Tips for Fixing Damaged Fairy Garden Accessories

Let us talk about fixing our miniature accessories. These events have happened to the best of us. The sun-baked paint of a bright-colored fairy has faded to a pastel hue, or as you were packing up a miniature garden for seasonal storage you accidentally dropped a fairy house, and a large piece of resin chipped at the front corner of the home. You cannot help that gravity and force break these items or that the sun and rain could wear away at the paint. Instead, we need to look at preventative ideas and restoration tips for our fairy garden accessories.

Here are a few ways to fix and update miniature accessories using easy and affordable tips:

• If a fairy house, garden fairy, or other garden accessory seems dull, try giving it a gentle scrub with soap and water before you do anything else. Sometimes dirt can be the culprit for the muted colors.

• Is your mini decoration all one color?  The next tip would be to use spray paint to update the color on your miniature garden accessories. Painting a miniature accessory one solid color might not be ideal for detailed pieces, but if you are painting a fence, bridge, or metal birdhouses that need a little pop of color, this is an easy fix.

• If you like to prepare your miniature accessories against the effects of the weather, I have had friends spray their fairy garden accessories with a clear lacquer to help protect them. A couple of light coats of a polyurethane coating can keep your items looking new.

• Sometimes when a fairy house has a chipped piece of resin on the corner, you can mask the damage by camouflaging it with preserved moss that has been glued onto that location.  Reindeer Moss, Moss Mat, Forest Moss, and Mood Moss are examples of preserved mosses that would work. Select a high-performance, permanent craft adhesive that will withstand outdoor temperatures and moisture. One of my favorites is E6000, but there are additional products available on the market. Remember, before starting your repair, to place the glue on an inconspicuous spot of the fairy house to see how the surface materials react to the glue. Sometimes the moss has been dyed, so be cautious of the colors bleeding when wet.

• If you have some smaller fairy garden items that will not sit up properly in your garden, you can glue a nail to the bottom of the mini. This procedure, simulating a pick, will give support and keep the miniature garden accessory steady.

• Are you interested in updating the front door and shutters of your fairy house? Using a small paintbrush and paint, you will be able to quickly change the colors or add a design to achieve the desired look. Remember to test the paint on an inconspicuous spot to see how the materials react.

• If you ever have a bridge, fairy furniture, or fairy friend with a chip in an odd place, you can dress it up with some faux miniature plants hot glued to the item. It will hide the damage and dress up the garden accessory to look new and exciting.

Watch the video, Repair, Paint, and Protect for more information on taking care of your miniature garden accessories.

It is a good thing that miniature gardeners are creative and crafty—because that means we tend to find our solutions to these minor damages! We also are not afraid to get our hands dirty, fix something up, and turn it into something new.  When an accident happens, and we damage a miniature accessory that we love, gardeners will look at the repair project as a challenge to make the miniature accessory beautiful again. I know that when I break a garden treasure, my first reaction is to think about how I can fix it versus just throwing it away. Therefore, fixing and mending a miniature accessory is the perfect opportunity to brainstorm and search for solutions!