Feathered Fairy Terrarium

     I grew more grass to use for another dry terrarium as I'd done for my mermaid terrarium found here and decided I wanted something simpler and with things I had lying around (which is the best kind of craft since it's things I don't want to toss out because I know I'll use them.)

You can't kill this terrarium because it's already dead.
Shown beside the mermaid terrarium mentioned above.

     For this terrarium I started with growing the grass for a few weeks until I noticed it dying off so I stopped watering (I grew it in a cup, lots of seeds and overcrowded the patch on purpose because I knew I would use it in my terrarium.) I grew it thick, didn't take care to spread out the seeds but just piled it on and hoped for the best for some old grass seed I had from last year. The trick is to get it to grow thickly matted and tall, you want those roots knotted together for a reason.

The back of terrarium allowing you to see the dried grass with roots and dirt still attached.

    Once your grass is dead, dry to the touch and no longer has a single living blade left, you'll want to grab it all from the container in a handful, or dump it all gently on it's side if you have a large work area you don't mind getting dirty. Take a toothpick or a pen and tap the dirt free from the roots the best you can, it's fine if you can't get it all off because you want that earthy look which will be on the bottom of the jar. After you have that done, find a jar and push the root ends in first, you'll want to take care to not tear it to pieces once you get it in so it lays right.

     I used a knitting needle to clean the roots and closed scissors to push the soil down. once the grass was as I liked, I lay in a fake leaf I picked up off the floor near one of the fake trees it fell from but you can use a felt leaf or something leaf shaped or even a rock for this part. I just pushed it in with the help of my scissors since my hand would not fit inside the jar.

     Lastly the fairy, I chose a feathered fairy I made last year but no longer had a spot to hang it, cut the string off I'd used to hang it by and gently with the help of the knitting needle (I didn't want to accidentally cut Miss Fairy in half with my scissors) I arranged her and her feathery dress so it looked as if she lay sleeping on a fallen leaf hidden in the grass.

Close up of my handmade feathered fairy napping on a fallen (fake) leaf.
This fairy was made with thin copper wire, beads, pink feathers and crinkle plastic paper.

    You can use just about anything you want, if you have a kid who's not into fairies or mermaids, toss in a tiny car, a lego figure, a pipe cleaner creation, anything you want even if it's made out of paper because that's the brilliance of making a dry terrarium, there's no water to destroy the delicate things.

Disclaimer;The fairy was created using my fly tying skills learned years ago in a program to teach kids the basics on fly tying. Okay so I took what, an hour or an hour and a half class like ten years ago so I'm not an expert or anything. I've never been fly fishing in my life but I should still have my fishing pole for it. The closest I ever came to was practicing in the yard on how to cast. For some reason I never got around to actually trying it back when I was into the idea.