I'm fiddling around with our nature table. The only spot we're not already using is this little antique table given to me by my parents. It belonged to my grandmother and, among the many old pieces of furniture I inherited from her, it's the only one that's supposed to be "good". It's small and a bit fussy ( I believe it's a wash stand) and I have no space, nor really any need, for an occasional table. It sits in front of the windows in my dining room and I worry about it getting scratched or banged up- especially since my father went to the trouble of having it professionally refinished before he gave it to me.
So we've been using it as a nature table, and my little nature lover likes rocks. She's also been known to bring home chunks of broken brick and insist it go on the nature table (she's a city kid, so I guess bricks can count as nature around here) then plops it there onto the nicely refinished antique table, after which I fuss at her about hurting the table. Then I resent the table for making me worry about it. None of my other furniture makes me worry over it. Either it is painted and I can slap on more paint if there's a scratch or it's already so old and banged up, one more scratch won't be noticed. As a result, I grown to dislike that table, but my parents have nowhere to put it and they've been so generous over the years that if it makes them happy for me to take the table, I'll keep it.
This weekend I saw not one, but two (okay- three!) scratches on the table. I decided either we had to re-think our nature table, or we needed to move it somewhere else. Since there really doesn't seem to be any other convenient place to pile M.'s finds, I stuck with re-thinking our nature table. M. made that lovely succulent terrarium for her grandmother and another for her father's birthday. Just for fun, she and I made moss terrariums inside glass Christmas balls too. ( We've caught the terrarium bug that's been going 'round flickr!)
So, I thought, terrariums are nature and we like making them why not make terrariums for the nature table? We'll make one giant one or a couple middle sized ones and any acorns, feathers, little rocks and even brick pieces (as long as they're not too big) M. finds can go inside the terrariums. I love the look of those curvy old fashioned terrarium jars, but we're on a budget around here, so I just went to Target and picked-up an Anchor Hocking jar from their heritage collection. It looks old timey to me and it's nice and thick. I brought it home, put it on the table and then, just to give it a reason to be there for now, put some of the things from our nature table inside. And I love it! What was a collection of objects sitting on an old table, now looks elegant and a bit Victorian. It suits that old table and I don't have to worry about scratches. I still want to make a terrarium in my new jar, but I'm thinking I'll look around for an even bigger one to use as our nature jar.
What a lot of words just to show you some stuff in a jar!
