Sunday, February 5, 2012

Terrarium territory

ecosystem  ec·o·sys·tem (ěk'ō-sĭs'təm, ē'kō-) n. 
An ecological community together with its environment,functioning as a unit.

Yep, we did that, in terrarium form!  

Aubree and I, individually, had both wanted to make our own terrarium, through pinterest we realized this was something we had in common.  I don't think that either of us are exceptionally good with foliage, I think we are both just control freaks and we view our own ecosystem as our own little world we get to control :)

Either way, we decided that this would be the weekend for us to make our terrariums!  We sought the expertise of my mom-in-law, Terri (although she's never made a terrarium herself...she IS a retired teacher, she will know what to do!) We also read...well...looked at pictures and diagrams of terrariums others have made online.  

It took a couple of different stores but we ended up finding everything we needed!

Pretty glass jars, rocks, small pebbles, sand, moss (called for Spanish Moss, but Terri had American Moss...That seems fair), Crushed Activated Charcoal (we just used the leftover Kingsford from this Summer), potting soil, and pretty plants.
Terri and Aubree crushed the charcoal
Crushed activated charcoal...hmm this makes me think of an emergency room trip from about 10 years ago. Hailee decided to climb up to the medicine cabinet, put a pain pill in her mouth, run to me and stick her tongue out and show me the pill in her mouth!  I had no idea if she had taken anymore than the one on her tongue, so she had to be taken to the emergency room.  The hospital staff didn't have anyway of knowing if she had taken any more, either, so they made her "drink" a cup of activated charcoal. It was thick, and looked like tar!  Gross!  I told her it was delicious, pretending to drink it myself and after each "drink" she took, she would gag and make horrible faces and I would say, "try it again, maybe this time it will taste like strawberries...maybe this time it will taste like chocolate". So glad she never did that again!

The Order (from the bottom up)
Layer 1-rocks
Layer 2-pebbles
Layer 3-American Moss
Layer 4-Charcoal (Crushed)
Layer 5-sand
Layer 6-potting soil
pretty plants
a little water


Putting in their rock layer...Terri and her Terri-arium, lol!
Sprinkling in the Sand
:) Posing for the picture :)
In order: Mine, Sadie's, Aubree's, and Terri's

Yes, mine is the biggest because it is for our kitchen and Sadie got a mason jar because she decided after "helping" me put rocks and extra rocks in mine, that she wanted to make her own :). Aubree's and Terri's are the same size and with all our layers it would've been easier to use taller jars.  Sadie must have thought hers was a snow-globe because the first thing she did after her lid was on, was shake it :)
A closer view

They turned out pretty well; although, these were our second attempts.  Our first version looked like sand art with about two inches to spare at the top...for our plants... oops!  We used smaller layers for our second attempt.

My terrarium now resides on the kitchen table and along with my two plants, I now have a ceramic bunny and a giraffe in my mini jungle...together with their environment, functioning as a unit in my own ecosystem!




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