); Now lets get to my project!
As I was preparing for this project I knew I wanted to do something with these wine bottles I had, in a red and silver color scheme. Why wine bottles? Because this is a craft you can do to give as a gift or if you receive the gift of wine for the holidays, you can create this project with the bottles once you drink the wine.
I also thought it might be fun to do some accent pieces with the foam balls but when I started I did not really know where this project was going to end up. Sometimes when I craft I need to just gather supplies I think I will use, and then let the project speak to me as it develops.
Supplies gathered:
Empty wine bottles - I specifically used ones where the labels were hard to get off, or that had images etched onto the bottle since those are difficult to use for spay painted wine bottle projects.
Assorted sizes of foam balls
Red and Silver pipe cleaners (you could use a long garland string instead)
Red bead necklaces
Box cutter
Glue
Make sure that your bottles are clean, and remove as much of the label as you can. If there are metal pieces around the bottle, carefully cut those with a box cutter to remove them.
Put some glue around the top of the wine bottle and wrap the pipe cleaner around the bottle. I originally was going to use Aleenes Turbo Tacky Glue but I found it was not drying fast enough and I had to hold the pipe cleaner in place until it dried so that it did not pop off of the wine bottle. Then I remembered I had some Aleenes Quick Dry Fabric Fusion . . . this turned out to be the PERFECT adhesive for this project! I dont know if it had anything to do with the fact that the fibers on the pipe cleaners were similar to fabric, or just because it dried so much faster, but if you are doing this project I highly recommend the Quick Dry Fabric Fusion. It will make the whole project go so much faster and easier!
When I had gotten most of the neck of the bottle wrapped my husband came outside (thanks honey for taking some of these photos for me) I mentioned to him that I originally wanted to do this project with one long garland piece but the Dollar Store I stopped at did not have any. He asked why I did not just twist the ends of the pipe cleaners together to make my own garland-like strand . . . well, that would have just been too easy . . . why didnt I think of that!
So I sat down and started to twist the whole package of pipe cleaners into a long strand. Cross two pipe cleaners . . .
Twist . . .
Smooth out the overlap so that you dont see where the two pieces join together.
Once the whole package was connected together, this is what I had . . .
This made wrapping the rest of the bottle SO much easier! I am not going to show you the finished bottle until the end of this post. As I would wrap, I would just apply more glue to the bottle in small sections so that the glue would not dry before I finished wrapping the section.
Now . . . what to do with the foam balls. Lets try wrapping those too! I had some silver left, so I just stuck one end of the pipe cleaner into the foam ball to start.
Then I started to spiral the pipe cleaner around. When it got to this point I thought it would have looked really cool if I would have spray painted the foam ball red, or covered it in red tissue paper first and then done a loose spiral like I have in the photo . . . oh well, next time.
Instead I wound the strand tightly, adding glue as I went along to secure it to the foam ball . . but I ran out of silver about half way through, so I twisted on some red to finish things off . . .
Okay, since I have a son who was born in 1993, the ball TOTALLY looked like a Pokemon ball to me, and I could not have that in my holiday display . . . so I did another ball in all red.
For some finishing touches I added some floral picks from the Dollar Store and one strand of beads wrapped loosely around one bottle. I have a large glass jar at work and I might cover some more of the foam balls to put into that.
Here is the best part . . . well, the best part for me . . . we have a little niche in the wall of our family room. When we moved into this house just over a year ago I knew I wanted to use it to display something special, and for the past year I have been searching for just the right item for this space. I think that search may be over. (sorry for the dark photo coming up next . . . remember, this is in the lower level of my home so the lighting is not great for photography)
I placed one of my favorite Mickey Mouse statues with these wine bottles and it fills the niche in the wall perfectly. I think Mickey might need a project like this to go with every season.
What an amazing prize package!
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Make sure to hop to the other blogs to see all of the amazing projects that have been created for this event, and show some love by commenting on their projects. Check the list of links at the top of the post to see who is next in the line up and Happy Holidays!
You can find this project on Pinterest by clicking HERE.
