Fruit Basket Fairies Garden

Got a banana fruit basket hanging around with no fruits in it? Well, why not turn it into a fairy garden centerpiece? Since the best gift for your mom is not something you can buy, but make for her from the heart. Why not make her a Fruit Basket Fairies Garden? This thrifted craft will definitely put a smile on her face and remind her of you each day.

I will take on my journey how I updated my succulent banana fruit basket and turned it into a fruit basket fairies garden centerpiece.

I am skipping the introduction part (check out my blog for the full background), so grab your fruit basket and let start!

Here is the before (left) and after (right) photos. What a difference it makes when all the plants are groom!

Here were the items I used.

• 1 Banana fruit basket
• 1 Hanging glass succulent ball
• Succulents of choice (Recommendation: choose succulent in the color of your theme)
• 9” pot
• sphagnum moss (from Lowes)
• Succulent dirt
• Perlite (optional)

For the DIY fairies crafts:

• Hot glue + hot glue gun
• Twigs (got my from the park)
• A couple small pinecones (got my from the park)
• 2 mini fairies sculptures (Found my for 70% at Joann Fabric)

I wanted to make a cute fairies hut using twigs from the park around me. I collected a handle of small twigs and pinecones. After collecting them, I soaked them in soapy water overnight, rinsed, and dried them in the sun for one full day. Hopefully, these steps got rid of the bugs and spiders.

I made a square with twigs. I cut the twigs into equal pieces and hot glued them to each other until it look like a square. Then, I covered the square with moss. After that I used the twigs to form a triangle above square. I continued stacking and hot glued all the twigs around the triangle until it covered all three sides. Then to add in that magic touch, I hot glued some moss onto and inside the hut. I had some dried lavender, so I added that and the pinecone. I also ended up cutting some of thicker branches into halves. I used this to make the steps.

I carefully removed all the succulent in the pot and throw away the old succulent dirt. You can feel free to recycle this dirt. I didn’t do it because I over watered my succulent a couple days before this and the dirt was way too wet.

Since this centerpiece will be indoor, I decided to add more perlite to help drain the water. Another trick I learned is to add rocks to the bottom of the pot if you don’t want to use perlite. Both ways always work for me. I added ~ ¼ part of perlite to 1 part of dirt and mixed them up really well.

Before planting, I laid out all my fairies garden pieces to see where a I want each pieces to go. I couldn’t put the hut underneath the crystal ball because it was too tall. I thought it was so cute to put one of the fairies inside the hanging crystal ball so that what I went with.

After that, I laid out my succulents. I went with a magical selection of color: pink, red, and white.

I ended up deciding to use the extra twigs to make a trellis along the back of the basket. I wanted to use this trellis to help my string of heart succulent climb up.
Once finalized, I planted the succulents in place. Succulents grow really fast, so one trick I learned from growing succulent over the years is to trim them down. I trimmed all of the succulents down, leaving a thin stalk at the bottom to stick into the dirt.

Since I have so many string of heart succulents, I decided to use them to cover the dirt inside the crystal ball. This step can be replaced with moss. I added some dirt, just enough to plant the succulents inside the crystal ball. Once that is done, I planted the succulent. The key was to showcase the sitting fairy.

To cover all the extra dirt space on the pot, I added moss. I used the moss to to cover all dirt area around my succulents and fairies.

Afterward, I used a small teapot and carefully watered all the succulent. After that I left the basket outside to sun bake for a couple days before taking it to my work cube. This will helps the succulent grow and take root.

In order from left to right, here are what each pictures is:

Overall looks, fairies sitting on a water fountain on the pot, the front view of the hut, the back view of the hut, the mini sitting place underneath the crystal ball.

Don't forget to share your succulent centerpieces. I love to see what you guys came up with!

As always don't forget to check out my blog to read about my tips and failure experiences for this project.