Wednesday, October 23, 2013

A new terrarium

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I love terrariums…and I love thrift store shopping. So this post is about the best of both! I found a glass globe, at the St. Louis Teachers' Reusable Resource Center in the Chesterfield Mall.  This was my second trip to the store, the first one I bought 10# of different items, including things like wine corks, stickers, contact paper, assorted glass jars, some beakers and test tubes in ALL sizes, some lace, some fabric.  All sorts of different things!

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All this stuff is donated and kept out of the landfills, so it’s really a great concept…you don’t have to be a teacher to shop there. So anyway, back to my terrarium story.  I stopped last weekend to just check out the store for my second time on my way home from Mom’s house.  I spotted some new lab donated glass flasks and globes.  Big giant globes. 

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Here is the one I bought, it weighed 7# so it costed $7…it came with this really tiny plastic base that it sits on.  I didn’t like the plastic look so much.

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I cut a base out of wood that I had on hand, painted it bright green and it looks really neat.  I thought I did a pretty good job with my simple tools.

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I was scared the globe would get cracked or broken so I kept it in a square laundry basket while I planted the terrarium.  I started with some marbles and some rocks, then added some activated charcoal to the bottom (like the kind you buy for aquariums). 

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The charcoal is something I always use, I understand it is really only needed for closed terrariums but I always add to any terrarium I create whether the top if open or not.

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I use 1/4 peat moss and 3/4 potting soil for my dirt, grabbed a few plants from my existing container pots on the deck since they would soon be frostbitten and die anyway. 

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I added a few inches of dirt and then arranged the plants like I wanted them.  I have two ferns, some mounding moss and some creeping jenny in there.  Probably a bit too many plants but I can always trim them or pull them out later.

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I added some polished rocks and put some more dirt around the plants, watered it all well and it was done!

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I also added a water globe inside, but didn’t put any water inside. I just added it for some color.

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Here it is in the jungle of the houseplants I brought in from the deck before the frost.

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I might be linking to these parties!

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6 comments:

Madonna/aka/Ms Lemon of Make Mine Lemon said...

Your terrarium is lovely.

Maggie said...

What a find! Love your terrarium. X

Jill said...

Beautiful Ellen! That teacher's resource shop sounds amazing! I wish we had something like that here!
Thanks for linking to a Round Tuit!
Hope you have a fabulous week!
Jill @ Creating my way to Success
http://www.jembellish.blogspot.com/

Kristine@thefoleyfam said...

Fisrt, that store looks awesome! Second, LOVE this idea! My girl's would love it! Third, featuring you again this weekend with this fab idea :) Thanks Ellen!

Unknown said...

Omg this is a pretty brilliant idea! I even got a glass bowl from the time I had little frishis^^
That is definitely a good way to re-use it!
Thanks for sharing, have a lovely sunday evening :)

Susana said...

Absolutamente hermoso!