DIY Wine Bottle Lamps by Brian

You may remember Brian from an earlier post in December:

"DIY Book Page Wreath by Brian Carreno"

Well, he's back with us for another project!!  Yay!

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Some celebrations (New Year's, 21st Birthdays, Super Bowl, etc.) require some specialty beverages.  In the end, you have two options: throw the empty bottles away OR create new décor for your home.

I had just recently had my 21st birthday, so I had a couple of left over wine bottles at my disposal.  I went to the craft store for the following:

1)  Strand(s) of 20 to 35 string lights

2)  Frosted Glass spray

3)  Decorative twigs/branches/straw/feathers/etc.

*Additional optional items that may be needed:

-Glue gun

-Scissors

The first thing that needs to be done is to clean out and dry the wine bottles.  This may sound simple enough, but with such a small opening it can prove difficult.  There are various ways you can dry out the wine bottle.  You can stick some paper towels into them and move them around, set them out on a warm sunny day and wait, or use the oven.  I used the oven.

After swishing some warm water around the inside of the bottle and pouring as much of it out, I set the bottles in the oven (100-150 degrees) at an angle by putting one rack at the lowest point, putting another rack a few levels higher and pulling it out slightly so that the bottles? necks rested on the top rack at an angle.  I did this because the bottles were too tall to have enough room above them for the moisture too leave quickly.  I rotated the bottles every 5 minutes (using oven mitts) so that condensation was not collecting on one side of the inside of the bottle. After the bottles showed no sign of moisture inside, I set them on the counter to cool down to room temperature.

At this point, you might want to do some maintenance to the wine bottle labels.  I wanted to keep the labels on the bottle, but the heat ended up loosening up a corner of one of the labels.  I brought out my handy glue gun and lightly glued the corner back.  You can completely take the labels off if that?s your preference.

After any needed  maintenance, you want to apply the Frosted Glass spray.  I added 3-5 coats and gave them about a 10 minute drying period between coats.

After the frosting, you want to take your light strands and begin to stuff them through the opening.  Take each bulb, angle the tip down the neck of the bottle and shove it down.  You might need to use a stick to help push the lights down to allow room for more lights.  The more lights are on the strand, the brighter the lamp will be. (NOTE:  I would not recommend using a strand with more than 35 lights for safety reasons.  I had a Moscato Wine bottle that had a fairly small body, so I downgraded that bottle to a 20 light strand.)

At this point, all the lights should be inside the lamp and the excess cord and plug-in should be outside of the bottle.  To disguise the cord and add some flair, I took the various twigs/branches/straw/feathers and made an arrangement.  I fitted the base of the arrangement into the neck and added any more twigs and such to make sure they fit snug.  I only pushed the arrangement as far down as needed to be secure without pushing them completely down into the bottle or touching any lights directly.  You might have to pull the arrangement out and trim off excess from the bottom so that you don?t need to stick them down as far to achieve the same level of height.  I also trimmed some of them purposefully at different lengths to keep things interesting.

Here there are at in the dark:

You now have a crafty homemade lamp to plug in and enjoy.  You can personalize your wine bottle lamps anyway you want.  You might want to paint some design on the outside of the lamp, add some ribbon, or spray paint the arrangement a metallic color; it is all up to you! Have fun!