School holidays are almost upon us and perhaps you might be looking for some fun activities for your little ones.

Why not create a magical fairy garden with MiniZoo figures to encourage some nature play?

You will need:

• A large pot or corner of a garden bed
• Potting mix
• Flowers or other plants of your choice ready to plant
• Empty plastic container (I’ve used an ice cream container)
• Dark coloured paint and paintbrush
• A large collection of small rocks
• A few large dried leaves
• Glue (I’ve used a hot glue gun but if you’re using one, always use with an adult and with care)
• Any other garden decorations you’d like to include (I’ve got wooden stepping stones, miniature pine cones and some old snail shells out of the garden)
• MiniZoo figures (of course!). I’ve used the Safari Fairy Fantasies Designer Toob, the Papo Elf Child and the CollectA Ladybird.

To begin with, you want to fill your pot about halfway or three-quarters full with potting mix. How much you need will depend on the size of your pot and how many plants you’ve chosen. My pot is a half-barrel size of 55cm wide and 38cm tall. I’ve used four plants - three floral and one mixed fern for extra greenery. Carefully place them in your pot in positions you’re happy with and fill the rest of the pot with more soil. I’m not much of a green thumb, but try to choose plants that will thrive in your climate. One of the reasons I chose to use a pot instead of a garden bed is so that I can move my plants in and out of the weather as needed (consider sun, rain and frost at this time of year).

To make your enchanted fairy house, cut your plastic container to suit your design. I simply cut the lip off and cut out a door frame. I then used dark grey paint to create a base, covering up the brand and bright colours. This will mean that it won’t matter if your rocks don’t perfectly fit together and you can see through gaps in the rocks to the plastic underneath. Choosing the configuration of the rocks may take some time, finding the perfect one for each space may be a little like a puzzle (one which my daughter and I quite enjoyed). Larger ones are better at the bottom as they’re heavier and won’t overbalance the house. My daughter loves collecting rocks on our walks around our neighbourhood, and so we had a surprisingly large collection of rocks, which meant we were able to spread them all out and see what shapes and sizes we had to choose from. After we secured all the rocks, we then glued the large autumn leaves onto the roof to finish it off. 

Once you’ve carefully placed your fairy house amongst the plants, it’s time to add your MiniZoo figures. I chose the Safari Fairy Fantasies Designer Toob because they’re small and I wanted to use the larger CollectA Ladybird to show the scale I was going for, but MiniZoo has many options for fairies. 

The Safari Friendly Fairies Super Toob and the Safari Fairies and Dragons Designer Toob also have a selection of small fairies. If you’re after larger fairy figures for a big fairy garden, Schleich Bayala would be perfect. I love Sera and her Blossom Unicorn.

I like the Papo Elves because they’re sweet, and what I typically think of when I consider fairies hiding in the garden, but they are much larger than the Toob fairies. I would have also included the Papo Elf Children and Pony but I ran out of space, so think about what size you’d like to make your fairy garden when you’re planning it out.

If you want fairies that are more elegant and a little more princess-like, Papo’s fairies are perfect in their beautiful dresses and magic wands, e.g. The Starry Fairy. 

Using insects or other animals are a great way to show the scale of your fairies. MiniZoo’s CollectA Ladybird or Papo Ladybird (coming soon) are perfect for this. The Bullyland Vineyard Snail and butterflies from the Safari Butterfly Toob would also be beautiful choices to include.

Lastly, I added my extra decorations: wooden stepping stones, miniature pine cones, old snail shells and a little wooden mushroom block.

Encouraging imagination is one of our goals here at MiniZoo, and what better way to do that than to help your little ones play amongst nature with make believe creatures. If you want to add a little extra magic and mystery, perhaps you can move the fairies into different positions in the garden while your kids are sleeping.

We’d love to see your fairy garden creations so please share some photos with us on Facebook or Instagram.

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Jenna @ MiniZoo