1: Tools and Materials

To make these doors, I decided to recycle some left-over laminated flooring that was left from a recent floor re-do. Also, a few doors were made with aged cedar fence boards, 1/4 inch plywood, and so on. Tools included bandsaw, drill press, hot melt glue gun, belt sander and so on. Many hand tools could be used to cut blanks if power tools are not available. We found online some brass purse studs that make perfect doorknobs. Thin acrylic is used as window material, green moss used in floral displays is used as accents, and hinges are cut from soft drink can aluminum. For the furniture and window surrounds, small twigs are cut from dead tree branches and/or bushes found in the yard.

Step 2: Designing and Cutting Your Door

Photos show three different materials/designs for the doors. Sizes are entirely arbitrary, as some are custom fitted to depressions in a tree, for example. Generally, sizes are 4inches by 3, or 6inches by 5.

Step 3: Adding Hardware and Timbers for Door Surround

Here the doors are completed by adding "hardware" and branches/twigs to give the doors the woodsy look. For the doorknobs, a quarter inch forstner bit is used to make a hole for the screw to fit into. A 3/16 inch bit is then used to drill through and allow the screw to attach to the outer knob. Hinges are made from the soft drink aluminum, tacked on with the Goop adhesive. Different size windows are drilled with forstner bits, and can be made square or diamond shape with a scroll saw or jig saw. A sign is made from small pieces of wood of the correct size to fit over the doorknob as shown. Messages can include you childs name, or "Mary's Fairies", "Shh...fairies sleeping", "Do Not Disturb", "Just Believe", and so on.

Step 4: Finishing Touches

A rocking chair is made from twigs. Then, we had to have a table and chairs for the fairies! A window is made to add to the fairyland scene developed around the big California pepper tree in our back yard. A split rail fence is added to the ledge which is cut from a large section of tree stump with a chain saw. Two doors in progress are shown, with hinges, doorknob, window frame and sign added. Green moss is placed sparingly to give the doors an out doorsy look.

Step 5: Make a FairyLand in a Tree

Here is a view of the Pepper tree we used to make our fairyland.

Step 6: Some Doors Made As Gifts

The doors make great gifts, and really sparks the imaginations of some people, young and old alike. It's fun to see the expressions on people's faces when they see these!