Air Plant Jellyfish

Good God, it's so hot outside I think my skin melted off, going from my air-conditioning in my house, to the air-conditioning in my car.

"Oh, not that I'm complaining, after the winter we had..." says everyone else in the world.  

And then I say "Oh, I'm complaining. I didn't say one bad thing this winter so that I could continue to complain about the blasted sun and the heat and humidity."  

If this is June, what the frick is July gonna look like? Gah.

The Hubster and I had my parents take the kidlets for the weekend so we could do a bunch of dumb yard work (again, I keep voting for us to put in xeriscaping, which is the fancy word for ROCKS EVERYWHERE instead of stupid, high-maintenance, water-loving, grass) but since it's too hot to be outside, I sat down in the kitchen and figured out a cute project I'd been dreaming about for a while.

Say it with me:  Air Plant Jellyfish. 

Yes.

It's about the easiest thing to do on the planet, and I almost don't want to tell you because it's the Rice Krispie Squares of crafting and once you see how easy it is, you're gonna be off making your own air plant jellyfish and they'll look fantastic.  

Oh hell, who doesn't love Rice Krispie squares anyways? 

Eye Pins, or as I call them, lowercase-letter-i-pins

Materials:

Polymer clay (sculpey clay)  

eye pins 

air plants 

hot glue gun and glue 

glossy spray (optional)

*ask for all the materials at your local craft store

*ask for all the plants at your local greenhouse

First: Choose some colours that work well for you. 

First 2.0:  Preheat the oven to the package directions.

Second:  Squeeze the colours until you make something like a pinch-pot, but try not to make a flat bottom. The rounder the better.  One package of sculpey (or no-name) clay will make ONE large jellyfish, 2 medium jellyfish OR several small ones.  

Third: Poke two wee holes in the top (or sides, if you want the jellyfish to appear to be swimming in all sorts of fun directions) with your eye pins and remove, just leaving the holes. 

Fourth: Put the 'pots' in the oven for the amount of time specified on the package.  (I think it's about 20 minutes, if I recall correctly.)

Fifth: Remove and let cool.  (if you're inclined to spray them with high-gloss spray, this is the time to do this and let it dry for an hour.  It looks neato, but is not necessary.) 

Once they're cool, heat up the ol'glue gun.  Put a dot of glue on the inside of the pots, over the eye pin holes.  Re-insert the eye pins so that the glue hardens around the eye pins.  

The purple one at the top has holes in the side, while the rest have holes in the top. 

Sixth:  Add a quarter-sized circle of glue to the inside of the pot. Wait 30 seconds for the glue to be less HOT and squoosh an airplant (or two!) inside.  

Seventh:  String them up with fishing line and hang!  

I went hunting for driftwood and got a HUGE piece from a friend of mine.  The jellyfish look UNBELIEVABLE under driftwood. It was too heavy to put up where I wanted it to go, so I ended up finding a cool thing at The Paper Pickle that I could hang them from.  It's super cute above my soaker tub!  It would make an awesome baby mobile, too.  

Air plants don't need to be watered (just mist them once every week or so), and don't need soil, which makes them ideal for whimsical projects like this one.  

Honestly, I think the whole thing took an hour and mostly because I bought some cheap-o stuff that was brutally hard to squeeze and mold into shape.  Lots of bang for your buck, and would make an awesome wee gift to brighten any day.

If you give this a try let me know!  Send me pics and deets!

Check out the finished product at my Instagram.  

Follow me for more random fun. 

bethmilen is my user name.  

http://instagram.com/p/przz8VilyY/?modal=true

Terrariums For Teachers

Through some miracle, I am entering my last week of school this year.  Not that the year has been bad, but I've had this 2 hour commute to contend with, which has slowly sucked my soul from my body.

Anyway, enough of my junk.

Kiddo #1's terrarium

This year, my son is starting kindergarten, so he's finishing his time with his caregiver-extraordinaire.  And my daughter started at the Montessori this September. I can't tell you how wonderful these two women are to my children.

So, we decided to make some terrariums for their beloved teachers.  I found some glass containers at the grocery store for next-to-nothing. It's always nicer if they have a lid, but I thought the shape was cute enough to give it a whirl.

You can do this more economically by using teacups found at thrift stores (trust me, they're uber cute!) or even old wine glasses.  If you use those small containers, you won't even need to buy extra soil for planting-- just put the stones at the bottom for drainage, and then add the potted plant. Seriously adorable. I've got one in the kitchen that is incredible.

Materials:  glass beads/stones/marbles (about 2 small sacks), a glass container, some plants, some soil (if the container is large).

To make this, I got some glass beads and rocks from the dollar store.  The kids chose the bead colours and then dumped them in the bottom of the container. Then we added a layer of rocks.  The layering didn't really show the cute colours of the glass beads, though, so we stirred them up to get a mixture.

Kiddo #2's terrarium (and Kiddo #2 in the background) 

Then they scooped out some planting soil. We added some succulents (whatever ones you like best, honestly. There's no way to go wrong!) and voila!

If this is your first foray into terrariums, the stones/beads go on the bottom to keep the soil from rotting. Randomly, I add worms to my terrariums whenever I find one under a rock, but we didn't add them to these ones.

Also, we had some leftover beads, so we gently placed them on the open spots after, and they look super cute!

Anyway, the whole endeavor took a total of 30 minutes.

Then the kiddos wrote a card to their teachers.  Kiddo #1 wrote hers by herself, while I quoted Kiddo #2 for his card.  Then I wrote "Thanks for making such a wonderful habitat for me; I made this one for you!"  in the card, too.

Honestly, such a cute idea, and who doesn't love succulents?!

All wrapped up and no where to go. What's a terrarium to do?

Here's a couple of pics of ours. We wrapped them in some tea towels and will send a spray bottle (again from the dollar store) with the plants for watering.  So fun!

Let me know if you do it and how it turns out!