A fun, simple project that was totally in the spirit of DIY. It came about organically: right when I was about to toss out this old bottle, I realized it was pretty, and could be wrapped with tape or yarn or something and still be usable. Bonus points when I realized it came with a special stopper that lets liquid through slowly. I slightly mangled said stopper trying to get it out, but it still works, hallelujah.
My biggest problem with this project was the extremely sticky label on the bottle. It was one of those labels where you can barely get a tiny corner off before it rips. Twas impossible! So what could I do? Well I could watch a lot of Youtube videos about removing sticky labels. And then I could just stick it into a big pot of boiling water and pray it didn’t explode. To this day, I have no idea whether that was a good idea. Someone tell me please?
But, whatever, it worked! After a couple rounds in a pot of boiling water spiked with baking soda, the label just scrubbed right off. There was still a very small amount of sticky residue, but for the project I was doing it didn’t matter much.
The next step (after thoroughly washing and drying) was to get crafty! I pulled out my washi tape (a Japanese crafting tape, available at any craft store) and decided on pink, purple and blue. I only have 4 rolls, so the decision wasn’t that difficult!
Then it was just a matter of wrapping. I was hoping to wrap it up completely, so that there would be no bottle visible below the tape, but that plan fell apart when I began to wrap. The bottle has these beautiful contours that want to bend the tape on angles when you wrap it, and who am I to argue with a bottle? So I just did what the bottle told me to do, trying to keep the tape straight and not catch any air bubbles. When I got to the “halfway point”, the angles levelled out and I wrapped my way back down. I did this with all three colours, starting at different points on the base. Basically, I just had fun with it! The result:
I love how graphic it turned out, and how the tape looks layered over itself. Some sections I went over twice with tape, others I left more translucent. I also wrapped three stripes around the neck of the bottle.
Finally, I went into the kitchen, boiled together a 1/2 cup of sugar and a 1/2 cup of water until the sugar dissolved, then poured it into my bottle. I labelled it (with washi tape, of course!) and now it sits on my counter proudly! I love how it looks, and when I run out of simple syrup (because of making a few too many cocktails) then I’ll just remove the label and use it as a vase.
This project was also fun, because now it’s gotten me on the lookout for quirky bottles to save and maybe reuse for projects like this one. Easy peasy!
And that makes 8 completed DIY projects in 2012! See the rest of them here.
