DIY Macrame Hanging Planter

Our small apartment home is currently being overrun by plants. I have discovered my passion for tending green things, and it has developed into a fun hobby. We have several ferns, an evergreen, rosemary, basil, mint, oregano, sage, cilantro, aloe, three tomatoes, a red bell pepper, a serrano pepper, and about a dozen succulents. I have a hard time restraining myself from buying many more.

With any luck, we will hopefully be moving into a slightly larger place soon with a yard and patio. I might even be able to set up real gardening boxes! In the meantime, these hanging planters have been an excellent way to free up space on our balcony and dining room. And they are so easy peasy! They literally take maybe 5-10 minutes to make in their simplest form. Of course, you can get creative and add more braids, knots, or even beads, shells, and feathers. You can dip dye them too! This DIY is for the basics. 

Step 1// Cut 16 pieces of yarn, twine, or thick string. The length depends on the size of your planter. For a medium pot, I would cut the pieces at about a yard to a yard and a half. 

Step 2// Next, you're going to line them up and tie a knot (with all the pieces) about six inches down.

Step 3// Use your potted plant to hold your twine in place while you divide the pieces below the knot into four sections of four strings each. 

Step 4// Then divide each section in half, with two strings in each half, and tie those halves together into a knot. You will end up with four knots. 

Step 5// Each knot will have two pieces (of two strings each) hanging down. Tie the second piece from the first knot group to the first piece of the second knot group, and continue this pattern all the way across. At the end, tie the last piece to the piece in first, making a full circle. 

Step 6// About two feet up from your last set of knots, tie another big knot around the whole thing. Then braid until you run out of twine. You can use a loop in the braid as the hanger, or braid in a key ring. 

I like to add little knots in the strings hanging below the basket portion. 

All done! Enjoy,

Madi

Home Therapy // Breakfast Room

One thing I really want to do is show off my husband's and my first home together. 

It's nothing impressive; it's a small one-bedroom apartment comprised of furniture that was either given to us, built by hubby, found in a dumpster (no joke - Restoration Hardware is the prime spot for dumpster diving), or purchased from an antique store to be spruced up. I find it so interesting and wonderful to see how his and my tastes came together to make a home that is so uniquely us. We customized a few small details like the wall paint and cabinet knobs to make it look nicer. 

Also, each room sort of has it's own flavor, which you will see later on. For example, our living room has dark grey walls and lots of leather, tarnished metal, and dark woods. Our kitchen, on the other hand, has light mint walls and white cabinets. It's accented by turquoise and citrus colors. But they both were created by equal parts effort from Joseph and myself. I'll always remember this sweet first residence together :)

Today I want to share photos from our dining room area, which I think of more as a breakfast room / sun room for our many plants. My favorite thing about it is the pleasant light that flows through the window all day long. I usually do all my school work and computering in here. It has a very peaceful feel. 

Right now we have too many plants for the small space. We are waiting for it to get just a little bit warmer outside to put these babies on the balcony. As a side note, that little creamer and sugar bowl came from our honeymoon in Ireland, and the copper plate they are sitting on was part of our wedding decor.

Joseph and I really wanted a home with hardwood floors. Unfortunately, we could not find anything in our price range that wasn't, well, sketchy. We settled on this apartment because of it's great floor plan and the "hardwood" linoleum in the kitchen and dining area. It's not the greatest, but it's better than carpet or tiles.

The table and chairs came from one of my favorite antique stores in Toccoa, GA. I think it's called the Cornerstone? It is HUGE, and they price their furniture very reasonably compared to all those glitsy places that want to sell you a ten year old (hardly antique), beat up dresser for $80000000. This table and four chairs were only around $200 bucks. They were in great condition. All we had to do was clean it off a little bit and re-upholster the chairs. They had an absolutely....fabulous?....leopard print cover that needed some updating. Hehe. 

Three of these beautiful greens were from my bridesmaid's luncheon. My aunt and cousin went all out that day. It was gorgeous. The others are succulents and a little evergreen tree I bought around Christmas time. The only guy I'm having issues with is the mint on the far right. I have the worst luck with mint plants. He's struggling, bless his heart. 

Some day I plan to write a DIY post on these succulent book planters. My mom and I made about 30 of them for our wedding. They were part of the center pieces. We ended up saving a lot of money doing it that way, and they were so so pretty. I have a few sitting around the apartment. I'm still afraid someone is going to get upset about all the books we cut up....they were almost all readers digest (back when that company put together books), and they were fairly torn up. Please don't get mad. They've been put to good use! I'm a book lover too.

Thanks for reading,

Madi