Christmas Is All Around Us

I’m far from completing my task to repurpose all the vintage “containers” I’ve found lately, but I have come up with a few good ideas.

I snatched up a few old cage lights, which are all the rage in vintage industrial lighting these days. But I have so many lights around the house already, and I wanted to come up with something different to use them for. In my quest for container gardening ideas, I came across this lovely little blog called augury, and found my solution. I ordered three air plants from the self-described southern lass’s etsy site, and eagerly awaited their arrival. When they came, I gave them a good soaking per the enclosed instructions and set them on the windowsill to dry. They are so pretty!

I salvaged some cords from broken appliances and plan to make a sort of mobile that will hang in a sunny window and display the cage light air plants, something similar to this arrangement:

The front of the cages open on a hinge so I will be able to take the plants out every week or so for a good soaking. I’m pretty excited to see what the finished product will look like!

I found another light fixture to turn to the dark side. I couldn’t resist these cute little musicians sitting at the base of this broken lamp…

So I cut the cord, replaced the ugly light fixture with a pretty little milk glass shade, and came up with a new addition to my vintage container garden!

I chose ivy because I wanted a dark green to complement the tarnishing copper base, and because I think it will look really neat when the ivy drapes down over the sides of the globe.

I didn’t realize I had hit upon such a good thing with the light-fixture-turned-plant-container idea. I also found these flat bottomed glass light covers, flipped them upside down, and viola! Instant vase. These were prettier before the water inside got couldy from the roots of the plants, but I was too lazy to replace the water before taking my photo. 🙂

They will work great for establishing new roots on plant cuttings.

I also have a few enameled washbasin-type containers that I want to use for larger houseplants. This yellow one makes for a happy hosta.

Not all my containers turned into plant containers, however. I brought home some more manly specimens, and Jeff found good uses for them. An old Sawzall toolbox now houses some of his guitar supplies…

And this lidless ammo can is usefully repurposed for those, um, heavy artillery bathroom breaks.

It’s been great fun collecting broken unwanted pieces and trying to find a good home for them. My work here, however, is far from over. I still have a good stockpile of items just waiting for inspiration to strike at any moment…