Sunday 19 January 2014

Terrariums and broken pot gardens

This school holiday I decided to give gardening another go, in particular terrariums. I used to garden a lot about 5 or 6 years ago but since moving from Perth I haven't gotten back in to setting a garden up for my self. I researched what plants I would need for terrariums and what type of containers I would need. Another interested was making broken pot gardens.  It looked all rather simple so I decided to go ahead and give it a go.

For all of my gardening project I decided to use the ferns and ground covers which seemed to be the best option for a lot of what I was looking to do. I must admit I had a lot of fun working on these projects I wish I could make more but unfortunately I am restricted by space for pots. I did end up making one for Margaret, which I think she is very pleased with. Currently it is still sitting in the being established area where I'm keeping an eye on it but soon it will end up going into the garden  right near the breakfast nook.  The original idea of the broken pot garden was to have it as a fairy garden, I decided to have mine as a Kodama garden, which are the little forest spirits in one the studio Ghibli’s animations, Princess Mononoke.  I made up a few of these kodamas a few months back out of glow in the dark sculpey.






Very glad I've done some gardening and I hope to create more projects later on. The terrariums were easy and fun to make, as well as very cheap, as I was able to find many of the containers at a local op shop. The plants were quite inexpensive as well as I bought seedlings. My main issue with terrariums is it appears I tend to over water them, they really don't need a lot and can quite happily sit by themselves for weeks on end without being watered. 










I started this entry a few weeks ago and as we have come through what I have affectionately termed "the week from hell" due to the temperature being over 40º C for 5 days in a row. Some plants in my terrariums got a little cooked and dried (even with a little watering each day), there were also a few fatalities in the fairy gardens. Ferns do not cope well in dry 40º C heat. I was able to rescue a maiden hair fern I had in a terrarium after it got rather burnt. 


 

I have been doing quite a bit of crafting and scrap booking during the holidays as well. Unfortunately a few of my scrap booking and card making projects are a bit top-secret right now and I cannot show them to you. I will keep you informed as to when these projects are available for viewing. I'm very proud of these projects that are top-secret and it is killing me not to be able to show any of you.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Valentine


A few weeks back I got a valentine bee in my bonnet and created some cards. 

These are available for sale on my ETSY store.












Monday 6 January 2014

Heidi Swapp Make pretty Stuff Down Under After Class Challenge

In early November I joined many Australian crafters in Heidi Swapp's Aussie tour "Making Pretty Stuff down Under"
After Heidi arrived safely back home she announced an after class challenge to those interested.  "Create a project( layout, memory file, card or OTP) using at least 5 items from any of the 3 kits"

I entered with these two layouts. 












Astonishingly enough I actually won a prize for my entries too! Epiphany Crafts round tools.