Carla Cometto
If you’re a wine lover, you’re very likely to have a collection of empty bottles somewhere in the house. Rather than send them to the recycling bin, turn them into fun decorations with these tutorials.
There’s truly a wine bottle project for everyone. The number of options to repurpose your bottles varies according to your degree of comfort with glass working and your accessibility to specific tools. They include simple approaches like glass painting and spraying, techniques like glass cutting and etching, and some even involve the use of a kiln. Here we share 35 smart ways to reuse your wine bottles to suit all budgets and skill sets.
Kitchen and Living Room Decor
Nothing says home like a living environment decorated with personal items that reflect your taste and personality. Instead of throwing away your empty wine bottles, why not get crafty and turn them into decorative pieces that suit your preferences to revamp your living room and your kitchen. Here are a variety of ways they can be repurposed.
Painted Vases
Perhaps the easiest and most obvious way to upcycle a wine bottle is by turn it into a vase. You can paint it any color you like, and you can place it wherever you want in your house as decoration. There are different ways to paint the glass: you can go for a basic one-color look, you can make it translucent by using a tint, you can use the bottle as a background for doodling, or you can even give the bottle a fake mercury or metallic look.
If all that seems like a wee bit too much work, you can always use a bottle with a label that catches your eye and call it good.
Decorated Vases
For a bolder decoration, you can use a variety of ornaments instead of just paint. You could use twine to wrap it around the entire bottle to give your home a more country look. You could personalize the bottle by using paper cutouts of your favorite magazines or newspapers and do some decoupage. And if you’d rather give the bottle a more elegant touch you could try and cover it with lace.
Centerpiece
Just like with vases, there’s plenty of room for creativity when it comes to centerpiece DIY projects. If you’re having a dinner party and you want to amuse your guests with the decorations, why not spray an empty wine bottle with chalkboard paint and use a piece of chalk to write the table number or a funny message on it before placing it on the table for everyone to see? A permanent option to a message on a bottle is etching. All you need is a glass etching starter kit, words or patterns to etch, and you’re done. You can always hand them out at the end of the party as souvenirs.
Soap Dispenser
Plastic dish soap containers are anything but charming, let alone eco-friendly. A simple solution is to upcycle your wine bottle by turning it into your permanent soap dispenser. All you need is a stopper.
Tumblers
The bottom part of wine bottles can be a nice contemporary addition to your home decor, especially if used as outdoors glassware. Though it requires a bottle cutter, it’s not difficult to make your own dishwasher safe tumblers. Like what you see on the photo above? Follow along this tutorial to see the result and do it yourself.
Drink Mixers
Probably the simplest way of reusing a glass bottle short of sticking a flower in it is by replacing the liquid it was previously contained inside. To make it more interesting, you can prepare a drink mixture of your choices, such as a cocktail or a non-alcoholic drink, and store it safely inside the bottle. Print a decorative tag, list the ingredients, attach it to the bottle and you got yourself a simple yet personal gift to give to a lucky one. Here are the simple instructions to do it.
Platters
Chance are, you never thought you could turn a wine bottle into a serving tray. Slumping (the process of flattening the glass bottle) can turn your bottle into something more than just a container. If you have access to a kiln and you like the look of the cheese platter on the photo, check out this tutorial to do it yourself.
Book Shelf
If your loyalty to a specific brand of wine leads to a collection of that one bottle and you don’t want to end up with crafts made of the same glass, why not use them all at once in one single project. How? By building your own staked shelving unit. This series of pictures shows you step-by-step how to create a quirky and inexpensive piece of furniture for your living room or your studio. It’s a fun way to showcase your books and impress your friends with your DIY skills.
Lights
Another smart way to repurpose wine bottles is by turning them into lighting crafts. Whether you’re looking to add a charming statement piece to a room or have something more practical as decoration, there are plenty of ways to add the element of light to your wine bottle DIY project. Below, you can find a few simple suggestions.
Decorative Light
Not into cocktails? Worry not. You can replace the liquid with string lights. Just take off the label from the bottle and add the lights inside it. It can make for an alternative Christmas decoration. Here’s how to do it yourself.
Lamp
Believe or not, there are wine bottle lamp kits you can buy online to get crafty on a free afternoon. However, you can also use your own tools to turn your bottle into a bedside table lamp. Check out the tutorials for the lamp kit and the DIY project.
Hanging Lights
Adding a statement piece of home decor to any room can make it look cozy and particularly impressive if the item is rather unexpected. It’s the case of wine bottles turned hanging lights or chandelier. You can get the instructions here and here.
Candles
Candles can add ambiance to any environment; however, sometimes they can be rather pricey. Why not reuse your wine bottle and turn it into a container for your own homemade scented wax? It will save you money, and you can even give them as a special present for any occasion. Check out this blog post and learn how to make your own.
Candlestick Holders
If you prefer candlesticks, there’s a tutorial for you too. Mostly, it’s just like the previous one; only instead of using the bottom of the glass bottle, you use the top part to hold the candle. You could even do both to use an entire bottle!
Tiki Torches
Nothing says summer like enjoying a barbecue in your backyard. Add tiki torches to the equation, and you’ve got the ideal setting for long talks over drinks until the wee hours of the night—or until mosquitos send you running back inside. To spare yourself and your guests the annoying itchy bites, grab a few of your empty wine bottles and turn them into citronella tiki torches. They’ll decorate your garden and keep the mosquitos away, a great two-for-one deal! Follow this tutorial to get the same result as what you see on the image above.
Hurricane Lanterns
A simple and colorful addition to your garden is a set of rainbow lanterns. Cut the bottles, paint them, place them over tea light candles, and display them proudly in your backyard over the warmer months.
Garden Supplies
If you’re the proud owner of a green thumb, this section is for you. Here you can find a few clever ideas to turn your wine bottles into anything as simple as edging for your garden bed, to something more intricate like containers for mini gardens as an indoor decoration.
Borders
Sticking to the garden theme, a simple way to reuse your bottles is by burying them half-way and upside down into the soil to make a border between the different plants you’re growing. It’s as simple as it sounds. Not your standard kind of garden supply border, that’s for sure.
Plant Water Bottle
We all forget to water our plants at some point, and if you’re one to travel often, this is the ideal way to reuse your empty wine bottles. Decorate them however you prefer by either painting them or doing some etching and put them upside down in a planter.
Self-watering Planters
You can easily create your own little garden by turning your glass bottles into unique self-watering planters. It’s easier than you think and they make for a lovely statement piece in the house. Alternatively, you can use the bottom half of the bottle as a pot for your succulents.
Terrarium
Make your plant crafts more whimsical by bringing to life those fairytales you love. Ideal for succulent lovers without a green thumb, this project shows you how to make a tiny garden inside a wine bottle like the one you see on the picture. It can be a quirky decoration for any room and make for a unique gift idea.
Bird Feeder
These eco-friendly DIY tutorials can help you turn your bottles into easily customizable bird feeders to have in your backyard. One entails drilling and some wire to hang it, and the other involves a bit of woodwork to set it up somewhere in the garden. They take a bit of extra time to make, but the birds will surely love it.
So, no matter the number of wine bottles you have, you can always reuse them as pieces of home decor in a variety of ways. The sky is the limit!
