Mossy Gardens Part 2

For Part 1 go here.

Materials:
You'll have enough to make several good sized terrariums. Why not make some for Christmas gifts?

Activated Carbon ($5)
Keeps your Garden clean and stink free. Can be found in any aquarium section of a pet store. One bottle will treat lots of terrariums.

Dirt ($4)
Use some nice potting soil so you know its free of disease and bugs (Free if you've got some lying around)



Small rocks/gravel or sand ($3)
Keeps your carbon from going to the bottom of your jar.



Covered Jars (less than $2/piece at thrift store)
Covered is key here, less maintenance and makes your garden virtually kill proof.



Moss (free)
Take a nice walk with your family to a local park and watch the ground as you walk. You'll be surprised at the different varieties, textures, and colors you can find! Bring a ziploc baggie with you to transport the moss home. Be careful of not taking too much moss form any one place, we don't want to mess up nature's beauty!



Bigger Rocks
Pick these up on your walk too, or if you have some of these glass gems lying around, feel free to use those!



Spray Bottle
For watering. I bought one of those little travel size spray bottles (like for hair spray) for about $0.50 and keep it next to my mossy garden. If you are giving your gardens away, it's nice to include a spray bottle as well.

So how do we put it all together? First wash your jars in hot soapy water. Then layer your ingredients in this order:

• A thin layer of larger rocks, enough to cover the bottom
• An even thinner layer of gravel/small rocks or sand. Just enough to fill in the large crevices of your previous layer. This is to keep your dirt and carbon from falling to the bottom of the jar, and for drainage
• A small handful of carbon (it does not need to cover the previous layer)
• Add a nice even layer of potting soil. You can create "hills" by adding more soil up against a wall of the jar
• Now gently tear pieces of moss to your desired size and place on top of the soil. Add interest by mixing up the different kinds of moss.
• For the first watering I like to use a cup to gently pour water into the terrarium and make sure everything gets watered. A little water goes a long way.
• Cover your jar and you are done!
• Water with your sprayer once every 2 weeks or so. Just a couple of misting sprays is all it takes!

This is my favorite jar ever! $1.75 at the thrift store and it is mushroom shaped! Perfect for a Mossy Garden!


Look at all the different textures!

Getting ready for Market

The housing market that is. Over the next couple of weeks my husband and I will be working on making our house shine. I always hate that these last little projects that have been on your "to do" list don't get done until you are ready to move out! You put in some hard work, spit and shine, and elbow grease into a couple of weeks and then you don't get to enjoy them! Oh well, cest la vie!

We are still hanging on to some marginal thread of hope that something miraculous will happen and we won't have to leave our lovely home after all. Yeah, I know wishful thinking but it doesn't hurt to dream!

So we have made a list of things that need to be done to our house. Hubby has a list and I have my own list, each list is about 10 items long.

My list consist mainly of curb appeal items, but it also involves painting my laminate counter tops (I'm excited to try this), painting the bathroom cabinets, and general cleaning of the house.

One of the things on my list is to make pillow covers for the giant 25"x25" pillows we have on our futon. They are all mismatched and the light colored ones are now looking dingy thanks to the kids. I purchased them oh, about 1 year ago with the intent of eventually recovering them. Well it's moving time and decided new pillow covers would tie my living room together. I bought the pillows at Old Time Pottery for $5 each - what a great deal!



The theme of the room is set by my adjacent kitchen and this painting that hangs over the couch. The yellow of the kitchen matches the yellow flower centers.


Back when I bought the pillows I already had a plan in mind. I had fallen in love with these Pottery barn Pillows:

Textured Solid Pillow Covers

But at $40+ each (just for the pillow cover not the pillow inserts) That would have been $160! I can think of much better ways to spend $160 than on pillow covers. I went to the fabric store two days ago and spent $25 on fabric for all 4 including some wooden toggle buttons (I was going by a year old memory of the pillows) I might go back and exchange the buttons, we'll see.

I love the look of having different colored pillows. It's still coherent because the are the same style. I'll be pulling my pillow colors off my magnolia painting shown above: dark red, sage green, yellow, and ivory.



I'll take pictures as I make these super easy envelope style pillows so I can write a tutorial. I can't make promises as to when they'll be up though!