Tillandsia (Air Plant) Chandelier

I couldn’t stick the air plants right into the candle cups because when they filled with water the plants would rot. Plus mosquitos would breed in the cups of water. So I looked around for something to cover the cups with to hold the plants above any water and hopefully to prevent mosquitoes from breeding here. I had the cedar flowers, and they proved to be the right size and ended up being good because they had a hole.

Here’s how the finished piece looks under my grape arbor. Once the grapes are fully leafed out these plants will love the dappled light here! Until then, I’ll place this in a bright location where they won’t get dead-on sun.

I put the Cling florist adhesive clay under each cedar piece and put it on the chandelier with the bark wire coming up out of the hole.

Once all were stuck in place I also used a bit of Cling to plug the space around the bark-covered wire so that no insects could get into the cups. Now I was ready to attach the air plants!

I curled the bark covered wire to make a little holder for the plant, but decided that I would also need a thin wire that wrapped around the Tillandsia so that it wouldn’t blow off.

The thin wire went up and around the plant, holding it firmly in place. Once I got some spanish moss around the base of each plant the mechanics became invisible. 

Just a tiny bit of Spanish moss helped soften the area where the plants were placed on the disks, and hid all the wires nicely.