War Games Garden in a Suitcase

There is no silence like the silence of creating something on your own. It's not often I feel that sense of focus that I guess people with real drive have. But fleetingly, it comes and when I'm in the middle of making something good, it feels like hanging on to my seat in a high ride. 

It started after I spent a sunny morning in the Botanic Gardens. Lying on the warm grass. hunting for four-leaf clovers, watching Japanese tourists take photos of blonde-haired families, sharing my banana bread with the birds. After a cup of tea I wandered into the little gift shop (this is where you go when, drunk on miraculously beautiful plants and tea, you decide that it's entirely reasonable to pay $29 for a pair of gardening gloves). 

I shelved the fancy gloves and instead rifled through the fancy gardening books, stealing ideas without paying for them. And in there is where I found the fancy idea of making a miniature garden scene in an old suitcase. 

Once I got home, pleading in adequate amounts for the boyf to "lend" me his old suitcase, picked up some soil, I spent the afternoon creating something quietly and deliberately.


What You Need:

* An old suitcase (that heinously overused word 'vintage' may come to mind when searching - zip up soft-cover ones just wouldn't cut it)

* A drill and screw (to drill holes in the bottom for drainage. Or you could smash them in with a hammer and nail)

* Potting mix

* Army men, matchbox cars, small toys, dolls' furniture, miniature ornaments

* Little succulent branches

A little war games theme

Suitcase garden