Thursday, February 3, 2011

Moss gardens in a Jar.

We've had great weather this week. So we've been taking advantage of it and spending as much time outside as we could. We've taken a couple hikes, collected acorn caps and pine cones and could not resist coming home with a basket full of beautiful moss.

A few years ago we made moss fairy garden inside jars. i had seen them all over Etsy and knew i had to have one. We have so many beautiful types of moss growing in our woods, i knew they'd be easy to make. My first moss terrariums lived for over a year (i forgot to water them), so i just recently dumped them and cleaned out the jars.


When we brought home all this lovely moss i knew immediately we would be making terrariums.
To make a moss terrarium you need

- Glass container with closing lid (you want airtight)
- potting soil mixed half and half with vermiculite
- Activated charcoal (You can get this at a pet store or garden shop)
- Gravel, rocks or those pretty flat marbles for fish aquariums. (this is for drainage)
- Moss
- Decorative items ( we made polymer toadstools)

These are super easy to put together. You put your rocks/gravel in the bottom, then put a thin layer of the activated charcoal over them. Then you want to add your soil, at least an inch thick. 2-3inches is better, but it all depends on the size of your jar. Now press your moss down on top of it, and give it a misting of water.


We made some very basic, but super cute toadstool to accent our jars. These are made with polymer clay. Sage made all the stems, and i added the tops. i formed them around a straight pin in these so they would be easy to stand up in the moss. A tooth pick would also work, but i didn't have any. We baked them according to the directions, then placed a layer of sculpey glaze over them and let them dry.


When the glaze was totally dry we pressed them into the moss/soil. Tweezers are helpful. :)


These are super easy to make and they really look pretty a long time. You'll want to place the garden in a spot where it will receive indirect sunlight and misted now and again if it starts looking dry. These look especially cool in unique apothecary jars and other unusual containers. We added a few crystals and pretty stones to ours, and Sage thinks we need to make some mini fairy houses to put inside. :)

i also wanted to mention that i have some exciting artist features and giveaways planned! If you check the links on the right (under upcoming giveaways) you can get a sneak peek and the wonderful artists i will featuring! i'm super excited, i hope you are too!

3 comments:

  1. How fantastic! Thank you so much for the tutorial! Any moss near us is under 3 feet of snow right now, but I am totally going to make some of these later! I have really been admiring the ones on Etsy but didnt want to pay the prices plus the shipping!

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  2. I'm going to have to hit the thrift stores to find some cool jars...... Those are too stickin' cute!!!!!

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  3. I absolutely love the toadstools with the moss. It really does make it enchanted. Thank you for sharing.

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