By Jennifer Carson
Oh, the last days of fall! Soon the flowers will be snuggling into their winter beds, the birds will fly south, and little faeries will begin to hibernate. In the spirit of these little environmental sprites, I’ve designed a cute little faerie baby reusing a plastic deli container (I’m sure you have some of those laying around since we’ve all been supporting our local restaurants delivery service through the pandemic). You can use the plastic bauble you make as a magnet, make a pin or a charm, or tie it to a lovely winter gift.
What you’ll need to make your own faerie baby:
A plastic deli container—it must be a #6 plastic (it will have a stamp on the bottom somewhere that identifies it as #6).
Colored pencils—I used Prismacolor pencils in the following colors: crimson red, kelp green, lilac, jasmine, light peach, peach, pink, carmine red, and dark brown.
A hole punch (if you want to attach your baby to something).
A heat gun—the kind you use with embossing powders.
A pair of pliers to hold your faerie while shrinking.
Fine grit sand paper. I used 320.
A pair of sharp scissors.
Some kind of sealer—I used Modge Podge Dimensional Magic.
A small piece of cardstock, or something similar to help flatten your piece.
The faerie baby template (link below).
Begin by cutting out the flat section of your container. Clean off any labels.
Sand one side of your plastic. I sanded mine horizontally first, and then vertically. You want a nice frosted finish so that the pigments from your pencils will stick.
On the sanded side of your plastic, trace the faerie drawing with your dark brown pencil. When coloring, try not to scrub your other colored pencils over the brown line or it may smudge a little. Just get as close as you can!
Color your faerie! I used light peach as the base color for her skin. To create some depth, use your lilac pencil around the eyes, in the inner ear, under the chin, under the top foot, and under the top hand/arm.
Color her nose with peach, and add some blushing on the top hand, shoulder, bottom of foot, cheeks, and tip of ear. Go back and add a bit of pink to those same areas.
With your jasmine colored pencil, color the bridge of the nose, and add some to the eyelids.
Color the left side of the hat with carmine red to create a highlight. Color the remaining hat with crimson red—blend into the carmine red.
The blanket wrap I colored with kelp green, and then overlaid jasmine in order to create some highlights.
Color the hair with your brown pencil.
If you want to create a charm or necklace, make a dot with one of your pencils where you are going to punch the hanging hole.
Cut your faerie out—you should leave about 1/8” around your coloring. If you are putting a hole in your coloring for hanging, make sure you cut around your dot, too.
Punch your hole.
Hold your faerie with a pair of pliers in order to keep your fingers away from the heat of the embossing gun. Don’t keep your heat gun in one place for too long—move it around a bit. Your faerie will shrink pretty quickly. Don’t freak out if it starts to stick to itself. Just gently pull it apart (you can use a bamboo skewer for this) and keep heating. When it stops shrinking, press your piece with your cardstock to flatten it.
After it cools, you’ll want to put some kind of sealer on it. I used Modge Podge Dimensional Magic. Let it dry overnight and your faerie is ready to use.
If you’d like to finish it off the way I’ve shown below, I purchased a fancy safety pin and tied on various ribbons and trims, then stitched on a few vintage buttons. I had to attach the faerie charm with a jump ring so that it laid correctly.
I’d love to see how you use your faerie charm!
Jennifer Carson is a local author and artist who enjoys creating beautiful items for home and family. You can see more of her work and peruse all of her crafting patterns at thedragoncharmer.com.
Download the Faerie template here.
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Spring brings showers, flowers, and faeries back into our gardens! These cute Little Bug Faeries are great for entertaining little ones during story time, while riding in a car, or waiting to see the doctor. They are so easy to make, you’ll find yourself making one in every color of the rainbow!