Old Galvanized Buckets Become Interactive Fairy Gardens for Kids

A few years ago, I created a magical fairy garden around the base of a tree stump for my grandkids.

Filled with adorable fairy houses, pebble pathways, blue glass beads for a pond, and, of course, an assortment of colorfully dressed fairies. This old tree stump was meant to provide imaginative play for years.

Then nature took it back.

The stump started to rot.

The ants moved in.

Hungry, night-stalking opossums demolished it.

It was time for a second attempt at creating a new space filled with DIY fairy garden ideas. This post is how I repurposed two old galvanized buckets into creative and interactive fairy gardens for my grandkids.

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THIS POST IS PART OF THE ‘DO IT OVER’ DESIGNERS LINK PARTY.  A GROUP OF DESIGNERS WHO TAKE SOMETHING OLD AND/OR UNUSED AND ‘DO IT OVER’ INTO SOMETHING NEW. THESE ITEMS CAN BE FOUND IN CLOSETS, BARNS, GARAGES, YARD SALES, THRIFT STORES, YOU NAME IT!

When Nature Had Other Plans…

For two summers, the fairy garden withstood the weather, the kids, and the dog messes without any indication that it was slowly rotting at the roots.

It wasn’t until early this Spring, when our dogs sounded the alarm that young opossums were making nightly visits inside the backyard fence to fill their bellies with a late-night dinner, that we even realized how ant-infested it had become.

Setting up the fairy garden around the stump was no longer an option.

Time for a Do Over

Instead of mourning the old fairy garden, I started thinking of how to make it better.

To be honest, having the fairy garden on the ground wasn’t always the best interactive play for the grandkids. Kneeling on the rock bed hurt their knees, the moss was itchy, and yes, the bugs were everywhere! They mostly filled their pockets with the blue glass beads, snatched up the fairies and the houses, and took them inside to play with.

My grandsons also need their own version of a fairy garden.

We are blessed with enough outdoor space, and a large backyard deck to establish the new fairy gardens in the shaded overhang of the house, right next to another ‘Do It Over’ project where I repainted an outdoor bench with a rainbow bridge design in honor of our beloved dog, Shiloh.

I started looking around the house and garage for something that could have a second life as a fairy garden on the deck.

That is when I spied the old galvanized buckets in the sunroom.

Wedding party props to kid’s fairy gardens

Purchased ten years ago to be used as ice buckets for our kids’ wedding parties, one of them had already been made over about five years ago for the ‘Do It Over’ Challenge as a plant stand with repurposed legs from an old sofa. The other had nurtured random garden plants over the years.

Elevating both buckets above the ground would be a wonderful way to rebuild the fairy gardens to make them easier to play in.

Thankfully, the smaller bucket already had the repurposed sofa legs attached. So the first step was to find a way to elevate the larger bucket.

I didn’t have to look very far for that either. A couple of years ago, I purchased (on impulse, of course) a blue-painted wire plant stand with hairpin legs at a Vintage Market Days event in Knoxville. I have never used it, and it was in the donation stash.

Thankfully, I also procrastinated on taking off the donations because it was perfect to attach to the bottom of the large galvanized bucket with brackets.

Each fairy garden bucket needed its own personality.

The largest galvanized bucket would contain the fairy homes and accessories. So, I painted tree trunks, flowers, and butterflies on the outside of the bucket.

Remember how I mentioned that my grandsons (mostly the 3-year-old) needed their own fairy garden? I found the perfect inspiration for the second bucket on Amazon: a dinosaur-themed fairy garden kit. The outside of this bucket was treated with painted images of a volcano, mountains, and miniature trees.

Before placing them outside, each bucket was sprayed down with a clear sealant.

A middle-of-the-night inspiration changed the whole idea of the fairy garden buckets.

Do the best ideas come to you in the middle of the night – or even in the shower when you can’t write them down?

Yeah, me too!

I decided two days before my grandkids were scheduled to visit to change out the final setup of the fairy village.

A bag of potting soil had already been purchased to fill each bucket. It just seemed to be the wrong material for the bucket play gardens. I told my husband that I thought that play sand was the best choice this time around. He agreed!

Before adding the sand, each bolt on the inside of the buckets for the attached legs was covered in foam pieces. I expected the kids to dig in the sand anyway, so this would protect their hands.

Ready for a little imagination.

Setting up each version of the fairy garden buckets was finished about 30 minutes before they arrived. This is the cleanest it has looked since then!

Raising the buckets off the deck and onto legs was a great way to make these play sand fairy gardens more interactive and accessible. The fun part was watching them spend hours outside playing in the sand. Or asking to go back outside to play.

Although not the expected fairy garden built around an old tree stump, it is even better. Play sand added to the buckets was the perfect addition to spark creative ideas all day.

And no need to worry about the weather – each bucket has drainage holes and plastic bucket covers (purchased from Amazon) to protect them on rainy days.

Don’t Forget to Pin This!

Please visit the other talented and creative bloggers who joined in this month’s ‘Do It Over’ Challenge.

Modern on Monticello

Pandora’s Box

Purple Hues & Me

Sum of Their Stories

Vintage Style Gal

The Apple Street Cottage

Birdz of a Feather

Exquisitely Unremarkable

Hugs,

Proverbs 19:21 Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.