"What's that green crap you're growing on the shower shelf?"

It's moss, honey! Don't be mad! In all likelihood, it contains no spider eggs.

Recently I began making small terrariums out of local mosses that I came upon in my walks through the northeast side. The mosses are indescribably beautiful, and I've currently got 4, possibly 5 different species going. I made a small, portable terrarium out of glass flour container with a sample of each species, and I'm hoping to find someone at a local university or the botanical gardens to help me ID each one.

As far as care goes, they have been kept barely moist in humid air. It's still much warmer and dryer inside than out, and I hope they aren't injured by the change. I am keeping a very close eye one each one for stowaway bugs, but I'm not worried since each one was thoroughly cleaned. I went through each section with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass after I rinsed them out in very warm water, so hopefully nothing giant and poisonous will emerge out of them and into my bathroom anytime soon.

I've decided - given that I have enough moss and recently came into possession of a veritable assload of terrariums - that terrariums are going to be my next art pieces. I don't have the space or supplies to be oil painting right now, and this will combine several of my loves. I've begun collecting items for each terrarium, and I think perhaps each one will represent a different neighborhood of the city, based on what I put inside. Or perhaps they will all contain different arrangements of the same thing; tiny replicas of garbage.

I'm also using my newer sections of moss that haven't had time to spread as tiny terrariums or simply tiny potted plants:

Earrings by Julia Wolf *

I'm going to hold on to them and make sure they are somewhat hardy before I put them on display/propose a show for them. Wouldn't that be embarrassing to assassinate an entire gallery of work?

*Julia's work on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5770356