Pretty Painted Bottles

Hey, it’s High Five for Friday time! But this week I am calling it Freakin’ Fun Friday, because I want to share with you this super fun craft project – any one can do this, it’s quick, easy (a little messy) but soooo country pretty!

Browsing Pinterest the other night, I came across this project from Work In Progress Kits and literally jumped off the couch and said “I can do this!”. Coach and I have collected quite a number of old bottles, some dug up right in our own backyard,

some in more recent estate sales and auctions. Many are old, rusted, scratched and lidless, essentially worthless (don’t worry Coach, I didn’t paint the Old Log Cabin Bourbon bottle in the back-turns out that one is worth something!) so I figured this would be just the trick to spice them up! Here’s the how-to: First, you need some clear glass bottles and jars. Anything will do, doesn’t matter if they’re old or new, but the ones with the embossed labels on the outside look especially cool once they are done.

Wash thoroughly- I put mine through the dishwasher to make sure I got all of the grease and dirt off. Choose your paint colors. Home Depot has these awesome Behr paint sample pots- for $2.94 each if you want custom colors-but these were in the Oops! Bin for 50 cents apiece!

I also have a number of the little craft paints, and those actually work better for the smaller-necked bottles.

So I grabbed a pile of paints, assembled my bottles and got to work. You simply take the paint and bottle of choice, pour the paint inside,

turn the bottle until it is completely coated on the inside

turn the bottle upside down and allow all of the excess paint to drip back out into its original container

wipe the edge to give it a nice clean finish (loving this little blue bottle with the mint green inside edge : )

allow to dry overnight…add flowers, battery tea lights, whatever you would like to decorate. But remember- this is acrylic paint- you can’t use real candles or put water in them! The paint makes the embossing stand out on the bottle- before the paint I didn’t even know there was a ship on this bottle.

You can mix and match the paint colors- like the blue and green one above. Or you can stick to all one color- whatever works for your decor. A couple of simple tips: more is better– pour in enough so you are not standing there trying to swirl around a little bit- takes forever! Remember, you will be pouring most of it back out anyway.

Propping for time’s sake. Watching paint drip is almost as bad as watching paint dry. So set up a propping/dripping area where you can set it and forget it until all of the big globs are gone.

Keep a container of wet wipes handy. This project does get messy, as you can see by the pics.

These are essential for getting a clean edge on the top of the bottle, and for cleaning off your hands as you go. You don’t want to transfer fingerprints from one jar to the next. So there you have it- super fun project for a rainy day. Simple enough for kids, pretty cool results. Have a great weekend everyone! We’re off to Brimfield on Saturday- can’t wait to share what we find. Susan