Saturday, December 27, 2008

Terrariums

Every once in a while I stumble across a blog that I fall in love with immediately. This happened a couple of months ago when I first came across Amy Elizabeth Merrick's blog An Apple A Day. It's one of those blogs that just oozes charm and inspiration.

One thing I was especially inspired by when reading through her archives was her infectious love of terrariums and since reading
this post in particular, I've been wanting to try making some of my own.

Lucky for me and anyone else interested in trying their hand at terrarium making, Amy put together
this wonderful easy-to-follow tutorial for the Domino Magazine site which takes you step-by-step through the process. I am now officially left with no excuse not try it for myself.

I've been spending more and more time in the glassware sections of thrift stores these days looking for suitable vessels. I got these three for about $1.50 a piece. The fact that this type of glassware is usually cheap and easy to find makes this hobby even more appealing.

I love the way they look grouped together with their similar, yet slightly different, shapes and sizes, unfortunately they're quite small at around 4 inches tall not including the lids. I would have to find something pretty tiny to plant in them. So I'm thinking I may just fill these with something interesting to display.

I like how the glass jar in this inspiration collage looks filled with seashells. Incidentally, this image is from another love-at-first-site blog that I discovered through Mila's inspirational treasure trove of a blog, Loveology.

The blog, called Record the Day, consists of pictures of the most beautiful collection of date stamped inspiration collages. If you're like me and love looking at other people's inspiration boards, notebooks, etc. or just enjoy collections of lovely things, I highly recommend checking it out.



The other glass jar I picked up for $2 at the Goodwill was this Planter's Peanuts jar from 1979. It's got Mr. Peanut on the bottom and the lid (monocle, top hat, cane and all :) and it's nice and tall.

So we'll see what I'm able to come up with. I'll do an update post once I get some completed. In the meantime, these are some recent flickr favorites that I've found inspiring:

Originally uploaded by alicesaunders

ferns under glass
Originally uploaded by
melissamh

Originally uploaded by alicesaunders

Originally uploaded by palindromepress

bhg - terra
Originally uploaded by
tiny palpitation

tiny terrarium
Originally uploaded by
Justin and Elise

Terrariums
Originally uploaded by
SarahIvy

P.S. - I hope you all had a really lovely holiday!

12 comments:

fern said...

oh how lovely! thanks for the great links.

and a happy new year to you!

Skye said...

Terrariums are great - did you make those ones out of old peanut butter jars and stuff when you were a kid? I loved doing that, I bet Clover will get such a kick out of yours when you make them.

Those first set of jars you found are just like the ones my grandmother used to keep coloured cotton wool balls in, so seventies!

Milla said...

ah!

Cadmium said...

ooh, lovely idea! those are cute jars - whatever you put in them, i'm sure they will look charming. btw, i love the arrangement of objects behind the peanut butter jar.

hope you had a great christmas too!

amy merrick said...

Thank you, thank you. You're so sweet!

Anonymous said...

thank you for posting the link to the how-to, as well as the beautiful photos. i've been wanting to try to do some but didn't know where to start. as always, your blog is a delight.

TP said...

These look so cute - you've paid the inspiration forward with this post, I think I'm going to have to have a go at making my own too.

Diane said...

There's something treasure-y about a terrarium. It's a perfect mini world. I did a bunch of these as party favors for my daughter's birthday. Blog post soon with pix!

ELM said...

I love terrariums as well! I made one back in grade school out of a 2 liter. The extra exciting thing about them is that if your ecosystem is sound enough, and the environment large enough, you can put a few bugs and even a small turtle or frog in there as well! PS I love commenter "Diane"'s terrarium party favor idea! Wicked!

annaleehodges said...

I LOVE this.

Anonymous said...

Have you seen these?

So cute!!!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19308026

Diane said...

I also have one of the Planter's Peanut jars like you have pictured. Actually I have two different ones. Do you have any idea if they have any value to them??
Thanks!