How to make a Leaf-Covered Fairy House

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Materials to Make the Leaf-Covered Fairy House

• Card stock - If using card stock, I prefer 110# card stock for the structure of the Fairy Houses, but 65# card stock works, too. Card stock works for the leaves as well
• Cardboard - you know that cardboard is my favorite material for making houses - 22 point cardboard works well. I did use cardboard for the structure of the Leaf-Covered Fairy House
• Watercolor paper takes stain and paint beautifully - makes great leaves. But after an epic fail with one prototype, I recommend lighter weight watercolor paper or even regular card stock.
• Gesso primer for painting cardboard
• Acrylic paint for painting cardboard
• Distress Spray Stains give the leaves such beautiful vibrant colors.
• Glue options - Quick Dry Tacky Glue for the structure of the cardboard house or Bearly Art Glue for gluing card stock together. Quick Dry Tacky Glue worked best on the heavy watercolor paper I used for my house.
• A way to cut out the pieces, I use my Cricut Maker but you can use other cutting machines to make this Fairy House

1. Download the Pattern for the Leaf-Covered Fairy House - Design No. 162

This pattern for the leaves to decorate your Fairy House is free in the Paper Glitter Glue library. My files are available in 2 formats - SVG cut files for cutting machines like the Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore and PDF files you can print out.

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Please note that the pattern files are in a zipped format. That is, they are compressed so they can be downloaded relatively easily. If you need help unzipping the files, these instructions below will help.

If you are having difficulty unzipping the folders, here are the instructions:

• Here's how to unzip a folder using an iPad or iPhone.
• To learn how to unzip a folder using a Windows computer, click here. 
• To learn how to unzip a folder with an Android device, click here. 
• To learn how to unzip a folder using a Mac, click here.

2. Choose the Fairy House Shape

For most of the patterns in this series, you have 3 choices of Fairy Houses structures that work with these patterns.

Here are the 3 shapes of Fairy Houses in this series. Choose one of the 3.

The Circular Fairy House

The Hexagon-shaped Fairy House

And the Fairy Cottage

5. For watercolor paper leaves, paint or stain the leaves

I love to use watercolor paper for my leaves because it takes stain or paint so beautifully. You can see an example in this ombre leaf wreath I made. See what vibrant colors the stain makes.

The major issue I had with the large leaf cutouts which were made with 140# watercolor paper is that they were very difficult to adhere to the roof because they didn't want to conform to the shape of the roof.

The small leaves worked pretty well. They were a little bit stubborn to get them to adhere, but not too bad.

And of course, it helps to wear gloves when staining.