DIY Fairy House Craft: Indoor Paper Luminaries

Enrich your child’s imagination and create whimsy for adults with this DIY fairy house craft! Fairy houses and gardens are fun, magical structures that a little girl and boy can easily make and love. Here, you can get the free template, written instructions, and a video tutorial for this paper luminary project.

I will also demonstrate a new and optional way to add a wood deboss texture to your DIY fairy house craft using the Cricut Maker Quickswap Tools. If you don’t have the Maker, don’t sweat it; you can still make this craft with the Explore machine, another cutting machine, or scissors. 

What Is A Fairy House?

Instead of collecting lightning bugs in glass jars or tadpoles in a plastic bottle, how about putting a tiny little house on your shelf? Would it stay empty, or would fairies come and live inside? When you illuminate this paper fairy house, it will look like a fairy has moved in!

But what is a fairy house, anyway? Fairy houses are small habitats for wee-winged creatures that flit about our gardens and woodlands in stories. For children, they are magical homes for magical creatures. For adults, they are a quaint, fanciful home decoration that adds creativity to our lives while reconnecting us with our childhood flights of fancy. 

You can buy many different styles of fairy houses for your fairy village, from teeny-tiny mushroom single units to mansions in tree trunks. A typical fairy garden house has things like round windows, paths made of small stones, and maybe a tiny bottle cap as a table. From Tinkerbell to the Tooth Fairy, all fairies need a place to call their own.

But premade fairy homes can be expensive! You can save money and spend quality time with your kids by making fairy homes using simple supplies like white cardstock, LED tea lights, and hot glue! Plus, we will transform it into a luminary so you can get a peek-a-boo effect and see your fairy inside the house!

A DIY fairy house is a darling craft to do with your kids or grandkids. You can also customize it to make a gift for Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, as table decorations for a birthday party, or as a fun piece of décor to add to your mantle or bookshelf.

Download The Free DIY Fairy House Craft Templates

Get the fairy house templates here for free inside the Abbi Kirsten Craft Vault! There are hundreds of other freebies waiting for you, too. If you do not yet have a free account, you can create one via the form below. Once logged in, use the keyword “fairy” at the top search bar to find and download the fairy house templates.

DIY Fairy House Craft Supplies

Paper and glue are the main supplies needed, and the rest are suggestions for adding optional debossing or drawn texture to the sides of the house. Feel free to use your imagination to customize these free DIY fairy house templates.

CAUTION: Use only battery-powered LED tea lights. Do not use a real candle in your paper luminary – this is not safe.

Basic Supplies:

• Cricut machine, scissors, or other cutting machine. 
• Scoring wheel or stylus
• Glue gun and hot glue sticks
• Tombow liquid glue
• 65-pound cardstock for house and roof
• 50-pound or less white copy paper for the door
• Black adhesive vinyl
• Transfer tape  
• Crepe paper for the roof petals
• LED tealight
• Templates for Fairy House Paper Craft Design #88
• FREE Plumeria Crepe Paper Flowers – Design #18 for the roof petals

Optional Supplies: 

• Cricut Maker
• Deboss tip
• Cricut pens in brown or tan
• Craft moss
• Bowl
• Small mushrooms
• Additional adornments

Some of you may notice I am using familiar crepe paper for the top of my fairy house. My FREE Hawaiian Plumeria Flower Template works perfectly, but you can look at all my crepe paper flower styles!

How To Make A DIY Fairy House Craft

Are you ready to make these magical fairy wonderlands? Grab your templates, gather your supplies, and hit play on the videos below (or use the written directions). I’ve split the instructions into two parts. Watch part one for the Design Space set-up so you get everything cut out properly.

• Part 1: Cricut Design Space set up, cut out, and deboss instructions.
• Part 2: Assemble the DIY fairy house craft.

If you are using scissors, cut out your fairy house parts and then go to Part 2. 

Are you curious about Cricut Machines? Find out which one is right for you!

Part 1: Cricut Design Space Set Up, Cut Out, and Deboss 

The part 1 video walks you through how to set up the fairy house templates in Cricut Design Space. Don’t forget to download the free Fairy House in our Freebies Vault.

The Wall/Floor Base:

1. Upload all the images in the templates to Design Space. 
2. Select the black areas of the walls and change the lines to “score.” 
3. To deboss or draw on the walls, upload wood texture (vector file). 
4. Drag the wood texture over the wall section you want to look like wood.
5. Scale the texture to fit the wall section. 
6. Change lines to “deboss” or “pen.”
7. Duplicate the scaled texture and add it to each wall section. 
8. To deboss and draw the wood texture, create one layer of texture that uses a “deboss” line, add another layer of texture, place it carefully to match the first layer, and select “pen.”
9. Group the textures and wall/floor base together, then select “attach.” 

The Windows, Doors, and Fairy:

1. Use your desired color of cardstock for the windows and cut them out. 
2. Use 50lb or less white paper to make the door (so the fairy is visible). 
3. Cut the fairy out using black adhesive vinyl. 

The Roof:

1. Change the black areas of the roof to “score.” 
2. Select the roof and the score lines, then select “group” and then “attach.” 

The Roof Petals and Flower Topper:

1. Upload the petal and flower topper templates. 
2. You will need 10 -20 crepe paper petals to line the roof. Use crepe paper for the petals.
3. Scale the little flower topper to about 1.5” x 1.5” or less.
4. Use the “intricate cuts” setting and cardstock. 

Part 2: Assemble The Fairy House Craft

Part 2 of our DIY fairy house will teach you how to assemble the fairy house step-by-step. Use the written instruction overview or watch the video tutorial for complete instructions. 

1. Gather all your supplies and all your pre-cut fairy house pieces. Your cutouts will include: a wall/floor base with score or fold lines, a roof piece, four windows, one door, a fairy, 10-20 petals, and a small flower topper 
2. Fold along all the score lines on the walls, floor, and roof. 
3. Glue the walls together first, keeping the final tabs inside the house. 
4. Add glue to the floor tabs and attach them inside the house on the walls. 
5. Glue window frames to the windows of the house on the outside. Be careful not to glue a window to the door opening. 
6. Weed your vinyl fairy. 
7. Using transfer tape and burnishing, attach the fairy to the back of the door (the non-debossed side if you added texture). 
8. Glue the door to the door area of the wall, with the fairy facing inside the house. 

Roof:

1. Fold along score lines.
2. Glue the roof closed with the tabs on the inside. 
3. Curl your petals with the Cricut scraper or your fingers so they create a small cup as they curl downward. 
4. Glue a petal edge onto the edge of another petal at a 35-40 degree angle to create a circle of petals. It takes about ten petals to make the first layer.
5. Flip the petal layer over so the petals curl upwards. Attach to the roof at the tip and close the petal layer.
6. If you still see the original roof structure under the tip petal layer, then repeat step 4. Once finished, tuck the second layer under the first layer and glue it to the roof.
7. Glue the small flower cutout on the tip of the roof. You can also add greenery or a stem to add to the illusion that our little fairy is using a flower for a roof. 
8. Don’t attach the roof to the house – it will stay on if the roof and house are lined up correctly. 
9. Add a battery-powered tea light or fairy lights to the inside of the fairy house and replace the roof. 

The fairy has appeared at the door, and she loves her new home!

DO NOT USE OPEN FLAMES OR A REAL CANDLE WITH THIS PAPER FAIRY HOUSE. 

Once you make one house, you will want to make a whole village of fairy houses of different sizes and colors. You can include your little ones in the fun by cutting out the pieces and letting your kids construct the house and glue on the elements. You can use a bowl and craft moss to create a hill for your fairy home and even add additional decorations like mini tables to dress up the outdoor space.

Don’t forget to name your fairy and enjoy the whimsical scene you have made!