Can I get some more information to help me?
Thanks

I tried putting more hot glue and it globbed out.

Confused: Is the frame side down in the sand suppose to be the final front or is it the reversal?

Confused about sprinkling sand on the hot glue. If the frame side down in the sand contacts and sticks to the hot glue why sprinkly more sand on the other side?

I know why he is charging $300.00 a house. whewwwwwww

Don't give up, we will eventually figure this out.

lol, Junklady

"Dear Friends,

We have had an amazing response to the Fairy Homes segment of the Carol Duvall Show and we are extremely grateful to all of you who wrote to us with your comments and questions. Among the questions you asked were ones concerning the glue and the mortar. We would like to try and give you a little more detail than we did in the initial rush of, quite literally, hundreds of emails to answer.

First of all, the glue. The glue used to tac the twigs together is a hot melt glue used in the packaging industry and is made by 3M. It is not generally available in craft or hardware stores. It differs from ordinary hot melt glue in that it comes in 12 in. long sticks and has a higher melting temperature, making it more stable when exposed to hot sun. However, the hot melt glue, for me, is only a temporary method of holding the twigs together while I perform the other operations, so ordinary hot melt wood glue will probably work fine for that purpose. The glue that is actually used to hold the shingles together is a polyurethane exterior glue which is available at any good hardware store.

Now, the mortar. Unfortunately, I can't be quite as helpful with that. The mortar, which I referred to as cold processed porcelain for simplicity's sake, is a formula that I have evolved myself and is not commercially available. It is a combination of rare earth elements and chemical compounds and the formula is proprietary. Additionally, some of the materials needed to make the formula are only available in very large quantities and the cost is in excess of a single house.

But if you don't mind the adventure of making a new house every year or two, there are other materials that can be used to create a fairy house using the method of free casting in sand. Let me give you the good news and the bad news with each of them.

Plaster of paris: It is very easy to work with, readily available, is easy to clean up in places where it doesn't look believable as mortar. This is the material that I began with. If I could design the universe, I would still be using this material. Unfortunately (bad news) gypsum, which is what plaster of paris is, is water soluble. Despite its rock-like appearance, after about a year of exposure to the elements, it will begin to erode and the twigs will become disengaged from the house, resulting in a pile of rubble. If you intend to keep the house indoors, this will work fine. (You can try coating the finished walls with boat resin or penetrating epoxy but they both smell awful, are terribly toxic, and the fairies gave me all kinds of s**t about using it.)
Hydrostone: Same problem.
Fast setting cement: Will not dissolve, but does not adhere very well to the twigs. After one or two years, you will end up with a pile of rubble.
Dry lock: Same characteristics as fast setting cement.

The rest of the process of making fairy houses in the way that I do is shown on the Carol Duvall show segment or falls into the category of micro management and really requires your own creativity. The most important part of the process remains finding and listening to the twigs and stones that you use.

Good luck in your creative endeavors. And please continue to visit our web site. We offer Fairy Houses for sale from about $130 and, as those of you who have been trying to make your own can attest, they are well worth it!
http://www.fairywoodland.com

And those of you who wrote with questions regarding adhesives and resins for other purposes, if I haven't answered your mail yet, I will get to it as soon as I can.

--
Regards,
John Crawford
Fairy Woodland"

"a combination of rare earth elements and chemical compounds and the formula is proprietary"

this is a really wonderful site

or hypertufa mushroom houses(ok for some reason my mind is going to the smurfs but what they heh)

With changes in temperature (hot to cold and back again), the hot melt glue will eventually become brittle and separate from the sticks. John suggests you reinforce the hotmelt glue joints with an exterior quality urethane glue such as probond.

That waterwheel pond looks fantastic. I think we can do with with simple table top fountain materials.

Ianna

I'll keep looking!

Ianna

I'm actually starting work on an art project for an art festival called Burning Man (see: www.burningman.com) and the basic idea of the project is a "fairy tree." What I want to do is build a life-size tree, with a community of fairy houses and fairies.

I've been brainstormind different ideas and trying some things out. At first I was thinking of making the fairies from cloth dolls (something like the ones seen here: http://www.clothdollconnection.com/ClothDollDesigners.html ) which are fun to make, but terribly time consuming! So I think I've resolved to make the fairies and some other components from polymer clay. I've worked with it before, and have seen some incredible artwork made from it.

So that got me to thinking that perhaps clay(s) could be used in the construction of fairy houses? There's so many kinds of clay, most of them incredibly durable, and might work for this purpose. Has anyone tried it? Polymer clay is pretty tough but I'm not sure how it holds up outdoors. Anyone know?

Keep the ideas coming...I can definitely use them! Thanks!

-Ash

For a full sized outdoor 'tree' you might as well rely on cement and chicken wire, rebars to hold it up. Disneyworld used something similar for their tree of life.

Ianna

As for the Disney Tree of Life, I hadn't heard of it before, but I just looked it up, and it's wonderful! I'm not going to be making anything quite so magnificent, but it's definitely inspirational.

My art piece will only be temporary, and has to be relatively light weight as it has to be moved to and from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. It only has to last a week, so it doesn't have to be totally heavy duty. I may make a more permanant tree to use the different elements (the fairies and their houses) after the initial project, and in that case something more permanant would be called for.

Thanks for the ideas!

-Ashley

What is Pecan Resin, Porcelain Resin, Cultured Marble...?
Plastic resins are usually used with various types of fillers. The fillers make the cured resin stronger, save cost because less resin is used, and impart a desired look to the cured plastic. Pecan resin is plastic resin in which very finely ground up pecan shells ("pecan flour") has been used as a filler. The pecan flour is the same consistency as ordinary baking flour. Cured pecan resin has a dark woody look, similar to walnut wood. Porcelain resin is plastic resin in which powdered clay has been used as a filler to make an imitation porcelain. Aluminum Trihydrate can also be used for a more translucent look. Cultured marble is plastic resin in which calcium carbonate (also called marble dust) has been used as a filler. In addition to fillers, colors can also be added to plastic resins to further enhance the look. Various pigments are almost always added to cultured marble resins to give a natural "streaks-of-color" look. Many, many terms have been created to refer to plastic resin castings in an attempt to make them seem more desirable. All the terms refer to the same basic thing: plastic resin with some type of filler in it. Common terms include "wood resin", "cold-cast resin", "cold-cast bronze", "imitation stone", "marble resin", "indoor/outdoor resin", "cast marble", "bonded marble", "bonded bronze", etc. etc. The terms "cultured stone" or "cast stone" usually refer to products made from cement or concrete, however.

Hope this helps!
Lynn

I'm in the process of making an entire village for my girl's fairy garden. I was thinking about using river rock/pebbles and some type of mortar used for ponding or outdoor use and just creating them similar to a regular brick house would be made - on a much smaller scale of course. Then creating the little twig roofs and mortaring them to the stones. I haven't started on it yet as I still have to work out the logistics for doors and windows but my trip to the craft store this weekend should help with that...

I'm also building a twig gazebo which will be placed at the top of a small "hill" overlooking the village, among some mini roses which I'm hoping to prune and train into "climbing roses" for it - using heavy duty resin to join the twigs and raffia to cover the joints... Still looking for little twig furniture to furnish the outdoor room similar to our own gazebo but haven't found anything the right size yet.... Its very rustic looking to say the least. I'm using an old piece of floral oasis to help stand my twigs up while I create and and attach the roofing and its been quite a process. I only get to work on it at small intervals and I have to have everything perfectly figured out before I will place and glue anything cause the apoxy is difficult to argue with if something gets glues in the wrong spot or just doesn't look right.

I was thinking about other ideas though...
A frame work of some type of craft wood (maybe 1/2" x half" stuff??) done like framing of a real house as my husband taught me while building our home this year (I have a staple gun/nailer that shoots tiny tiny nails), with resin used to glue twigs to it to create the walls. I collected many pieces of bark that fell off firewood last winter for these to use as roofs. But I'm still not sure how the frame will hold up once the weight of twigs and roof are on it.

something similar to the fairy woodland houses (and inspired by them) pea gravel laid out on wax paper then fill the gaps with the motar used for ponding (the stuff with resin fibers in it - makes it very strong and flexible). Again - haven't tried it yet! The corners of the house would be resined/apoxy. Not sure how to cover the resin yet - but since most of my houses will be nestled among a fairly thick bed of sweet woodruff and wild strawberries I figured most shiny apoxy would be hidden - and if its really a problem I think a quick scrub with steel wool once the entire thing is set and dry would dull any shine. Plus you could always use a little glue, sprinkle on sand or peagravel then spray with some clear coat protectant. I really think this would be easiest as windows or other embelishments could be laid into the wall before mortaring. But I chose to try the other way first cause I just like the idea of laying each "rock" and slapping on mortar one row at a time to create it much like the wee folk might if doing it themselves. :)

Two large sections of bark (I have two that are 12 inches tall 5 inches wide) to create an A-frame. Lay them in sand at the angle you want them to create a V shape in the sand - remove then lay out twigs to fill the V. Use apoxy - or if really looking for an authentic look use jute or other twine to tie each twig to the next... When front and back walls are done apoxy the roof bark to the walls.....

I'm sure I can think of other things but my kids are coming up the driveway from summer school and they tend to read over my shoulders.... I'm creating the village on the sly and will slowly add house by house then finally the gazebo and ring of little stump seats around the moss hollow at night... I may even put them out during each stage of "building" just to get the kids excited to think someone is building in our little garden....

And if you couldn't tell I LOVE apoxy - I've used it to fix many many things. But I'm open to new items and trying new materials, so if you know of something similar let me know so I can experiment with it!

Above all I think the key thing is time and patience. Each wall should be done days before it is all joined together to give any apoxy/mortar etc more than enough time to cure and harden and be ready to face the pressure of supporting other walls and roof.

I build fairy houses using a craft grade wooden bird house as a base. I seal them with spar/marine varnish before decorating. If people wish to place them outside, I caution them to keep the houses off the ground and in as protected an area as possible. It is a natural product and will weather with time and exposure.

Come visit the Garden Junk Forum. Do a search for "fairy houses", there's a lot of info there.
Good luck!

A feature length fantasy documentary, "Gateways to Faerie" will show at Port Station One (496 NE Bus. 20) Saturday, September 4 at 7:30 p.m. The screening is a benefit for Lincoln County Food Share with a $5 suggested donation or a non-perishable food item. The film was made by Andy Corwin and Toledo-area artists John Crawford and Bridget Wolfe. Crawford and Wolfe own Fairy Woodland near Toledo, where he produces fairy houses. Wolfe is a storyteller and writer of mystical tales that accompany each house Crawford builds. The family-friendly film explores myths and legends about faeries, and how they can teach a greater appreciation for the natural and spiritual worlds.

John Crawford began as a puppeteer at age 10, and has worked professionally in the arts and entertainment industry most of his life, designing and constructing fantastical creatures and miniature habitats for stage, television, commercials, and feature motion pictures. His work has won numerous awards including one from the Cannes Film Festival for Special Effects. Crawford has been a professional puppeteer, a lighting designer, a scenic artist, and an arts advocate. He was technical director and teacher of puppetry and technical theater at New York University and principal public events manager for the University of California Los Angeles campus.

Bridget Wolfe is a teacher, writer, myth keeper, and storyteller. She has spent almost 30 years studying shamanism, and has blended the teachings of medicine wheels and sacred ritual with her more formal education – she has earned MA degrees in English and Clinical Psychology – to create ceremonial retreats and rites of passage for groups in the U.S., England and Ireland. In her collaboration with Crawford, she has written fairy tale vignettes for more than 500 of his fairy house sculptures; her first book, The Thirteenth Moon: Fairies in the Doorway, is in process.

http://www.gatewaystofaerie.com/faerie/bonus.html

Right now I have too many other projects and winter is coming, but maybe in the spring...

Kathy

I dug this up from way back in almost prehistory.

I lost all of my info and pictures re faerie gardening.
What scale is the standard for figures and their buildings?
I thought the buildings were generally abut 10" tall but need a memory boost.

Thanks

Jim