Air Plant Jellyfish

Ok, I am kind of in love.

Because, seriously. Look at the cuteness of these air plant jellyfish.

I can’t even take it.

This summer when we were at the shore, we happened upon a craft show on the boardwalk. And this woman was selling air plants tucked into all kinds of different little shells. They were all super cute, but what really caught my eye was the air plant jellyfish. They just looked so adorable hanging there that I knew I was going to have to make a few of my own.

They really couldn’t be easier. 

All you need is some clear thread or fishing line, some glue {I used E6000}, some air plants and some sea urchin shells.

If you’re not familiar with them, air plants {officially called Tillandsia} are little plants that don’t need soil to grow, as they get most of their nutrients from the air. I got mine in the floral department at Wegmans, but if your grocery store doesn’t have them, you can check the greenhouse areas of places like Lowes and Home Depot, or other local greenhouses. You can also find them in tons of places online, like Etsy {sellers AirPlantGreenhouse, AirPlantShopCom, and AirPlantDesignStudio all have a large selection and great reviews, but just doing a search for “air plants” brings up literally thousands of results} and Amazon {highly rated options include these, these, these and these}.

As for the shells, I guess if you’re super lucky you could find them on a beach somewhere, but I got mine in a little gift shop in Ocean City, NJ. You can usually find similar shells in craft stores, and again, Etsy and Amazon are great places to look online. 

All I did to create my little cuties was to start by threading my clear sewing thread through the existing holes on top of the shell. If your shell doesn’t have a hole or the hole is too big, you can attach the thread with a small dot of hot glue. 

Then I just glued the air plant to the inside bottom of the shell and hung it up!

**Super dumb story alert: I knew that you should soak air plants regularly to make sure they have enough water {here is a great article on how to care for your plants}, so at first I tried to figure out how to just wedge the air plant into the shell so I could remove it for soaking and wouldn’t have to get the shells wet. I was getting very frustrated when the plants wouldn’t stay in, and then I realized: they’re SEA shells. Their entire purpose in life is to shelter a SEA-DWELLING creature. IN THE WATER.

Yeah. Sometimes my brain likes to take a break.

Anyway, once you have everything glued in the way you want it, hang your sweet little air plant jellyfish up and let them make you smile!

You tell me: have you ever had air plants? Do you have any tips or tricks to helping them thrive?

 

 

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