Glass bottle vases: decor, painting and trimming

Glass bottles made of wine, cognac, champagne, milk, butter and even beer are excellent materials for making do-it-yourself flower vases. Painted and decorated vases and vases can be used to decorate not only the dining table and shelves in the house or in the country, but also serving at a wedding or party, and you can also make a wonderful gift from decorated bottles.

Master class number 1: Stylish and simple

For such a painting of bottles, bottles of any shape and color of glass are suitable; in this master class, transparent bottles for milk are used.

Materials: for degreasing – acetone or alcohol, as well as cotton pads, for painting – acrylic paints in jars or cans (better for glass and ceramics), a nylon brush, as well as masking tape or ordinary tape of the required width. Rubber rings can be used instead of tape. If you are using spray paint, foil, cling film, or plain paper may be useful..

Instructions:

1. We prepare the glass – remove the labels, wash the glue, wipe the bottles dry, and then degrease the surface with nail polish remover or ethyl alcohol.
2. We glue the future vase with tape, forming a pattern: strips of different widths, zigzags or a spiral. Scotch tape plays the role of a stencil here.

1. We start painting the vase in the right places.

Tip: if the paint requires baking in the oven, then consider in what position the painted bottle will dry. So, if you paint both the bottom and the neck, then it will be problematic to dry the vase, but you can make a structure out of thick paper and buttons as shown in the photo below.

1. The drying method depends on the paint you choose. The manufacturer usually indicates the required baking temperature (if required) and time. Baked acrylic paints dry for about half an hour in the oven at 170 degrees, and then it is advisable to leave the bottles to dry naturally for 1-2 days to make the coating as durable as possible. Spray paints that were used in this master class do not need to be baked, but they dry in 24 hours.

With this workshop, you can come up with a wide variety of designs, playing with the color, width and position of tape or rubber bands..

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For example, you can use unusual shades – bottles painted in gentle pastel colors or gold or silver paint look very impressive. Take a look at the following selection of photos – these are the colors that are best suited for decorating glass bottles for decorating a wedding or party..

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And here is another original idea – by pulling an elastic band or sticking tape diagonally, you can paint over only the bottom of the bottle..

Master class number 2: Painting the bottle with contours

And now let’s proceed to a more complex and lengthy, but very beautiful way to decorate bottles with our own hands – painting with contour volumetric paints. With their help, you can draw patterns and ornaments in ethnic style, apply a complex and simple drawing or write beautiful inscriptions, monograms, initials (photo below).

You can also draw with contour paints using the technique of spot painting as in the photo below..

And in combination with stained glass paints, the contour painting will turn into stained glass.

Materials: any alcohol-based degreaser, cotton pads and sticks, a needle and contour paints. If desired, the painting can be supplemented with sparkles, as well as acrylic and stained glass paints, as in this master class.

Tip: if you do not have contour paints or drawing with them seems difficult to you, then you can paint with the help of available tools: toothpicks, needles, cotton swabs or a thin brush.

Technique:

1. First, we need to come up with an idea and prepare an auxiliary sketch. You can find it on the Internet and print it in a suitable size or draw it yourself. You can also use a homemade or ready-made template or stencil.
2. If you are confident in your drawing skills, you can skip this step. If you are a beginner, then it is better to transfer the desired picture to glass, that is, outline the main details and lines of the picture / pattern. To do this, you need to: draw or print a picture, cut it out (you can roughly), then paint over its back side tightly with a soft simple pencil, and then attach the picture with the shaded wrong side to the glass and circle all or only the main parts of the drawing with the same pencil. Barely noticeable, but useful lines should remain on the bottle. If the image is not too complicated, then it is enough to outline the main details right on the bottle..
3. Now you need to degrease the glass and wait until it dries..
4. If you wish, you can paint the entire bottle with colored acrylic paint and wait until it dries completely..
5. We start painting: we outline all the contours, from time to time cleaning the nose of the tube with a needle and, if necessary, correcting blemishes with a cotton swab moistened with water. It is more correct to start drawing with large details..

• If you draw with a contour using the stained-glass technique, then the contours should be closed, and the stained-glass paint should be in contact with them. Also, make sure that all parts are completely painted over without staining, otherwise the coating will be short-lived. Filling the contours with stained-glass paints is possible only after 2 hours, but you can speed up their drying with a hair dryer;

• In the technique of spot painting with a contour, the main thing is to observe the same and minimum spacing in one line of the drawing and maintain the same diameter / volume of points (in one line).

Tip: first practice drawing with an outline or putting dots on paper. Remember to press on the tube with the same force..

1. When the drawing is ready, you just have to dry or wait for the paints to dry, following the manufacturer’s recommendations. Most often, painted glass is baked in the oven at 170 degrees for about 30 minutes or left to dry naturally for a day..

We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the following video tutorial, where you can see how to decorate a bottle with your own hands using contours in a chiseled technique.

And here are other interesting ideas for painting bottles with contours for your inspiration..

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Master class number 3: how to cut a bottle and make a vase, candlestick and other decor items out of it

So, we figured out the painting and decor. Now let’s talk about how to make a vase, candlestick, pencil holder, glass or some kind of interior decoration from an ordinary bottle as in the photo below.

You can cut a glass bottle with your own hands in different ways. In this master class, we use the simplest methods that can be easily repeated at home..

Method 1. How to cut a bottle with alcohol-treated thread

This method is more suitable for cutting wine bottles and bottles with thin glass..

1. First you need to wrap the bottle with thick cotton thread and cut off the excess (top photo on the left).
2. Now this thread must be moistened in any alcohol-containing solution – white spirit, ethyl alcohol or nail polish remover, as in this master class. After the thread is well wet, it must be wrapped around the bottle again in the right place..

1. Now you need to carefully set fire to the thread, quickly rotating the bottle until the flame goes out.

1. Next, you need to lower the bottle in a previously prepared container with boiling water for 3 minutes, and then quickly lower it into cold water – from a sharp temperature drop, the glass should crack in the right place.

Tip: if you want to make a vase from a bottle of champagne, then steps 2-4 will most likely need to be repeated.

1. We carefully break the bottle, and then we process the sharp edges with sandpaper – first coarse-grained, and then fine-grained. Woo-ala, the vase from the bottle is ready!

Method 2. How to cut a bottle using a glass cutter

You can also cut the bottle using a glass cutter. For this you need:

1. Make an incision with a glass cutter. To make the edges even, you can sharply wrap the bottle with an elastic band or tape before it. Instead of a glass cutter, you can use a glass drill;
2. Then we burn the incision, then lower the bottle in boiling water for three minutes, and then into a container with cold water;
3. We carefully break the bottle;
4. We process the edges with sandpaper.

You will have to tinker with champagne and other thick-walled bottles, but wine bottles break quite quickly and easily..

You can see how to cut a bottle with your own hands using a glass cutter in the following video: