DIY: Terrarium

Terrariums are a great way to capture some greenery in the home without the mess of a pot plant, and are a really low maintenance way of keeping a 'garden'. My girlfriend and I got together for a craft date yesterday and got our hands (sorta) dirty making some terrariums. 

To Make a Terrarium You will Need:

• A container or vessel to hold your plant
• Gloves (potting mix and charcoal are a bit yuck)
• Potting Mix (see tips below for more info)
• Activated Charcoal
• Gravel
• Sphagnum Moss
• Plants of your choosing (and some decretive statues if you like)

Tips, Tricks and To-Do's (and don'ts)

Selecting Your Terrarium

To make a terrarium you need a container. You can plant your terrarium in virtually any container you like (google terrariums for inspiration), however you will have to keep your plant choice in mind when selecting your vessel. If you choose something with little ventilation, like my laboratory bottle above, you will need plants that are tolerant of high humidity such as ferns and mosses. 

Plant Selection 

If you would like to grow cacti and succulent you will  need a vessel with a greater air flow, cause cacti live in dry arid places, not in wet humid forests. If you do want to do cacti and succulents in a closed vessel, you can do what my friend did and use one with a opening 'door' so you can open your closed space and give you plants room to breathe.

Layer One

Before you start planting your terrarium its a good idea to give the inside a good wash (can't be doing this once your plants are in). For the base layer (Image 1) of our terrariums we put in equal amounts of activated charcoal and gravel. As there are no drainage holes in a terrarium, this acts as a 'reserve' for the water and prevents the plants from staying too wet. The amount you use will be determined by the size of your vessel. For this example above layer one was around three centimetres deep.  

Layer Two

The next bit involves creating a layer of protective and absorbent sphagnum moss, to form a barrier between the gravel and the soil to ensure drainage levels remain optimal (Image 2). Insert a dense layer of sphagnum moss on top of your gravel and press it down (I used a metal skewer for this hard-to-reach into bottle) to ensure that the soil won't mix into the gravel underneath. 

Layer Three

The final layer of your terrarium (Image 3) is soil. Choose one suited to your plant. Mine was a relatively dense mix to keep the humidity high and my fern and moss happy (think forest floor soil), where a succulent may prefer a sandy soil medium (ask the folk at your local garden centre when you purchase plants if you are unsure). 

Layer Four

Finally the fun part (Image 4), planting your terrarium! To place plants in a bottle I used a long handled set of tweezers, but you will tailor your planting to suit your vessel (I have seen a video on large bottle terrariums where the maker has used coat hanger wire to make a planting implement). I really enjoyed planting my fern and arranging the moss around it, so much so that I went on to make another succulent terrarium and a mini 'mug-o-terrarium' (which looks pretty funny at the moment but will look good when my succulent grows a little larger). 

Placement and Care

Glass magnifies the suns rays (think mean boys burning ants with magnifying glasses), so be sure to take this into account when placing your terrarium. They prefer indirect light to sunlight or darkness, and a nice comfortable consistent temperature. So a coffee table out or bench out of the sun is a great location. You will need to keep an eye on your plant for watering times (check the care ticket that comes with your plant on purchase for guidelines) but you can generally see when its time to water. A mossy/ferny terrarium should always maintain a bit of moisture and humidity, while a succulent/cacti terrarium will remain quite dry. It is easier to visually tell when a humid terrarium is dry due to an absence of dew droplets, but a cacti/succulent isn't as easy to tell so a general rule is a one a month water (again depending on what your care tag indicates). 

The Smallest Room

A separate toilet is a blessing in a three bedroom one bathroom house. For my man and I one bathroom is no problem. However, for resale this can be a huge disadvantage. Most families look for houses with two or more bathrooms to save all the arguments when getting ready in the morning. So having a separate toilet can assist in the traffic direction for larger families.

I have been looking EVERYWHERE for toilet decoration inspiration and have come up with nothing. So rather than looking for room inspiration I have started imaginary shopping instead. I have decided we will need to invest in this fantastic water saving toilet with a sink over the cistern. This will make our toilet a 'power room' as it will all be self contained.

Kyle and Karas amazing bathroom on the block this week gone has inspired me to rip up the tiles and work with the wooden floor for warmth and tile the wall (probably with a slate grey tile) behind the toilet as a feature. With the right lighting (which I haven't worked out yet) the room will be a fantastic self contained powder room and a feature (which sadly it has to be as it is at the end of the hall and people will see it).

Pallet Perfection

My man and I are nearly finished our coffee table project. Once we have varnished it I will do a post on the construction and finished product. These images are a collection of my inspiration for the project. Our table looks a little different to all of the above, which is the beautiful thing about working with reclaimed wood, each piece has its own say in how it would like to be used.

Sources: etsy, palletfurniture, thepoorsophisticate, vintageindustrialfurniture, houzz

A Good Nights Sleep

  

Bedrooms have been one of those areas that I have found difficult to find inspiration for. Sure, there are thousands of pictures of beautiful fluffy pillow covered beds, or romantically crowded bohemian spaces online, but a bedroom must provide the users with a good nights sleep. My man suffers from mild sleep apnea and one of the key factors for dealing with it is having a restful bedroom. Our bedroom at our rental was crowded full of clothing as we had much less space and no wardrobes. We both agree since moving that it was causing us to have a restless nights sleep. Our new bedroom should be minimalist, functional and most of all comfortable. 

The picture at the top is my bed-spread. I absolutely love it and the story that goes with it. As a poor uni student I saw it in Myer on my way home from class (I caught the bus to and from uni at the shopping centre). At over $200 there was no way I could ever have afforded it. Several months later I was thrift shopping and found a really familiar pillow case. It was from my dream linen set! I hunted around the linen section of the thrift store and found the entire set, which looked like it had never been used. I went and purchased a new woollen filled doona to fit it and for under $100 ($5.00 for the cover and pillow slips, and $95 for the doona) I had my dream bed. Two years on and I am still not bored with it. 

Our bedroom will consist of a bed, two side tables, and a small dresser for my mans socks and jocks (this has been a dream of his for a while since our crowded rental didn't have space for it). I think a welded metal framed bed would suit the colours of my doona cover. Again, the walls will be white, but I wouldn't be opposed to a bedroom feature wall. 

This purple disaster below is what we have to work with.