Faux fern in soil and glass vase made from clay

I decided I really, really, wanted  a fern in dirt for display at the shop. I know, it’s a super-weird thing. The only problem was, I knew if I brought a real fern into the shop , there was a good chance I was going to kill it before the month was out. Ferns and I have an understanding.I bring them home, and they don’t get to make it out alive (This post may contain affiliate links). I looked around,and even though I found a few nice fake ones,I couldn’t find an exact faux fern I wanted, so I decided to try to make a faux fern in soil myself.

I picked up a glass jar, a bag of stones from the floral aisle, a not-so-fake looking fake fern, some kids air dry clay, a packet of black model magic clay, black sand from the kid’s craft aisle, white craft glue, and dried craft lichen and craft moss. If you’re a fern fan, you should see how I decorated my mantel with ferns from my yard.

I started by placing about 1 inch of the stone in the bottom of the glass jar as a base. I thought the contrast would make it look more realistic, like it had stones for “drainage”. I rolled out the black model magic clay so that it was about the same height and diameter as the inside of the glass container. I removed any extra, and kept that to use on top. Once I had the right width, I spread out a thin layer the craft glue on the clay, and sprinkled the black sand on it. I thought this would give some texture to my “dirt”

I placed the clay into the vase and pressed it again the sides, and down into the rocks at the edges, as if the clay was the dirt.

To save on the amount of black Model Magic clay (which is not cheap), I used a less-expensive plain white, kid’s air-dry clay to fill the inside of the “dirt”. I’ll be curious to see how much the clay shrinks as it dries over the next week or so around my faux fern in soil.

Once the white clay was filled in the center, I used the leftover black clay to top it off, pressing it all together,and smoothing it out. I spread a bit more glue on the top, and sprinkled some sand.

To add my faux fern, I just pressed it into the clay with a little glue on it and that was it! I added a few bits of lichen from a bag of craft moss I had.

I think it looks fairly realistic! If you like making faux plants, because you kill all the real ones like me,

you can see how I made  faux tulip bulbs from craft paper, or faux mini-succulent planter.

I love how the “dirt” ended up looking with the rocks in the bottom. If I can find a larger glass jar, I might make a bigger faux fern in soil. I think this will be perfect in the shop! Which reminds me, we are gearing up for our grand opening  in September! In fact, if you sign up for our first class in the beginning of September, you actually get to be in the shop before the grand opening, and get a little sneak peek of everything we have going on! I’ll let you know the exact date, I would love to have you come if you’re in the area!

The post Faux fern in soil and glass vase made from clay appeared first on Jennifer Rizzo.

from
https://jenniferrizzo.com/2017/08/faux-fern-in-soil.html