Fun with Terrariums!

I finally finished my terrariums! You would not believe the trouble I had trying to find plants that were small enough and that would survive in a terrarium. I ended up finding these little guys at Lowe's and now I can't remember what they are called (sorry!) I did manage to take pictures of the process. These were incredibly easy, even for me-- and I have no experience growing plants at all. Let's check out the pictures, shall we?

My first terrarium (finished):

Supplies

-Jar

-Soil

-Activated charcoal

-Pebbles

-Plants

-Water

The soil I used:

Activated Charcoal (I found this at Petsmart by the aquarium supplies):

Layers in the jar: first pebbles, second charcoal and third the soil.

Take the plant out of it's store container and shake off most of the soil around the roots:

Dig a spot for the plant, stick it in and lightly push soil around it. When you have it where you want it a little bit of water is needed. I wet a paper towel and squeezed the water into the jar, this gave me a little bit more control as to how much water actually went into the jar.

After the plant is watered I added some leftover stones that I painted with acrylic paints to give my jar a little color- I would suggest leaving the painted stones out of the jar overnight to dry that way the strong smell won't harm the plants:

Here are both my pretty jars soaking up some sun in the windowsill:

And here I am cheesing it up with my new creation!

Here's the link to the Wiki page for terrariums that I used if you want to check it out.

My Heat Therapy Bag Tutorial!

Yay! This is my first tutorial! I hope I explain everything well, if you have any questions, feel free to message me. [warning: this post is EXTREMELY picture obese!]

You'll need:
-2 strips of fabric 2 1/4" by 8"
-1 strip of fabric 3" by 8"
-1 strip of fabric 4 1/2" by 8"
-Muslin for the inner rice bag
-Rice (for this size bag you'll use about 1/2 pound)

First you want to cut your fabric:
Then I like to lay mine out to see if I like the look of it. I usually alternate colors but you can do it any way that your little heart desires.

Pin your first two pieces together wrong sides facing and sew across:

Attach your other two pieces the same way:

When all pieces are sewn iron down seams (if you want to add any accents to your cover this is the time to do it):

[Not shown: fold down the ends of the long sides about 1/4" and hem. I usually do a straight stitch and a zig-zag on top for extra strength]

Fiddle around with the way you want the cover to look (like how much of each color you want to show on the front) You then want to overlap the long ends about an inch and pin down the short sides (keep in mind that the color that's on the top will turn out to be covered by the overlap when you turn it):
Sew across the short sides trim the access and clip your corners:

Flip and press:

For the inner rice bag I use the cover as a template leaving about 1/4" around:

Sew around all edges of the muslin leaving a 2" opening for turning and filling. Turn. Using a funnel (or a Kohl's ad like me) fill about three quarters of the way full with your rice:

[Not shown: once the rice bag is full fold in the edges of the opening, pin and sew shut. I usually push all the rice to the closed end of the bag and put pins across under the opening so that the rice stays clear of the sewing machine.]

Slide the inner rice bag into the cover and you're done! You can enjoy the bag hot or cold.