F is for Faerie Garden!

And a fabulous F day to you and yours!  Tis the time to once again work on my faerie garden.  I started it last year and the best of intentions, but I tend to be stubbornly simple and basic and adamantly non-consumerist (is that a word?) when it comes to stuff like my garden, my flowers, my home projects.......oh let's face it, everything.  i'm tend to be one of the true crunchies.  I prefer to make do or re-use and i will avoid buying anything if at all possible.  I also don't spend a ton of money to make it look like I don't, no organic (that's a gimmick), ect.  Wait, where was i going.....oh yeah,the faerie garden.  So, last year, we looked at the set-ups they had at nurseries, but i'm not spending that kind of money on my inner 12-year old, considering, my inner 12-year actually spent a great deal of time in her grandfather's garage using up whatever scraps of materials i could find, so, anyway (i promise i'll get there) last year the boys and i built houses out of real sticks we found in the backyard and Popsicle sticks.  they looked cool.  i had great plants that added that special touch, but guess what?  I live where there is this nasty thing called a winter.....snow, ice, rain, wind.....so, needless to say, in cleaning up the flower garden this year, i picked up a bunch of Popsicle sticks and twigs, totally demolished.  This year i'm looking for different strategies.  Any thoughts? maybe I could find a birdhouse at a thrift store and build on it.....hmmmmm.

Last year's houses: