A LOT more time on my hands

Unemployment and this ridiculous lethargy means that I've been at home a lot more than usual. But it's been kind of nice to rest up and do some well missed activities. For example, last weekend I stayed at home, watched Dead Man and drew a little.


It's nowhere near finished but I haven't been in the right frame of mind for tree drawing since, but it will come.


I gave into an overwhelming need to mother some plants. With any luck, these will not suffer the same fate as the last. I really forgot how great it is having your own herbs. I love these guys already and it kind of makes our lack of garden space bearable.

While I was potting those babies, I remembered that a while ago I plotted to make a tiny terrarium. I've had an old Glasshouse candle container sitting in my kitchen for months and months to remind me. Today I had enough of it sitting there on the windowsill, looking empty, gathering dust.


I bookmarked a whole lot of reference material when I first hatched the plan after being inspired by one in Obus.
Terrarium Man has a hell of a lot of information on how to get started. But it was the pictures on this blog that got me going. How great are the images from Better Homes and Gardens? Actually, the pictures from The A Treasury of Things to Make by the editors of Sphere Magazine might even be a little better? Maybe?

I couldn't start it today as I need to go on a scouting mission to collect gravel, various little plant clippings, moss and twigs, etc. and the weather today was pretty...rainy. Also, I felt flat as a pancake, so I wasn't going anywhere.
Instead I thought about what I could possibly put in the little thing. An old work friend told me about Moss Stories yeeeeeears ago and I found the work by Marguerite Keyes so completely impressive. It was the itsy-bitsy house that came to mind at first, but it was THIS:
that did it for me. My train of thought came back to Dead Man and reached the logical Tipi conclusion. A tent/Tipi meant that I could improvise with materials. And so I started to work out how I was going to make the little guy.

I started on one and wasn't sure it was quite right, so I started on another. Here they are in progress. Fiddly work!



Finished! They weren't very complicated. They are made of/with: an old ikea pencil, canvas scraps, plenty (haha, hardly!) of glue, masking tape, markers and thread.


I had so many wooden splinters lying around that I thought I might as well make them a little fire...it's glitter.


This was supposed to give you some kind of an idea about scale but it just kind of looks like a bomb hit my desk. You can see the soon to be terrarium in the background. I started with my charcoal layer...the rest will come very soon. I am promising myself right now that it's not going to become a charcoal house. ugh.

So this Saturday night, instead of celebrating Halloween or seeing some really good bands, I stayed at home and made tiny Tipi's...telling myself all the while that no, I am NOT mad.

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