Tag: Baby

Baby Spiders

I love my outdoor plants. And often I’m asked, “Is there anything you don’t grow?” For me, the struggle is real when it comes to indoor plants. I pick up in the language of outdoor plants. I think I get confused when it comes to the dialect of indoor plants. “What are you telling me?!”

It was this past year when I was gifted me a clipping and an indoor propagation unit that I decided to give indoor plants another whirl.

Back in August I was thinking of winter months, being shut in with no fresh air. So I picked out a few end of season clearance plants that are known for being air purifiers in the home.

One that I bought was a Spider Plant (Chlorophytum Comosum Vittatum).

This is a great plant for those who struggle to keep indoor plants alive. We were gifted with a spider plant back when I was an event decorator and my hours were horrible. That plant lived for about two months of forgotten watering before it finally gave up on me.

I picked a spider plant this time around because of how hearty this plant is and it deals with neglect better than other types of indoor plants. Plus, with my homeschoolers who love commandeering my indoor plants and calling them theirs, this is a great one for young kids to learn about plant care with. My kids love over watering and this one loved their over attention

In fact, after the fourth or fifth time I had to empty my overflow bowl from a standing puddle, I noticed that this spider plant had started producing baby plants. The day after the first baby showed up, a second formed. And about a week later two more popped up.

I wasn’t counting on this plant living our home so we’ll to put off four babies almost right away. But since I’m now part of a bartering group, I figured that nurturing these babies over winter will give me four plants to barter with come spring. Or seeing how the boys have taken these baby plants over, I’ll let them take them to an event to barter with. (It’s a life skill that they’re starting to become comfortable with.)

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How To Propagate the Babies

The first thing you’ll notice growing from your mother plant, when a baby is going to be produced, is a long rigid stem. Have you seen a rigid stem of an orchid? The baby spider stem reminds me a lot of an orchid stem. On this end of the stem, you will see a miniature spider plant start to sprout its leaves.

At this point many people say that you’re supposed to bend that stem over toward a new pit, set the baby in that soil, and stake it down until its root system grows. Then you can cut the stalk.

The reason for not cutting the stem first is because it acts like an umbilical cord and gives the baby spider plant nutrients while it grows its root system.

That way makes sense and I’ve seen it done as a child. But I didn’t go that route with propagation this time. I tried to wait and let the stalks grow so that they were long enough to lean over into a new pot. None of these stems grew longer than 9 inches.

Instead I went with the Water Propagation Method.

Here you can see the root growth from the Water Propagation Method that I started 4-6 weeks ago. I cut the stem of the baby spider plant a few inches long and then place them in these water propagation tubes.

The trick with this method is keeping the water level up to the base of the leaf cluster. As you can see from the pictures, this is where you see the root growth coming from. By keeping the water level high, it ensures that the emerging roots have contact with water at all times.

From there I simply place the stand in a window so the plants get sunlight. And then I wait for the roots to grow.

Here you see the far right and far left plants are the babies that I rooted several weeks ago and I’m ready to put them in soil. The center two babies are the ones that I just cut from the mother plant and are now ready to start the rooting process. I wanted to show you these side by side so that you can see the stems (which on my plant are a pale yellow) in comparison to the new roots (which are white).

With these newly rooted baby spider plants, I put some potting soil in a clay pot. I hollowed out the center of the soil, where I want the plant to sit in the soil. (I create the hole for the roots because they are tender and I don’t want to damage these young roots. After a few months, when I’m ready to repot, I’m not as concerned with the roots because they’ve had a chance to establish themselves in the soil. For now they are going to go through a little shock because they are changing from water to soil environment. Their function is going to change in this new medium.

While holding up the leaves of this baby plant I fill in the hole (with the roots held in place below surface level) with more potting soil. Once the hole is filled, I gently pat the soil down to give the plant a little stability. Not much is needed because these roots are around 2 inches long (some a bit longer).

And here are how my new baby spider plants look in their new 4″ terra cotta pots. I gave them a bit of a watering and then set them back in the window.

Other than the time it took to allow the roots to grow, the setting up of this propagation took less than five minutes. And potting the rooted baby spider plants took another 5 minutes. This is something that doesn’t require much of your time, if you have limited time to care for indoor plants. And with spider plants, I water mine once a week. It’s been about 4 months since I first brought the mother plant home, so on my to do list is to give them a good fertilizing on their next watering.

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Word of Warning for Propagation Equipment

This water propagation set up was gifted to me from a friend who hated it. It was my “transportation” unit for taking home a clipping of another plant for my drive home. After working with this stand for a year now, I fully understand why she didn’t like it. And yes, I am still that type of person that still uses it even when I hate it myself.

I look at it as a personal challenge to make it work!

If you’re looking to water propagate plant cuttings, let me walk you through this set up so you can have a little walking knowledge for choosing the set up that you end up purchasing or getting from a buy nothing group, or any other opportunity.

The reason why this stand is such a fail is because of the holes that the tubes slide into. In the above left picture you can see that the center of gravity of the holes are way off. They needed to be set back into the center of this board.

You can probably guess that when these tubes are filled to the top with water, they become front heavy and tip forward spilling water and cuttings everywhere.

In fact, in just this short period of time that I took to take all the photos for this post, the filled tubes fell forward not once… but twice!

To make matters even more entertaining, my husband decided to watch the process and freaked out with each of the dumpings. Water spread not just all over the table but also the floor. And that leads to the picture where I put the pot in front of the filled tubes. As much as I enjoy a good challenge, I really didn’t want to clean up a third water mess.

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And that leads me to the solution of how I make this failed unit work for me.

When I have a new set of clippings to add to the tubes, I set the rack down in the window with the tube side facing the glass. When the rack leans forward, under the weight of the water, it leans into the window and holds itself up.

There are two other options that I have to fix this unit once these baby spiders are ready to be potted.

  1. I’m going to check to see if I have a drill bit that’s the right size so I can make the hold deeper into the wood so the tubes sit more center in the unit.
  2. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to take some thin crafting dowels and put legs in the front corners.
  3. And in case I need a third option… I’ll drill a hole in the back corners that’s big enough for a long screw that I can add enough nuts to create the correct counter balance to keep the unit upright even under all the water weight.

No matter what the situation, a solution can be found!

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Final Task before Putting All the Plants Away

This mother plant has been so amazing to me that I just needed to take a couple of extra minutes and tend to her so that she can keep being a happy plant for me. I trimmed away some of her discolored and battered leaves and cut the remainder of the baby stems down to their base.

Why the trimming?

The stems were no longer supporting baby plants, so they no longer needed the energy being directed to them. The leaves were damaged and there’s no need for plant energy to go to them to see to the trauma. The overall health of the plant is very good and with plenty of healthy leaves, trimming away what I did would not affect the photosynthesis of the plant. But the trimming returns that amount of energy back to the mother plant to go elsewhere: whether new leaf growth, existing overall grown, it’s cellular immune health, or even gearing up for a push of new baby plant growth.

This mother plant is now ready for the next phase of whatever cycle she is on to now. And with the next watering combined with fertilizer, she’ll have all the nutrients she needs to move forward.

Here are some propagation units that I’m eyeballing for my next adventure in rooting plants.

I have not had a chance to see or use these units, but I wanted to share with you what other ones I’m looking that you can have an idea of what is out there.

This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commissions on products purchased through these links, but at no extra cost to you. These items listed here are from Amazon but may be purchased at local markets.

3 Test Tube Glass Planter Terrarium Flower Vase with Wooden Holder

Plant Propogation Tubes, 2 Tiered Wall Hanging Plant Terrarium

Propogation Stations with Metal Stand (5 Jars)

Plant Propogation Station (3 Bulb Vase)

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Repurposing A Frame

(This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.)

It never fails that you find something very cute to give something, but it comes with non-removable art that just not fit with what you want to gift or make for yourself. Maybe it is art that isn’t your style. Maybe it is a design that’s so cheap and is exactly the reason why you find it at the dollar store.

For example, I found this cute frame.

I found that the size was cute. And I absolutely loved the beaded clutch like handle. Best of all, I loved how the frame and handles were very much reminiscent of unfinished wood. This was the perfect blank slate that I could do so much with!

The negative mark was the non-removable art. Truth be told, I almost put this back on the shelf.

But here is how I turned this dollar store product into the perfect blank to make a personalized present.

First you paint over the non-removable art

Especially if you like the current state of the finish of the frame you’re working with, you want to grab some masking tape and tape off the frame to protect it from the paint. It doesn’t matter how handy you are with a paint brush, you really do want to take the few extra minutes to tape off the frame. It just takes an unexpected sneeze or someone sneaking up behind you, knock on the door, ring of the phone, or that your brush slips.

Apply the tape on the inside edge of the frame. Cut down the tape to the corner of the frame, so you can fold the edges over.

The tape that I used here was Green Frog Tape.

Once the frame is taped off, take your paint of choice and cover the original art.

I used Waverly Cashew Chalk Paint. Because this color is so pail, it took about 4 layers to cover up the dark original colors. The important thing to remember is that you always want to paint with thin layers. First they paint dries quicker. Second, you can apply cleaner layer lines.

If you choose to put on a thicker layer of paint to compensate for dark colors, it just takes forever to dry before you can add successive layers of paint.

Once the paint dries…

You have the choice of what you will do next. You can apply a stencil to paint on your new design. Or there is the option of hand painting a picture.

If you are done with all painting options, you’ll want to remove the tape.

Removing Tape

Depending on who you talk to, there are a handful of different theories on which time to remove the tape.

OPTION 1:

Some crafters say, remove the tape while the paint is wet. Yes, this method prevents peeling up the paint that you just laid down. The problem I have with this method is that if the paint is wet on the surface, it’s wet on the tape. So you have to pay attention to the paint on the tape as you pull it up:

  • Paint ending up back on your blank because of the tape flopping over backwards (or paint side down) on your frame.
  • Paint ends up on your fingers. Sometimes you forget, or think you avoided paint transfer, and then you find out later you had a small drop of paint on your finger and now you have a paint finger print.
  • Paint ends up somewhere else on your, like your shirt or pants.

OPTION 2:

Other crafters advise that you remove the tape when the paint is dry. This method is great for preventing all options of potential paint transfer. However, the problem with this method is that sometimes the paint adheres to the tape and pulls up off your project when you remove the tape. This is especially the case when the original surface is smooth or plastic.

OPTION 3:

A third group will tell you to wait for the paint to mostly dry. This is the happy medium to the first two options.

I’ve never been able to make OPTION 1 or 3 work for me. If there’s any wet paint, I’ll somehow find a way of getting it on me or transferring back onto my project. So my go-to is OPTION 2, wait for the paint to dry.

TIP for OPTION 2: right before you remove the tape, take an exacto knife, and run the blade along the bottom of the masking tape all around the frame. This will effectively separate the tape and paint.

What if my paint strips off with tape removal?

Have no fear! Take a breath and don’t panic. This is an easy fix.

The first thing you’re going to do is build back up your layers of paint on the surface where the paint stripped off.

TIP: To create the illusion of no paint stripping, keep from this new set of corrective paint layers from overlapping on to the original dry paint that remained intact.

Once you’ve built back up the layers of paint that had peeled off, you’re going to add one more layer of paint over the original and new paint. This will cover over any potential seams in the paint.

The best of all is that if you are going to add any decal over this paint, it is possible for the decal to cover over any potential seams. If you’re using this as a shadow box, the items you place in front of the painted back ground will cause enough shadows to distract from the seams.

This is an example of where one less layer of paint can show the difference of your paint patch job. Make sure to do the same number of layers, plus an additional layer over both original and new paint.

Adding decals over the background paint with transfer tape

I want to mention one more potential problem you can face, with paint peeling, with a project like this. Whether you’re adding vinyl or a decal with a clear piece of transfer tape, you will want to be mindful of this transfer tape. Even if the transfer tape has low tack, it can still find a way of holding the paint more than the paint is holding on to the project surface.

The way that I have gotten around this problem is that I think of the transfer tape ONLY having contact with the vinyl or decal, and hold those elements in their place for application. I go out of my way to NOT press the transfer tape down onto the paint.

Instead, what I do is gently place the design down on the painted surface so there is absolutely no adherence. The bonus to this is that you can use a weeding tool, palate or other tool to nudge the design center (or any other location) on the frame. Once the decal or vinyl is exactly where I want it placed, I only press down on the decal/vinyl with my finger. The pressure from your finger is enough to get the decal/vinyl to adhere. And once your elements are all pressed, you can then peel off the transfer tape without it pulling off your paint!

Can’t find a frame like this, but want to make one?

I have no idea if I will find this beaded frame again at my local dollar store. In fact I would be surprised if I ever did. There’s something about the cute things in that store chain, that you pretty much only find in stock one time.

The good news is that this is an easy frame to create!

Originally this frame has a 4 x 4 inch work space. But you can select any shadow box of any size.

You can make the wooden bead clutch handle by using a thick jute twine and stapling it to the frame.

Yes! This handle is literally stapled to a mini shadow box frame.

If you want a supply list, to make your own frame, here are the items you will need:

  • Shadow Box: 4×6 Frame, 8×8 Floating Glass Frame , 8×8 White Shadow Box, 3-Frame Set
  • Jute Twine
  • Wooden Beads: 16mm (Thumbnail size), 20mm (US Quarter is 24mm)
  • Staple Gun (if you choose to use a standard desk stapler, make sure that you use several staples on either side of the twine. The twine can be reinforced by using wood glue and gluing to the shadow box.)
  • Scissors
  • Paint/Stain (optional–if you want something other than unfinished wood)

I hope you have just as much fun as I had making this Affirmation Gift!

The Baby Affirmation cut file used for this project can be found in my shop here. To personalize with the child’s name, just select your favorite bold font and place in the provided blank space.

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