Terrarium Clock

In this instructable, I will be teaching you how to make a terrarium with an additional clock face which will act as a clock! This terrarium would look great in an office or in display in a living room :)

In order to attach the clock mechanism to the tank, we will need to build a clock mechanism compartment which will be glued onto the tank. I designed this compartment so that there would be easy access to the clock mechanism if the batteries need to be changed or if the hands need to be adjusted.

The compartment that I designed will be available if you do not wish to design your own. I laser cutted my clock mechanism compartment.

If people wish to design there own clock mechanism compartment, as a reference, my tank face was 20x20x20cm, my clock mechanism was 55x55x15mm and the compartment I made was 62x62x22mm, it was made out of clear acrylic and was 3mm thick.

After laser cutting all the parts, I assembled my clock mechanism compartment using epoxy resin glue to glue everything together (rapid drying kind, more specifically, 5 minute one). I also laser cutted extra side parts incase anything went wrong or I needed to add something, I recommend you do this as well.

The first thing I did was line up two pieces, making sure they were 45 degrees and then proceeded on to glueing them together using epoxy resin. I repeated this step until everything was well glued together, you should end up with 2 different compartments. I unfortunately do not have any images of the process but I do have images of how both compartments should look like when they are complete which are very simple to follow without any instructions.

Once the clock compartment is complete, test it out with the clock mechanism to see if the pieces fit, if for some reason they don't, try to re-use small bits of acrylic to fill in gaps, this will not be noticeable since the piece are clear and the background of the plants will camouflage them.

This is the part where you can customise and really make your terrarium original and eye catching. I decided to go for a pretty traditional design, I had seen this design prior to making this terrarium around pinterest and instagram and decided to use it to make my terrarium design.

I first went to buy the necessary materials I felt I needed for my design. I picked up two different types of "layering" material which would be used as a layer in the tank. I also picked up a 20x20x20cm fish tank since this was the tank which I felt was the most suitable for the look I was going for. I chose 7 different succulents/cactuses (number of plants will vary depending on size of each plant) which had different colours, textures and sizes to create a very complex yet biodiverse terrarium. I also bought a 6L bag of dirt made for cactus' and plants which don't need a lot of water. Other things that I needed but already had was a small shovel for the dirt (unless you don't mind getting your hands dirty), gloves (optional) and a small bucket to pour the dirt into.

I personally do not think that there needs to be instructions on assembling the terrarium since this part should be your own ideas using your own creativity but I will leave brief instructions on how I assembled my own terrarium to give a brief outline and ideas on how I did it.

The first thing I did was set a small layer of dirt using the shovel to scoop the dirt in the terrarium and using my hands to flatten it out and to make it stiff. After I did that, I went on to add my first decorative layer which was moss. The nicer pieces of moss, I lined on the outside of the tank to make it prettier and the not so nice pieces I put in the middle to fill the space. I then tightly packed a thick layer of dirt on top using a shovel and my hands again, making sure that

Glueing the numbers to the face of the clock is a very simple procedure. All you need is a ruler and the epoxy resin glue. To measure out the numbers, I first started with the main 4 numbers, 12, 3, 6 and 9. I measured from the edge of the clock to find the center (top center not center center) and glued my 12 there. I did the same for number 6, 3 and 9. Once those numbers were places, I mainly eyeballed the numbers in between those main numbers but used a ruler to line the sides up to make sure they were all on the same line.

The final step to complete the terrarium clock is to glue the clock mechanism compartment.

I first found the center using a ruler then placed my clock mechanism with glueing it to see how it would look. I played around with it for a little bit before and when I found the perfect position, I glued it in place using epoxy resin. The part which needs to be glued to the tank is the part of the compartment which does not have a sort of line going through half of it. I recommend that you place something underneath the compartment since it is heavier than the letters and may start to slip, loosing it's position and leaving a ugly trace of epoxy resin.

Happy building!