DIY Flower Fairies

My oldest daughter (5) noticed a couple of flower fairies hiding in a silk flower arrangement a while back. Rather than let her play with mine, I gathered the materials to make some of her own. This is one of my absolute favorite kind of crafts, because the end product doesn't simply look pretty: it can be played with!
My second favorite thing about this craft is how adaptable it is. There are a few basic materials you'll need, but after that you can improvise with whatever you find in your craft stash.
Oh, and my third favorite thing? No glue! (Or even sewing!)
Here's what we did

Materials

Required

• Pipe cleaner or fabric wrapped floral wire (the former is Much easier for little hands. If you have to buy it, look for the extra skinny rather than the fuzzy variety. You don't need the bulk.) 
• Wooden beads for heads, about 1/4 to 1/3 inch in diameter. 
• Silk flower bush (we got ours from the Dollar Tree and it had enough blossoms for 5-6 fairies) 

Optional

• Embroidery floss or yarn for hair
• Beads of various shapes and sizes 
• Scraps of fabric

Tools

• Scissors or wire cutters for pipe cleaners
• Better scissors for cutting yarn or thread
• Pen (I used a fine line Sharpie) for drawing face

Making Your First Fairy 

I'm going to presume that you have most of the optional materials as I write my instructions here, but please, improvise! That's half the fun!
In fact, of you don't have any fake flowers but do have some old T-shirt material, scroll all the way to the bottom to see how you use it to make a flower skirt. 

1. Remove a few blossoms from your silk flower bush. Ours had plastic centers that had to be pulled out of the flowers so they would have a hole in the center. 
2. Thread a small coordinating bead and a blossom onto your pipe cleaner, leaving about 1.5 inches or so at the top. 
3. Cut some hair for your fairy. I happened to have a bag of embroidery floss scraps left over from my mom's cross stitch kits. It was full of multi-colored, coordinating hanks, and I was excited to finally find something useful to do with them. I cut a bundle of 15-20 strands about 3-4 inches long
4. Loop the short end of your pipe cleaner back through the hole in the flower 'hat.' Use this end of the pipe cleaner to secure the hair by wrapping it around the bundle, and then twisting it around the long end of the cleaner. 
5. If you haven't already, thread on your fairy's head. 
6. This is where you get to do all sorts of improvising. Our flower bush included some leaves that, when threaded on at this point, made great wings. You can also add a couple of pretty beads for the fairy's blouse, or wrap your pipe cleaner in yarn or embroidery floss.
   For another fairy we made wings by stringing 6 pony-sized beads on a pipe cleaner, folding it into a loop, and then repeating so we had a figure-8. We attached it just below the head with the loose ends of the pipe cleaner.
   Or, you can make your fairy a blouse out of another blossom. Thread it on above the arms. 
7. Cut a piece of pipe cleaner for your fairy's arms. Attach it to your fairy below the head by wrapping it around the stalk a couple of times. You can add beads or other decorations if you like, too. Make a loop at the end for hands. 
8. If you added a blossom to make a blouse, complete it by folding it over, allowing two petals to be "sleeves." Tie a piece of yarn or thread around the middle to keep it in place. 
9. Now, add one or two blossoms for the fairy's skirt. 
10. Finally, make her legs. If you want, add some beads before folding over a loop for a foot. Cut another piece of pipe cleaner and attach it by wrapping it well at the waist, decorate as desired, and fold into the second foot. 
11. Use a fine-tipped permanent marker to draw your fairy's smiling face, and you're done! 

But since pictures are worth so much more than words, here are some close-ups of several of our fairies.

Fairy with leaf wings and beaded blouse and bloomers

Fairy with blossom blouse

Fairy with jeweled wings

My original fairies with floral-wire bodies

Fairy with "flowers" made from T-shirt scraps.

As promised, here's how to make a quick and dirty blossom our of a shirt scrap

Quick n' Dirty T-Shirt Blossom

1. Cut a rough circle 2-3 inches in diameter from your T-shirt fabric. I did not measure or use a compass or trace or anything! 

2. Fold into eights (fold in half, half again, and half again.) You can also stop at quarters, for a four-petaled flower.

3. Using a very sharp pair of scissors, trim off the two bottom corners of the triangle, making a rounded tear-drop shape. 

4. Stack a couple of different sized blossoms together to make your fairy's skirt, and another for her blouse. (A 4-petaled flower might work best for that!)