A few years ago I was putting in a rock retaining wall and saw some stone fairy houses on Pinterest (I'm a teacher and sometimes we need IMMEDIATE ideas for an art project when recess gets rained out, or whatever-don't judge me). Then, while working on my wall I went and got the biggest rock I could move by myself...and ended up having a heart attack...but that's another story.(But, just so you have an idea of what a close family we are, when I woke up at the hospital the Dr was standing there and said, "I've never said this before, but you've had a widow-maker heart attack and came through it with no damage to your heart muscle and I can't explain it." My mother, the one who wants the fairy house, was sitting across the room and says, "I can explain it..." and the Dr looks at her expectantly, "God doesn't wan't him," she finishes as the Dr's mouth dropped open...I'm used to it.)Anyway, I ended up having to take it easy for a bit and ended up getting a bucket of gravel and making a fairy house to tuck into my wall. It had a stained glass window. I could move a few rocks away in the wall and stick in a tea-light so it looked like I had fairies living in the base of my wall. It became a total destination by the kids in my neighborhood. "SUPER COOL" it was, at least according to the bewitched 5 year olds who were drew to the fairy house. I ended up making a second one, using beach agates for windows. Also super cool, and two stories with a bay window made from a lantern. So I made the two and, that was enough. They were great fun to make but two was ENOUGH. Then my very sweet mom (who once said to me, "Honey, in some ways you are the smartest person I know," Dramatic pause. "Here it comes", I thought. And then she finishes, "in other ways you are dumb as a stick.") said she would really like to have a fairy house. My mom is also super cool.I said sure, but the truth was, I never wanted to make another one. The glue gives you a headache and the grout dyes your fingers green, and the stupid things fall apart like a more evil version of Jenga. I decided I'd give her one of mine. But, low and behold, someone had taken apart my wall in the middle of the night and stole one and broke the other one trying to lift it. I fixed that one (and cemented it down with 20 lbs of cement and iron rods pounded into the ground- hidden behind it's dainty walls. So...it meant I'd have to make my mom a fairy house. I've been putting it off for years...but this year I decided, what the heck. I'd make her one for Christmas.I'll walk you through all the steps in how I made it. The house is hollow so you can put a tea light inside and see the light through the windows. If you make one, share a picture! I'd love to see it!This is the finished fairy house. To make it I used plain old rocks, agates, a few crystals, a section of a yard stick that is the door a piece of stained glass for the window. It is glued together with E6000 glue and then grouted over with dark green tile grout.The first thing you need is a good rock for your roof.I really lucked out because I found a rock that was the perfect roof!I gave it a good scrub (the glue won't work as well if your rocks are dirty) and collected up all the loose rocks around my house. I got a good pile going and thought I was good to go. I ended up having to head out for rocks several more times!Flip your roof over and start building--but upside down! Then you jigsaw together your rocks so they fit as tightly as possible. With these bigger rocks there will be gaps and that is alright! We will add smaller rocks later to fill up the gaps. I used blue tape from some furniture I've been painting. (you can reuse that tape quite a bit if you are careful so even though expensive, it is pretty durable for re-use!) Once the glue is dry you can add another layer and move your way around the house.For the door I am using a piece of yardstick. I was originally going to take apart that lantern to use for a window but decided it was too cute to take apart. Instead I cut a small piece of stained glass. Save your longest rocks to be the lintel or top of the window frame.glued a small piece of glass behind the hole on the door. I had to use stronger tape to hold the door and window glass in place while the glue dried. That rock in front of the glass is not glued in, it is just there to keep the window from moving. All those gaps of light you are seeing will be filled with grout later on.The bottom rock under the window (but over the window in this picture...since the house is upside down) needed some scaffolding to hold it in place. Luckily our dog's medicine was just the right height and kept everything in place until the glue dried. Our 85 lb dog stopped eating ten days ago so I've been syringing blended foods into her. The vet couldn't figure out why but her liver function was off. This is why making this fairy house happened. Every ten minutes a timer goes off to either give the dog a squirt of food or a squirt of water. I'm kind of trapped so making a fairy house is keeping my mind off the doggo.If you see this beasty anywhere nearby while building, chase it away! She likes nothing more than to knock sharp pointy rocks off a table onto the floor for you to step on. Over. And over. And over.This is also a good time to warn you...if you use pliers to squeeze your glue too hard, it will burst and you will suddenly find yourself glued to the rug, glued to some rocks, glued to hair from that cat that keeps trying to steal your rocks, A few hours later when you find your pliers glued together just count yourself lucky they are not glued to your hand. Or to your cat, for that matter.What you can't see is that I have used several agates, crystals and glass to create \"windows.\" When a tea light is put inside the crystals should refract the light beautifully! I should point at, with all the glue-drying time, I have spent about hour six with but lots of breaks for the dog. Since I want this to be sturdy, I'm putting lots of extra glue on the inside. The inside will have a thick coat of grout to strengthen it further. Since the back wall will be facing a fence, I am using thicker rocks in the back with no windows or crystals. I want the back wall to be super sturdy and windows are, by nature, more fragile. This thick back wall will make up for the more delicate facade in front.I'm using a bamboo skewer to push glue into the crevices (I'm using LOTS of glue. You can see here that I'm also starting to glue smaller rocks into the crevices and around the window. The bamboo, when laid across the bottoms of the walls, helps me make a nice even base.Here it is with a set of battery operated lights inside. Those are crystals under the window and a piece of beach glass. Now you can see why I said this roof was the perfect shape!I've now glued a lot of smaller rocks into all the larger gaps. It looks terrible but just wait until the grout evens everything out! I should also point out that by this time I'm really sick of this whole thing and want to quit. I'm at hour 10 or so now on this house. The glue stinks. The freaking cat has knocked half my rocks onto the floor to step on, so i'm crabby and limpy and am really sick of blending dog food, raw liver and chicken broth together to attempt to feed the dog who will spit half of it out on me, the floor, the cat, but we had her at the vet again and she wasn't dehydrated. Pretty amazing if you consider how much a black lab/border collie/saint bernard weighs and how much food and water she needs. My ten minute timer is driving me crazy but it is keeping the dog alive. She started wagging her tail and acting alive again today. She hasn't eaten for over a week but is too weak to fight me off as I force more food/water into her. Oh...yeah, sorry, the fairy house...fill up all the gaps with little rocks, glue them in place. Lots of glue! These little rocks seemed to come loose if they weren't really glued down.Before I grout the outside I am going to use blue tape to tape over all the glass on crystals on the inside. Then I put blue tape on the entire interior to keep the grout from pouring through.Because I'm smart I'm wearing gloves. This time I am not going to dye my hands green so I look like some kind of gangrenous green fairy building contractor. I am also using a ziplock bag that I am going to snip a corner off of and use it like an Icing bag and gently ice in between each rock. What can go wrong with that?Oh yeah! It is just so neat and clean and.... Stupid cheap ziplock bags!!! Startled cat runs away. If ziplock is a brand name, I mean cheap plastic bags with a zipper-like seal. Had I bought proper ziplock bags we wouldn't even be having this conversation. (my point here, if there is a Ziplock brand, I was not using them....I had the cheapest ziplock-styled bag money can buy. Please don't sue me Ziplock people. I wasn't talking about you.So I went ahead and spread the grout everywhere, kind of like icing a cake but with your fingers instead of a butter knife. Somewhere in here I took my glove off and forgot to put it back on so my fingers are now green. After packing grout into all the gaps I took a damp soft cloth and gently wiped the grout from the stones, and rinsed the rag and wiped and rinsed and slowly what emerged....Was looking good! I let the grout dry, then used a soft toothbrush to take all the loose grout off. When that was all done, I then grouted the inside as well, taking care not to cover up any of the windows or agates! I then glued small pieces of mirror around the inside of the fairy house to reflect the lights inside and really make the windows and agates glow!And as the week progressed, and the fairy house progressed, so too did the dog. As the grout was drying I found her sneaking the cat's food. She ate some almonds. My husband gave her some Bugles (Bugles Brand....um...what is a Bugle? A chip? No. A snack cracker? Not really. I'm not even sure what they are made out of but seeing our dog eat a couple of them gave us reason to cheer. We also gave her the last of the 80,000 pills we've had to force down her throat in the past ten days. That was another reason to cheer.And here we have it! The light inside is now yellow and once the grout has had a few days to cure I will use a grout sealer on it which will make all the rocks look al little richer and the grout will look nicer too. I'm going to wrap it with the lights inside so when she opens the box it will look like her fairy house is occupied.I think she'll enjoy going out to her back yard to visit. I'll let you know what she thinks of it!As I wrap this up, I ask you, don't tell my mom what her present is--though, this is the woman who took every snowfall as a chance to wake her children up by going outside, sticking her hands in the snow and then sticking them on your back. While you slept. So, if you did tell her she'd probably appreciate your treachery.The dog ate some lasagna, the cat looks bored now that the table isn't covered with little rocks to knock about, the Christmas lights are twinkling around the house. And, even inside the little fairy house.Merry Christmas to all and to all, a good dog.Apparently reddit wants this picture to be sideways. So be it. via /r/DIY https://ift.tt/2Qdbl2y
