Terrariums as a craft have been around for hundreds of years. The Victorians were particularly fond of creating terrariums, which meshed well for their strange fondness for ferns. The Victorians used Wardian cases to protect their tropical plants, which were being imported overseas at an amazing rate.
These curiosities helped control the climate, making it possible to keep tropical rainforest plants in cool, damp England in a time before electricity made lighting and heating control easy. (It also helped protect the plants against the toxic air inside London homes at the time, where the toxic sulfuric and coal smoke air often killed plants outright.)
Today, terrariums are becoming a popular DIY craft. They are particularly attractive to apartment dwellers, since you can create an entire miniature world inside a little glass jar. And terrariums if designed correctly need little more than adequate light to survive.
Terrariums are also a fairly affordable hobby compared to most. Your initial outlay for the plants, container, and soil can be less than $50 per project. And given that they will last essentially forever, that's a lot of payoff for a relatively small cost.
Terrariums are a miniature world, and can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. You can use a wide variety of containers - basically anything made of glass can be turned into a terrarium, even old light bulbs. (Hello, mason jars!) And you can go nuts with the theme. One of my favorite terrariums is a Walking Dead-themed piece. So great! You can make giant terrariums the size of rooms, or tiny terrariums that hang from a necklace.
And unlike most other crafts, terrariums involve living things which will (hopefully) grow, thrive, and appreciate (in their own quiet way) the care that you took to make their living space nice for them.
Image courtesy Flickr/tomastley
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