My Pretty Things

This may be one of those self-indulgent posts I roll my eyes at on other blogs, but I had so much fun taking these pictures, and these things are so dear to me, that I had to throw them out there.

Here are some of the pretty little things I have around the house. I love plants and glass and little worlds in which to keep them.

The dried flowers about are from our wedding reception. My vision was for flowers and blueberry sprigs in old blue glass mason jars everywhere at the reception. In typical fashion, the morning of the wedding found us scrambling all around town, clipping blooms from friends' bushes and stealing them from the side of the highway. The shells in the bottom of the jar are from Costa Rica; our honeymoon.

Everyone has asked me, don't you want to get rid of that jar of dead flowers that keeps shedding everywhere? And my answer people, once and for all is No! I do not want to get ride of it! I want to keep it forever!

And not so much because it's from the wedding, but because I love the faded, crinkly look of the dried hydrangeas and the scraggly elegance of my blueberry sprig.

This is my newest terrarium, and it houses moss and ferns and stones and plastic ants and a porcelain duck pitcher.

It makes me want to step in and sink into the moss and walk along the stones and sit under the fern and put my hand on the cool smooth neck of the duck.

Green all winter :)

Our kitchen window- I am so blessed to have this herb window! Right now it has cilantro, parsley, mint, and two types of little succulents. Oh, and some fruit and reviving celery.

mmm...just waiting to be able to harvest this guy.

Around Christmas, I procrastinated by hollowing out light bulbs (there's a great tutorial on Instructables) and filling them with dried babies breath and other dried flowers. They made great (year-round!) ornaments and I gave them to my family for Christmas.

Think of all the things you can do with an empty light bulb!

A terrarium in a large ball jar capped with an old handkerchief, planted with shells and ferns.

At the end of college, I search high and low to find little globes to house my island-worlds. I located these clear bulbs on only one site on the whole interenet. I made the islands from clay and fired them with an iron red glaze on the bottom, then painted the tops like sand and rock and planted them with model rail-road supplies. I filled the globes with with baby oil dyed with moped oil (which is blue.) Water made them fog.

I made several, but I emptied this one because it leaked everywhere.

And this one sadly broke soon after we moved in.

While I sculpted them, I imagined walking up the little rock steps and perching on the island, looking out to the oily sea...

Are you still here? Well, here's one more terrarium.

Just a little fern in one of my blue jars. I usually keep it by our bed. The heavenly space that is our room is a whole 'nother post.