Hand Made Terrarium

 Tools needed for project
" Plastic/Glass display case
" Styrofoam
" Small fine paint brush
" Razor Blade
" Hot Glue Gun
" Hot glue sticks
" Glue {Elmer's Glue, Scenic Glue}
" Primary Object {Small house, Person, Animal}
" Pete Moss or Spanish Moss
" Foliage {Fine Turf, Little flowers, shrubs}

All items can be purchases either at a hobby store or a local craft store. Fine turf and shrubs can be found at your local hobby store. 
           

This guide will help you build a basic hand made terrarium from scratch. First what you will need is a few key point items that I have listed above but most importantly is the plastic or glass container that will be featuring your work. You can visit your local hobby/craft store for these items. The total cost of the items should not exceed no more then $30.00 to make the handmade terrarium.

We are going to build a hand made terrarium that features the primary item (the main featured item) that the terrarium will showcase. The main display piece can be an animal, house or person that will fit comfortably in your terrarium. It is important to try to keep all your terrarium items to scale but is not necessary. (For instance), if you are using small people make sure that they are to scale with the house and the foliage. This will lend to the terrarium a much more realistic look.

The Styrofoam should be big enough to cover the entire bottom of the terrarium because it is going to be the foundation of what you build off of. Everything that you use for the hand made terrarium will be glued to the Styrofoam to secure it in place. The main piece is your primary object that you will start to build around but will be the last piece added in your terrarium.

Let's start with the Styrofoam, cut a piece that covers the entire bottom of the inside of the terrarium, make sure when you cut the Styrofoam to size that it fits snug in the plastic/glass casing, by turning it upside down will tell you if it is snug enough or not. The next step is to take the Styrofoam out and apply hot glue on the bottom of the casing, make sure that you only use a dab of hot glue on the bottom, less is more approach. This will now hold the Styrofoam in its place permanently. (You can purchase a hot glue gun with hot glue sticks at your local hobby store, see list above).

Make sure that the Styrofoam is secured with enough glue on the bottom of the terrarium because it is going to hold down everything that goes into the terrarium. Hot glue should take around 5-10 minutes for it to hold the Styrofoam in its place permanently. Any other glue may take 1 hour to dry. We strongly recommend hot glue for this process.

Once the Styrofoam is in place (after 10 minutes) turn the plastic box upside down again and make sure that the Styrofoam does not fall out, tug on it just a little, if it feels secure then move onto the next step, if not then pull up the Styrofoam and re-glue it again only to give it more time to dry. This should do the trick now.

The next step is to take some Pete Moss or Spanish Moss and apply it to where you see the Styrofoam touching the casing on the outside of the terrarium itself, you are only going to cover up where as if you are looking outside the casing, (front view and side view) . Take a pinch of Spanish or Pete Moss and apply it with a small stick, no glue is needed at all because friction will hold it in place. What you are doing is covering the Styrofoam up with the Pete Moss/Spanish Moss. There should be no visible Styrofoam showing at all after you apply the Spanish/Pete Moss.

Now what you want to do is get your primary object (Animal, House, person) and place it in the terrarium temporarily where you would think would look the best and with your razor blade carefully cut around the object 1/8 deep, be careful not to cut too deep just enough to create a tiny gully for the glue to fall in, you should now have an outline of the primary object in the Styrofoam. When it calls for the primary object (animal/house/person) to be installed permanently you will apply a little bit of hot glue and will install it in its place permanently, but not yet.

Note: When applying hot glue makes sure you do not get it on the plastic/glass casing.

Remove the primary object (Animal, house, person) and get some of the grass that you have purchased from the hobby store/craft store and take a little dab of glue (scenic glue, hot glue, Elmer's glue) and distribute it on the Styrofoam with a small fine paintbrush, we recommend Elmer's glue for this procedure. Cover as much as you will need and where it looks good to you, make sure it is a thin coat of Elmer's glue on the entire Styrofoam area by using a thin paintbrush to paint thin layers of glue to the floor of the Styrofoam.

Take a pinch of fine turf and distribute it around inside the casing of the terrarium in making sure that the entire bottom of the Styrofoam is completely covered similar to a train platform. Pat the fine turf down when applying it to the Styrofoam. (The object of the game is not to over due it with too much glue or fine turf, less is more). When that is complete once again turn the terrarium casing upside down to remove the excess (fine turf) that is laying on the surface of the terrarium, shake the loose debris out.

After the fine turf the next thing is the primary object, the primary object such as the animal, house, person is now ready to be installed. Apply the primary object where you cut out the small gully, place it firmly in its spot, apply some pressure on it to give it more of a hold and now remove it and apply some hot glue in the outline of the gully  (for best results we recommend hot glue for this procedure).

Be careful when using hot glue that it does not get on your plastic casing, there is no real remedy of getting hot glue off a plastic surface that I know of, if you do please share it with us. Glass display cases should not have a problem removing, as long as you do not scratch the glass itself. 

After the glue is applied in the outline (gully) take your primary object (animal, house, person) and install it in the terrarium. Let it dry for at least an hour or two.

The last part is to turn the entire terrarium upside down once more in making sure that the contents of the terrarium remains in place permanently. Do this step after an hour to make sure that all the contents are dry and in it's place. If not then take a little bit of glue and apply where needed.

You have now just made a time piece for a loved one that can accentuate any room in your home.

Children can have fun spending hours making a handmade terrarium, we suggest Adult supervision.

http://stores.ebay.com/Decorative-HandMadeTerrarium-Store

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