Styled X3 {Hanging Air Plant}

My friend Stacy recently started up a fun new series on her blog, Not Just a Housewife, titled Styled X3.  Each month she ships the same product to two bloggers, and asks each to style the item in their home.  She plays along so that is where the "3" comes in.  This month she invited me to play along, as well as Liz from Love Grows Wild.

I love these quick little challenges and partnering with my favorite peeps around the blog-o-sphere, so I spurted out a big fat "YES!" without much thought.  Sounds like fun!

Then I received my surprise item in the mail; an air plant.  It arrived in a sweet glass hanging bulb and I was excited to see if it was something that my black thumb could possibly keep alive for awhile.

And then it hit me.  Not a single surface in my house is styled or even ready to be style right now.  Our kitchen and living areas are in shambles.  I have no decorative shelving due to the dust flying everywhere.  Our guest room is filled to the brim with living room and kitchen furnishings.  My desk is covered in stacks of receipts and paperwork from last minute tax reconciling and my couch is hiding under a few piles of laundry.  #renovationproblems #saveme

Basically, the only clean rooms in the house are the bathrooms... the bathroom!  I could hang it in the bathroom!  So that is what I did.

The air plant arrived with a bit of twine for hanging...

I decided that my color-lovin' self would try and make things a bit more interesting with some wire and embroidery thread.

I thought it would be fun to do a little color blocking... This is one of those projects that has been sitting in my craft drawer for months now with previous intentions of making some lettered wire labels.  I figured it would be fun to do a test run with the hanging air plant.

To get started I dabbed a small bit of glue on the wire and tied a knot with the thread.  I initially tried hot glue, but it was too thick and not the easiest to work with.  Then, I spotted my E6000 and dabbed a very small amount onto the wire using the pointy end of a paperclip.  Much better.

To transition, I would dab another small bit of glue, and attach the new color.  I would continue wrapping the previous color over the new color.  Then, I swapped, and started wrapping the new color over the old color.  Shown above, you can see my switching over from the pink to the blue.

I ended up making the wire longer than necessary, so it took about 30-45 minutes of wrapping while I chatted with the boys about their day.

Such a fun and playful effect in the end!

I gave the air plant its first water bath and it greened right up!  A quick soak once per week and it should (fingers crossed) survive.

The wire made hanging easy, and even doubled as another hook.  Sorta fun how it worked out.  And the plant brings a nice little touch of greenery and spring into our lower level bathroom.  

Stacy and Liz both styled their air plants in completely different ways; I am majorly crushing on both.  In fact, they will both serve as inspiration when I finally get those built-in bookcases in our living room done.  

Have you hopped on the air plant trend yet?