Wine Bottle to Holiday Vase

I started with two empty wine bottles. I let them soak in warm, soapy water for a while to help loosen the labels. After scrapping the labels off, I gave them a good scrub with a sponge and dried them off.

We just moved and we've been doing a lot of painting. This leaves me with lots of paint for new projects. I tied a wire on the top of the bottle so that I had something to hang it from while it dried. I dipped the bottles in paint, gave them a good shake to let the excess paint drip off. Then I hung it over a drop cloth and let it dry for a few hours.

I really like the technique of dipping bottles because it leaves them with a thick coat and a nice, smooth surface. It definitely works better with a 5 gallon bucket of paint, but I have made it work with a 1 gallon bucket by leaning it a little and turning the bottle in the paint to completely cover it.

(I realized later that it was going to look better if the top of the bottle was also completely white, so I ended it up dipping the top later.)

When the paint was dry, I used a tiny amount of hot glue to adhere a glitter mesh ribbon around the top of the bottle. I had old silver bows and bells that I don't use anymore, so I strung those together with a red ribbon and tied them around the bottles.

I absolutely love the final product!

I originally set out to create candle holders, but I think I prefer to use them as a vase. Our new fireplace is fairly dark so I knew I needed light colors to brighten up that space. These vases/candle holders are the perfect addition to our holiday mantel.