These DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses were fun to make and a perfect addition to our fairy garden! See how we made them and save this to Pinterest so you can make them
Last week the kids had fall break and while I generally work all day during the week, I’ve been craving time with them. As they both grow older (*now 11 and 8) I don’t want to let these breaks from school slip us by without doing something fun. I had been intending to make DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses for the blog anyways and thought they might find the activity fun too. And they did! In fact the best part about this craft was being able to spend quality time with them and watching how invested they were in making details for their little fairy homes.
Getting the pumpkins
We started the afternoon by going to a local grower one street over and picking out pumpkins to use for the DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses. Our pumpkin crop this year was overtaken by cucumber beetles and squash bugs so the pickings were slim. (I’m devising a plan for next year to ensure our harvest is better.) I told the kids they could pick whatever pumpkins they wanted to use and the farmers gave us a deal on them. This is pretty common here is you live in a community of growers, and I’ve found it is one of the perks shopping local at my neighbor’s farms. When I told the woman what were were doing she was so excited. She said she would have been, “so into this,” as a little kid. I hope that we inspired her to do it with her children or even grandchildren.
Setting up the table
When we got home we set up our table to carve. We have a large, plastic table protector that I will haul out for messy crafts. We bought it years ago to protect our table when we were hosting a holiday. It is something like this {HERE}. Then we used a pencil to crave outlines for the stem opening and the doorways and windows. Each of the kids is now old enough that they were able to use those pumpkin cutting tools on their own. Roman needed a little help on the corners and details but otherwise he was good.
(As a side note, I know some of you might think your boys won’t be into making DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses. We have a fairy garden here in my kitchen herb garden and Roman likes to play in it sometimes still so I figured he would be okay. If you have a boy or even a girl that isn’t into making “fairy” houses, try pitching it as tiny dragon homes or dinosaur toy homes to see if they will be more interested. Roman has some smaller dragon toys he plays with often so I was prepared to plead my case and pitch this to him in a variety of ways.)
The details
Once the tops were cut off the pumpkins, the kids scooped the seeds out (which I reserved for roasting) and then worked on the details. We talked about where they wanted the windows, what they wanted to use for the doors and attaching dried flowers and leaves for decorations. While they were waiting for me to finish (because I decided to make two double decker DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses), they went in search of sticks, wood chips and other flowers we could use to decorate. They brought in a whole basket of goodies – again surprising me with how much they enjoyed this activity.
My daughter made the steps for her house out of coasters we had. My son made his out of woodchips and one coaster. They each used the glue guns on their own (really their first time using that) and did it while I was still attaching flowers to the outsides of my DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses.
The gluing of flowers and leaves
So, I will tell you we did use modge podge for the gluing of the flowers and the leaves. Before we compost our pumpkins I intend on skinning these with a potato peeler because modge podge is not biodegradable or eco friendly. Generally it wouldn’t be a huge deal to me but since these are crafts that can be composted, I wanted to try an alternative. I’ve found several people pitching that you can glue flowers and leaves to pumpkins using corn starch and water or flour and water. Well, I tried both and they’re lying. The corn starch will harden and be worth nothing. The flour and water does work to a certain extent. In fact, I’ve used that {HERE} on this DIY seed tape. On this project, it did not work for me because it is too clumpy and it isn’t clear.
However, I did find a blog with a few DIY glue recipes {HERE}. If I had thought about this in advance I would have tried one of these. Again, though, I have doubts about them coming out clear. They certainly look like decent options though!
Supplies for DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses
- Pumpkins – Any shape and size will do but the smaller and Cinderella/Jarrahdale pumpkins are a little more difficult to carve because they don’t have much of a seed cavity.
- Pumpkin carving tools – Some sort of carving knife that can carve details and a spoon to scoop seeds.
- Decorations – Perhaps the most fun part! I might have gone a little overboard here. But I love how the dried flowers look. I love how even the very decorated Jarrahdale pumpkins even look like they’re meant to be hidden with the thyme in my kitchen herb garden. I also loved how we used found objects to create the doors and sticks for the windows. Make sure to gather some from your yard or even a local park before you start this craft.
- Lights for inside the pumpkins – We used Fairy lights after I placed the pumpkins in the herb garden. However, fairy lights often are not waterproof so just make sure to take them out or turn them off if your pumpkins aren’t under cover. You can, of course, leave your pumpkin inside too.
Pressed flowers and leaves
We are almost to the end of our flower season here in Michigan. The only reason it isn’t already over is because I’ve been very slow in taking down the gardens this season. Between writing the recipe book and the kids’ sports schedules, I’m beat. However, if you still have flowers floating around, you can press your own for this DIY Pumpkin Fairy House craft. Leaves will work too but tend to be more difficult to stick on with their
Like the other dried flower crafts I’ve been making lately you can quickly press flowers with this microwave flower press {HERE}. or you can also buy pressed flowers from sellers on Etsy or Amazon. I’ve used these {HERE}, {HERE} and {HERE}.
Finda place to put them
One of the things I love about the DIY Pumpkin Fairy Houses is how they fit right in with the now very crowded fairy garden. The garden usually only has a few houses and a toad home that I made in pottery but now it is really a village. It’s set in our stone flower bed that Kevin and I built a few years ago, which you can find {HERE}. It always looks a bit run down at the end of the season but that kind of goes with the territory for late fall here.
If you don’t have a set up fairy garden to display your DIY Pumpkin Fairy House you can put it anywhere in your yard or even in your home or on the porch. I hope the fairies enjoy it!
Looking for more Halloween ideas or dried flower crafts?
If you love a good Halloween craft or just dried flower crafts, check out these posts too.
- DIY Halloween Witch Decor {HERE}
- DIY Dried Floral Fall Fireplace Decor {HERE}
- DIY Magic Potions/Harry Potter Potions {HERE}
- Pressed Flower Candles {HERE}
- Pressed Flower Bookmarks {HERE}
Thank you so much for visiting today, friends! I hope that you love this DIY Pumpkin Fairy House craft and that you come back and visit again. Happy crafting!
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