Wild Ozark

I make fairy gardens and fairy garden accessories for my market booth at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market. Want to make a fairy pool? Here’s how I do it. I sell kits to make these (bringing them to market for the first time this weekend), but you can make it yourself by following these instructions below without the kit.

Feel free to improvise at any point and make something unique! Here’s a short video tutorial… I need to practice making better videos! Lucky for you, the more detailed instructions are below.

Supplies You’ll Need to Make a Fairy Pool

• hot glue gun
• glass pebble
• small stones
• clear hot glue sticks
• crayon shavings (optional)
• powdered green herb
• small paint brush
• liquid paint (I use Mod Podge Exterior)
• sheet of parchment paper (the kind for baking)

The little glass pebbles sold wherever garden and or craft supplies are sold make perfect foundations for tiny fairy pools. They come in various colors but I like the green and blue ones.

If you plan to make yourself plenty of these you’ll want to buy the materials individually. But if you want to make just one or two fairy pool accessories, I have kits available for $10. They contain everything except the tools you’ll need. All of the other materials (pebbles, stones, twigs, herb for moss, and a little piece of parchment) are included.

Make Your Fairy Pool

Start with a small piece of parchment paper. This makes everything you do later much easier because it doesn’t stick to the hot glue.

Place your glass pebble flat side down on the parchment.

Begin gluing small stones around it. Try to finish with a flat stone slightly higher than the others so there’s a good surface to attach the diving board or pool deck.

Once you have all the stones where you want them, use the paintbrush to add the liquid glue over all the places where the hot glue shows up on the outside of your pool assembly.

Dab the pool so that the glue picks up the loos green powdered herb. Rubbed sage works, but I use powdered sassafras leaf (gumbo file’) because it retains a fairly green color a lot longer than some of the other green herbs and it’s a finer powder. The ones in the photos above are using rubbed sage. The one below is one I made with the powdered sassafras leaf.

The herb resembles moss on your rocks and looks a lot better than the hot glue.

Once the wet glue and herbs are dry you can use canned air to blow out the loose bits. Or just use your breath and give it a good puff or three.

Now it’s time to add the ‘water’ to the pool. Use the hot glue gun to fill the pool to the surface. Too add color you can shave some crayons to dye the glue. In this one I did not use the crayons so you can see the color without it. The blue glass at the bottom gives a blue cast but it’s a stronger blue if you add the crayon shavings.

Add Accents

After the hot glue is dried, add your finishing details! Want a diving board? You can make one from tiny twigs. Same for a deck. The only limitation is your imagination. I like to use jewelry wire to make curls for accents and handrails.

You can use sand to make a little ‘beach’ area.

Diving Board

Here’s the steps using the kit to make a diving board. You can use twigs to make this at home without the kit. Even with the kit you might have access to better twigs to suit your purpose more to your liking.

You may have to glue another small rock to make a good spot for the diving board to rest. Glue the diving board onto the pool.

Now make the ladder using more small twigs. Lay out two longer pieces, then add twigs for the rungs. It’s easier to glue the rungs if you leave the twigs long and then cut them after it has dried/cooled.

Attach the ladder to the diving board.

Finishing Touches

Pretty much all done now unless you want to add a guard rail. There is one included in the kit. It may need to be bent or shaped to fit your specific diving board but you can use it however you like.

You can use a little more of the herbs to cover the glue on the ladder if you want.

Finished pool using my Make a Fairy Pool Kit

Let me know if you try to make one!