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How to Make a Fairy Garden in an Old Suitcase

Published on June 3, 2019Last updated October 23, 2021 โ™› By Melissa J. Will

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These step-by-step instructions show how to create a container fairy garden. Choose one of the suggested themes and create your own little portable world.

Want to use real plants? This guide lists the best miniature plants to choose. 

Fairy garden in a suitcase

Create a Suitcase Fairy Garden

Fairy garden with little cottage in a suitcase.

There are several advantages to creating a fairy garden in a container instead of in the ground. You can move them around (for play or away from little hands), protect it from harsh weather, and keep small or delicate miniatures from getting lost.

Start with natural materials like moss, tiny flowers and plants, and add enchantment with the decorations.

Overwhelmed with where to begin?

Pick a theme and go from there. Iโ€™ve provided a bunch of examples to spark your imagination.

The possibilities are endless, and itโ€™s your creation, so go with what you love.

Andโ€”bonusโ€”itโ€™s easy to change up a fairy garden any time so get started and let it evolve as you go.


Contents

  1. Choose a Container
  2. Pick a Theme
  3. Cost Saving Ideas
  4. Choose a Scale
  5. Soil and Plants
  6. Miniature Accessories 
  7. Fairy Garden Care


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Create a Fairy Garden

You can create a fairy garden in just about any container. You want it strong enough to hold potting mix, water-resistant, and, if you plan to grow plants in itโ€”or it will be rained on, make sure there are drainage holes.

Once you know your theme and what it will include, that will tell you how much space youโ€™ll need as well.

I made my mini garden in a vintage suitcase.

Fairy garden with little cottage in a suitcase.
Fairy garden in a vintage suitcase

Choose a Container

  • Any container will do! It just needs to be sturdy and large enough to hold the contents (soil, plants, fairy garden decorations).
  • If you will be growing real plants, choose a container at least 6-inches deep.
  • Keep in mind that your fairy garden may be exposed to soil and water so donโ€™t use a precious heirloom.
  • If you will keep your fairy garden outdoors (exposed to the elements), add drainage holes. And beware: a container like my suitcase will get gradual water damage.

What Else Could I Use?

Look around your house and see what you have!

  • Suitcase
  • Old boots or shoes
  • Flowerpots (whole or broken)
  • Childโ€™s toy wagon
  • Dresser drawer
  • Wheelbarrow
  • Fishing tackle box
  • Shallow fruit crate
  • Large wooden salad bowl
  • Terrarium

Pick a Theme

Fairy gardens are about storytelling. You set up a scene and let your imagination take it from there.

Browse the ideas below and pick a theme. Or, visit a shop that sells garden miniatures and see what calls your name.

Once you have the theme, brainstorm ideas. Have fun with it. And don’t feel you have to create it all at once. It’s fun to add pieces over time.

Do you want the fairy garden to be realistic or a fantasy? Natural or whimsical?

Will there be a focal point like a wee cottage or tiny vegetable garden?

There are miniatures for everything!

Theme Ideas

  • Celebrations and Holidays: Christmas, Easter, Valentineโ€™s Day, Hanukkah, Memorial Dayโ€ฆ
  • Milestones: birthday, graduation, wedding, career, sobriety, anniversaryโ€ฆ
  • Storybook, Fairy Tales, Books, Movies: pirates, unicorns, fairies, elves, gnomes, ghouls, royalty, heroes, superheroes, villainsโ€ฆ
  • Nature and Science: forest, flowers, farming, space, gardening, hiking, exploringโ€ฆ
  • Travel: favorite or bucket list destinations, homeland, time travel
  • Hobbies: cooking, woodworking, knitting, sewing, running, sports, reading, puzzles, campingโ€ฆ
  • People and Pets: real or fictitious, famous, family, life story, beloved petโ€ฆ
  • History: Prehistoric, medieval, ancient civilizations, Victorianโ€ฆ
  • Garden: your dream garden or a mini version of your garden

Cost Saving Ideas

How to Make a Low-Budget Fairy Garden

Buying miniatures for a fairy garden can get expensive.

To keep costs down, here are my suggestions:

  1. Use what you have and repurpose stuff.
    Lots of kidsโ€™ toys, dollhouse miniatures, and Christmas decorations are perfect for fairy gardens.
  2. Make your own accessories with items like acorns, twigs, and polymer clay.
  3. Use these thrifty shopping tips to check yard sales, thrift shops, local online marketplaces for supplies.
  4. Use free natural materials from your garden (soil, grass, plants, twigs, stones).

Choose a Scale

This tip is important and often overlooked.

In miniatures a common scale is 1:12. This is how the miniatures are sized in relation to their โ€˜real lifeโ€™ counterparts, and how they are sized in relation to one another.

Examples of scale in miniature garden.
Images: Janit Calvo
  • Large Scale: 1:12 One inch in miniature equals one foot in real life.
  • Medium Scale: One half inch in miniature equals one foot in real life.

By choosing a scale for all your fairy garden decor and accessories, everything will look right togetherโ€”in proper proportions.

You donโ€™t want a giant chair and a tiny table. Or massive plants and teeny houses.

Stick with one scale and your fairy garden will be instinctively pleasing to the eye.

Without this step, things may look mismatched and odd.

  • About Scale in Miniature Gardens

Soil & Plants

Line the Container

If you are using a suitcase or some other container that is not entirely waterproof or rot-resistant, consider lining it with a plastic sheet.

Or, insert a more durable container inside.

If your fairy garden will be watered or exposed to rain, be sure there are drainage holes.

Depending on the plants and theme, you may fill the container with soil or potting mix, sand, stones, grass, moss, or some other material.

Your container may not last indefinitely but the liner will extend its life.

Plastic-lined suitcase fairy garden
Vintage suitcase lined with plastic for planting a fairy garden

Real Plants

Bonsai tree and miniature birdhouse in fairy garden.
Miniature plants and birdhouse for fairy garden

If youโ€™re using real, living plants, you will need to provide the right potting mix for those plants.

If you are not using real plants, plain soil from your garden is fine to use.

Sometimes it is best to keep the tiny plants in containers.

You can hide or disguise the pots by burying them or covering them in moss, twigs, or pebbles so just the plants are above the soil.

What plants are good for fairy gardens?

Indoor Miniature Plants

  • Dwarf Mondo Grass โ€“ Ophiopogon japonica โ€˜Nanaโ€™
  • Baby Tears โ€“ Soleirolia soleirolii
  • Corsican Mint โ€“ Mentha requienii
  • Sugar Vine โ€“ Parthenocissus striata (aka Cissus striata)
  • Zebra Haworthia โ€“ Haworthia fasciata

Outdoor Miniature Plants

  • Just Dandy Dwarf Hinoki Cypress โ€“ Chamaecyparis obtusa โ€˜Just Dandyโ€™
  • Jeanโ€™s Dilly Dwarf Spruce โ€“ Picea glauca โ€˜Jeanโ€™s Dillyโ€™
  • Miniature Juniper โ€“ Juniperus communis โ€˜Miniatureโ€™
  • Miniature Daisies โ€“ Bellium minuta
  • Plattโ€™s Black Brass Buttons โ€“ Leptinella squalida โ€˜Plattโ€™s Blackโ€™

There are lots more plant suggestions and care tips here:

  • How to Select the Best Plants for Your Miniature Garden.

Greenspace

Moss or sections of grass lawn (sod) from your garden works nicely for greenspace: it may be living or purchased moss that can be glued in place.

You can also sow grass seeds or microgreens (and eat them too!).

Planting moss in suitcase fairy garden
Adding moss to a fairy garden

I also like to add random plants from my garden. Here Iโ€™ve added a violet that was growing near the moss.

Violets planted in fairy suitcase garden
Purple violets planted in suitcase fairy garden

Paths and Ponds

Also consider adding small stones, pathways, and little ponds and fountains. The charm is in the details.

Fairy garden cottage with stone path
Mossy fairy garden with stone path

Natural decorations like tiny pinecones, acorns, twigs, leaves are free and add a realistic touch.

Miniature Accessories

Fairy garden door on a tree and tiny bicycle.
Miniature door and bike for fairy garden

The answers to these next questions about your fairy garden will send you in various directions.

  • Do you want it realistic or fantastical?
  • Do you want to add to your little garden over time or gather all your supplies at once?
  • Do you want to make the decor by hand or purchase it or both?
  • Do you want to add miniature lights?

There are so many fabulous mini garden furnishings available these days, that it can be hard to decide.

Iโ€™ll show you some ideas.

Create a Mini Pond

  • To create water under this bridge, I used a blue glass flowerpot saucer. Another simple option is a small makeup mirror. Hide the mirror frame with stones or moss.
Red bridge over glass pond in fairy garden
Miniature bridge over glass dish pond in fairy garden
  • Make a Miniature Fountain that Really Works
  • DIY Fairy Garden Pond with Polymer Clay

Set a Scene

The charm is in the details! This tiny lemonade jug with glasses and wee slices of lemon is my fave.

Only use tiny furnishing like this if your miniature garden is in a safe place, away from wind or rain. I have mine on a covered patio.

Miniature chair and jug of lemonade in fairy garden
Miniature chair and lemonade in fairy garden

Miniature lemonade glasses | Amazon

Fairies or No Fairies?

You decide. I prefer not to have any fairies, people, gnomes, trolls, etc. Instead, I like it to look like some tiny being was just there but fled when full-size humans came by.

But, your garden your choice.

Baby fairy sleeping in mossy garden
Baby fairy sleeping in moss garden

Sleeping Hedgehog | Amazon

Make it Quirky

Use what you have. Or make it.

All the cute accessories can get expensive. I started making my own polymer clay miniatures and it was much easier than I expected.

Also, see if you have old toys or nick knacks you could use. Here Iโ€™ve added an old matchbox car (found in my garden) and a slice from a pruned branch, as a plant stand.

Toy care and miniature garden tools in fairy garden
Toy car and miniature garden tools

More tutorials:

  • Polymer Clay Crafts: Easy Beginnerโ€™s Guide
  • Easy Fairy Garden Miniatures with Polymer Clay

Add Natural Materials

Stones, twigs, small garden plants, leavesโ€”all help naturalize the mini garden. Use what you have and change it up as desired.

Close up of fairy garden cottage
Moss in fairy garden with cottage

If you love some sparkle, miniature string lights using a handy battery pack are essential.

Fairy Garden Care

Keep your fairy garden where you can enjoy it and protect it from wind and rain.

Keep the plants and moss watered as needed, and make sure the container has adequate drainage.

Change up the decor as desired. If you love making miniatures, thereโ€™s lots of ways to decorate a fairy garden for special occasions or the seasons.

Chair in front of fairy cottage garden
Chair outside fairy garden cottage

Garden shadow box with garden photo and miniatures.

Related: Make a Garden Shadow Box With Miniature Keepsakes



Resources

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DIY Suitcase Fairy Garden

Includes the materials list and basic instructions from this article.

Fairy garden with little cottage in a suitcase.
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I hope you have found lots of ideas. Now go make something wonderful!

~Melissa the Empress of Dirt โ™›

Fairy garden with little cottage in a suitcase.
Print Instructions Pin It
5 from 3 votes

How to Make a Fairy Garden

Step-by-step tips and instructions to make a fairy garden in a container like an old suitcase, flower pot, or dresser drawer.
Total Time2 hours hrs
Author: Melissa J. Will
Cost: $25

Equipment

  • Scissors
  • Trowel

Supplies & Materials

  • 1 Suitcase At least 6-inches deep for living plants
  • 1 sheet Plastic liner
  • 1 bag Potting mix or soil
  • 1 Moss
  • 20 Stones, small
  • 1 Miniature cottage
  • 4 Miniature plants
  • Miniature accessories

Instructions

  • Line suitcase with plastic liner and trim to size.
  • Add drainage holes by drilling through bottom of suitcase if needed.
  • Fill suitcase with potting mix (if using real plants) or soil, stopping an inch below lip of suitcase.
  • Place cottage where you want it and create stone path to cottage.
  • Plant living plants or insert pots into soil.
  • Cover bare soil with moss, grass sod, or start seeds.
  • Add miniature accessories as desired.
  • Have fun with it and change up your decorations for seasons and celebrations.

Notes

  • Best plants for miniature gardens
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Fairy garden with little cottage in a suitcase.
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Comments

  1. Chris Fugere says

    May 11, 2024 at 1:30 pm

    Very easy to follow directions and explanations, thank you!

    Reply
  2. Giuditta Reppi says

    July 7, 2023 at 7:59 am

    I’ve been very confused about how to go about making a fairy garden. This is the best set of instructions I’ve seen — thank you so much!

    Reply
  3. Denise A Sciarrotta says

    February 7, 2022 at 5:48 pm

    Thank you so much. I was just going back over my collections of Fair Garden ideas. I did some a while ago, and ready to go again. Your instructions were clear, you had nice pictures, and they really are fun. Also, I am not really knowledgeable about saving things on the computer, but yours were able to be opened again.

    Reply
  4. Sue says

    October 16, 2020 at 7:33 am

    This was the best article on fairy gardens I have read. Thank you๐Ÿงšโ€โ™€๏ธ๐Ÿงšโ€โ™‚๏ธ

    Reply

Melissa J. Will - Empress of DirtWelcome!
I’m Melissa J. Will a.k.a. the Empress of Dirt (Ontario, Canada).
Join me as I share creative + frugal home & garden ideas with a dash of humor.
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