air plant "art"

We've been slowing decorating the 1950's home we purchased last May and our fireplace might be my favorite thing in the whole house. We loved that the fireplace remained untouched by the previous owner, so we have be trying to find a non-obtrusive option for over the mantel. That is what led us to this plan...

My husband got me 5 of these glass globes for Christmas and has been bugging me ever since about what I wanted to do with them. I absolutely LOVE them, but they've been sitting in our office for a month in a box waiting for me to do something with them...

I got the hint when a "surprise" package showed up in the mail the other day containing air plants. They were the perfect thing to put into the glass globes (I've seen this done before and actually recently pinned this on pinterest as a potential idea). I knew it was time to do something with them...

Now I will say, this was not 100% my idea... Adam had just as much of a part in this idea as I did (I thought I'd mention this so his feelings weren't hurt ;)....) Ok...enough chatting...here is what we did:

We took a trip to Home Depot to pick up a few items we knew we would need to construct the frame:

6 feet of 3/32" galvanized wire rope (which was WAY more than we ended up needing)

2 Ferrule & Stop Sets (one set for each side of the frame)

3' steel flat plate (don't know the technical term for it so I took a picture)

click on picture to enlarge

 A 2-pack of screw in hooks (for the ceiling)

Some hemp twine (we actually ended up using a thicker twine we already had on hand)

We already had the tools we needed and the globes/air plants so we were set!

We started by figuring our which holes we wanted to hang out plants from.

We wanted them evenly spaced, so we measured and counted holes. 

We marked them with pieces of a sticky note.

glass etching

As a follow up to this post, I thought I would do a small tutorial on glass etching. I did a little bit of glass etching for our wedding...and since I had a big tub of Armour Etch sitting around, I figured it was time to etch a few more things.

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Here is what you'll need:

1. anything glass

2. Armour Etch (I got mine at Micheal's with a 50% off coupon)

3. Stickers

4. blue painters tape

5. scissors

6. rubber gloves

7. foam brush

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a cactus house

I’ve been wanting a terrarium for a really long time and I just couldn’t find the right vessel for it. I wanted something unique and unusual but nothing I saw was really cutting it. I’m very lucky that my husband has a creative mind and can see the potential in different objects. This isn't so much of a "how-to" as a post that will hopefully inspire you to make your own unique terrarium. Here is where our terrarium story began...

This past Christmas, there was an oddly shaped present under our Christmas tree. I wasn't allowed to look at it, touch it, shake it, move it or think about it - I just had to sit and rip the paper off of it when I was told to do so. To my surprise, it ended up being this – a beautiful vintage glass light (minus all the inside pieces and parts that a light usually has).

Although, it wasn't so pretty when Adam bought it at Resource York and few weeks prior. From what I was told, it was a little dirty and it was brass (totally outdated).