How to Plant Terrariums that Rival Anthropologie's for NICKELS!

You know what terrariums are right?  If you walk into Anthropologie right now, you can see a host of them for $48-$298 each.  (WHAT?!  Yeah...I know...ridiculous right!  I'm not kidding though...you can see them right HERE...and um you must excuse me -THIS terrarium is $1450.00  $1450.00!!!!  NO JOKE!).  Basically they are a tiny little greenhouse in a glass container.  You can use any type of glass container, but you have to be able to close up the top, so you want your container to be larger at the bottom, but narrow at the top.  Anthropologie uses regular old glass soda bottles and apple gallon jugs among others, but you can use whatever recyclables you have laying around.  I am using two glass containers that I purchased for pennies at an auction.  (Mine usually have glass plates that cover the top: not pictured)

You can fill them with any type of plant, but I like to use hardy plants that I don't have to worry about.  That is part of the point of a terrarium...very little watering and care and the green just keeps on going.

I fill my terrariums with a very light and dry soil mix.  If the soil is thick, heavy, wet garden soil, it might be too wet and will drown your plants, as a terrarium does not really dry out.  I then line the "floor" of my terrariums with moss.  I harvest it from my backyard under an old pine tree.  If you don't know how to harvest moss, you can see the full technique of how I scrape moss off the soil RIGHT HERE.

My succulent "farm" that I take cuttings from. 
This pot comes inside every winter and the plants survive.

I put the soil and moss at an angle to give it a bit of a "hill" effect and then start adding in plants.  I use succulent cuttings that are super hardy and simply stick the tough stems down through the moss.  By using these easy to root succulents, I can make bunches and bunches of terrariums using one base plant.  These 4 types of succulents cost 25 cents each last year at Lowe's, so both of these terrariums were made for under a buck.  That is a bit better than Anthro's 14 HUNDRED and 50 bucks, right?

What creative containers have you used as planters or terrariums?