Terrariums

I love making Christmas gifts and I always try to make at least a little something for my sister.  This year my project for a couple of people were moss terrariums.  I had been wanting to make one for quite a while, and then I went to visit my friend Caylie and someone had made one for her.  So, the next week, I went hunting for jars to house my terrarium in. These were easily acquired at my favourites store, Value Village.  Yes, I am an addict.  Next stop was the pet store to buy some activated charcoal.  Coincidentally, this also caused me to have a lapse in judgment wherein I decided that I wanted a chihuahua.  The urge has mostly passed, but I can't get over the enticing idea of owning a mini dog.

Here is the list of my terrarium ingredients and a picture of them spread out in my kitchen:

Glass jars
Rocks or gravel (Dollar store)
Potting soil
Activated Charcoal (pet store)
Moss (garden centre)
Water spritzer
Magic modelling clay (Toys R' Us)
Paperclips

 It's pretty straightforward to make.  You just put some rocks in a jar.

Then you mix potting soil with some activated charcoal, which keeps things fresh.

Next, you get to place your moss.  The hardest part for me was getting my supermoss embedded in the soil so that it was standing up straight with the bottom portion all the way down in the soil.  I ended up using tongs to place it.

After all my moss was placed and my kitchen was cleaned up, the jars looked like this...

Next, it was time to cute-ify (kitsch-ify) them by making tiny mushrooms out of modelling clay.  I made each mushroom with a paperclip sticking out of the bottom of it so that the paperclip could be jammed into the soil to help it stand up straight.

 

 

 

Then the mushroom went in the jar!

In the meantime, I had spray painted the jar's lid cream, and covered the rest of the lid with red checked gingham.  And that's the end.