5 DIY ideas for the whisky bottles you have sadly finished!
So you have finished the last drops of another wonderful whisky. You look down at the lovely bottle, the nice box it maybe came in and think, am I really just going to throw this in bin? If you find yourself in this situation, fear not! Our Senior Tour Guide, Cody, has come up with 5 super easy up-cycling ideas to breathe new life back into those bottles. Keep them for yourself or give them as gifts this Christmas – it’s up to you!
Flower Vase
Let’s start simple. Replace what was once whisky with water, stick in some flowers and boom! You have a new lovely vase for the coffee table. From experience, I feel clear bottles work best for this, being able to see the stems of the flowers always looks nice with the individual touch of the bottle’s design adding real flair over the look of a standard glass vase. Bottles with wider corks can be advantageous due to the fact they will hold more flowers but any bottle can work. Experiment, find out what looks best and you will never need to buy a standard vase again.
Glowing Ornament
This is another easy project that can look much nicer than you may expect! Simply get yourself some fairy lights from your friendly local fairy light salesman and carefully insert them into the bottle. This works well with both tinted (leading to a nice dull glow in the colour of the bottle) and clear bottles and can be a great ornament. If you wish to keep the cork in the bottle to complete the look, you can simply cut a thin slice with a bread knife into the cork allowing the lights to sit within, having your battery pack sit on the outside. Alternatively, you can also buy fake corks online that double as battery packs if you wish to eliminate the sight of the battery pack entirely. If the bottle you are using came with a nice box, why not leave your new glowing creation inside, and give it as a nice gift with an added surprise!
The Whisky Shelf
So you have a bunch of boxes, tubes and bottles that you like but just aren’t going to work for any of the previous suggestions. This is where the whisky shelf comes into play! Marketing teams plough countless hours and thousands of pounds into making their boxes stand out on the shelf, so why not make them stand out in your room? I like to mix and match, showcasing to my friends the beauty of those bottles no longer with us. Should the shelf be colour coordinated? By brand? By region? That’s up to you! It will surprise you how many complements you will receive for a shelf holding your once favourite drams, each with their own story of where you got it and when it was finished. An eye-catching conversation starter and a homemade art piece.
Candle
This one can be messy….and you will need to buy a few things beforehand, but it is a great stocking filler! Firstly, I would recommend buying a glass cutter. There are tutorials online that can show you how to cut a bottle without an official bottle cutting tool. However, having a tool is the safest way of completing the task so I definitely recommend that. Alongside this, you will also need to buy a wick (you want a large one) and some candle wax.
- First find the bottle you wish to “candle-ize”. Paper labels can occasionally melt off from the heat so those with a design etched onto the glass itself can often work better.
- Use the glass cutter to cut the bottle to your desired length. This process can take some trial and error so keep that in mind. Remember to smooth out the edge with sandpaper and be careful during this whole process, glass is sharp!
- Glue your wick to the bottom of your newly cut bottle and find a method of holding it straight up while your wax is setting around it (tying your wick round a pen sitting horizontally across the middle of the rim of the bottle is one method).
- Melt the wax in a pot on the stove and pour it in, before waiting for the wax to set.
These bottle candles can look great and you can also experiment with adding a specific scent to them as well. However, if you are wishing to attempt this one I would highly recommend looking up a more detailed guide online as this is a quick run through of the steps and it can be tricky! I recommend that you take your time with it for you to get the best possible results!
Lamp
For this one you will need to buy a BC lamp holder bottle adapter from the internet. Don’t worry they are normally less than £10! Simply insert the adapter into the top of the bottle and couple it with a nice lampshade that fits the decor of the room. You can end up with something that looks far harder to construct than it really is and can both be subtle or stand out depending on the design of the particular bottle that you choose to go with.
So there you go…5 super easy projects to turn those old finished whisky bottles into eye-catching decorations around your home or to give as gifts. You’ll never look at an empty bottle with the same sadness again!