STOP! 🛑 Don’t throw out that empty wine bottle! Use it to make a lovely wine themed decor piece instead. It only takes a few inexpensive art supplies and an empty wine bottle to create this unique piece of art. You are probably thinking that this is much too difficult to make but it’s actually quite easy and it’s such a fun project to do!
You can do this, I promise! When I brought this home my son asked me where I bought it, he said it was gorgeous. He didn’t believe me at first when I told him I made it. He kept asking me where I bought it. LOL!
Trust me, if I can do this project, anyone can do it. Even if you don’t think you have a creative bone in your body, I promise you can do this and get outstanding results. I’m going to walk you through this, so keep reading for the simple step-by-step instructions.
Supplies:
- empty wine bottle
- white glue, like Elmer’s
- water
- talcum powder
- assorted paint brushes
- paper towels
- acrylic paints, in black, dark brown, purple or red, and green
- metallic acrylic paint in copper
- 26-28 wooden clothes pins
- hot glue gun & glue sticks
- air dry clay
- a sheet of craft foam
- about a half dozen small flat sided beads
- Mod Podge, clear acrylic spray sealer in a matte finish
- old dish towel
Start with an empty wine bottle. I soaked off the label but you don’t even need to do that since we will covering the entire bottle with embellishments and you won’t see any of the labels on the bottle once we are done with this project. Just be sure to wash and dry the outside of the bottle to remove any dirt or oils so that everything will stick to the surface.
To start you will want to coat the bottle with a coat of gesso. The gesso will stick to the glass and provide a base to build upon. You can purchase it at any major craft store but you can easily make it for just a few pennies using items you probably already have on hand.
To make your own gesso, combine about a tablespoon of talcum powder, with 1 teaspoon white glue and 1 teaspoon acrylic paint. You can use any color paint. Stir together until combined.
Use a paintbrush to to paint the gesso onto the bottle, coating it completely.
Allow the gesso to dry completely before proceeding to the next step.
Mix up another batch of gesso and “paint” on torn pieces of paper towels. This doesn’t have to be perfect, overlap the pieces and just make sure that the bottle is covered with the paper towels. We are creating the base and some interest by adding texture to the bottle. Be sure to tear the paper towels into pieces instead of cutting them with scissors. The torn edges add a lovely uneven texture to the surface.
Allow the gesso to dry completely before proceeding.
Paint the entire bottle with a coat of black paint. Do a second coat if needed to obtain a solid black base.
Now it’s time to heat up your glue gun. Pull apart the clothes pins into individual pieces. Discard the metal hinges. Hot glue a row of clothes pins aligned along the bottom of the bottle. Make sure they are as close together as possible. The goal is to completely cover up the bottle with a layer of clothespins.
Repeat with a second row of clothes pins. The ends of the second row should line up with the first row. Don’t worry too much about getting this part “perfect”. We will be covering up the ends with craft foam.
Cut out three strips of craft foam. Each strip should be about a 1/2 in width and long enough to go around the circumference of the bottle that’s covered n clothes pins. The ends should over lap by about 1 inch. Use your scissors to round off one end.
Use the hot glue to attach the three strips of craft foam to cover the center where clothes pin ends come together and to cover up the top and bottom ridges in the clothes pins.
Hot glue beads along the foam strips every few inches apart. Alternate them so they don’t all line up on each of the strips.
TIP: Use lentil beans if you don’t have any flat sided beads on hand.
Coat the foam and clothes pins with a layer of black paint. Apply a second coat if needed to obtain a solid base coat.
Be sure to get paint down into the gaps in-between each clothes pin.
Once the base coat is dry, use a flat dry brush and dip the tip of the brush in brown paint. Brush the tips onto a dry paper towel to remove excess paint. Lightly brush paint onto the clothes pins and onto the foam rings and beads. Paint in a horizontal direction against the grain of the popsicle sticks.
It’s starting to look like a wine barrel! Now you have the base completed. Allow the paint to dry completely before proceeding on to the next step.
Now comes the fun part! Adding the clay embellishments. Start by rolling out a long thin strand of clay. Powder your hands with talcum powder if the clay is sticking to your fingers or your work surface. Once you’ve rolled out a nice long thin long strand, fold it in half and gently twist it into a rope.
Place a generous bead of white glue on the back of the clay rope strand.
Attach it in a scroll pattern along the top of the bottle onto the neck of the bottle. Just wrap it around the bottle and tuck the ends into the top of the clothes pins. Press it gently into place with your fingers being carefully not to smash it. You want it to have some texture.
Next roll out several dozen clay balls. Try to get them all around the same size. Place a bead of white glue on the back of each ball and gently press them onto the bottle to form grape clusters.
Start at the top along the rope strand and work your way down onto the clothes pins. You can do just one large cluster of grapes or three clusters. An odd number of grape clusters will end up looking the best.
There is no right or wrong way of doing this. Just keep adding balls of clay until you create nice large clusters of grapes. The white glue stays wet for quite a while and allows you to reposition the grapes until you are happy with the way it looks.
TIP: Bunch up a dish towel or a couple paper towels and lay the bottle on it. It will hold the bottle in place and keep it from rolling around as you attach the clay pieces to the bottle.
Add leaves and additional rope vines if desired. Roll out clay and use a knife to cut out leaf shapes. You can use leaf shaped cookie cutters if you are lucky enough to have them. Use a toothpick to press leaf veins onto the surface to create a more realistic looking leaf. Or go out into the garden and pick a leaf. Press the backside onto the clay leaf to add veins. Attach the leaves to your piece using white glue to adhere them onto the bottle. Add more rope vines if desired.
Allow clay and glue to dry completely before proceeding on to the next step. It will need to dry at least overnight maybe longer, depending on how large you made your grapes and how thick the leaves and rope vines are.
Once the glue and clay have dried it’s time to paint your piece with another base coat of color.
Paint the grapes purple, and the leaves and vines green being careful not to get the paint onto the brown and black painted parts. Try to get the paint into all the crevices the best you can. Don’t stress out if you do happen to get paint where you don’t want it. Just let it dry and then paint those “oops” parts with the correct color. Problem fixed.
You could stop at this point, and seal it with a couple coats of Mod Podge but to really make it “pop”, highlight the piece with some metallic paint. I used a copper colored metallic paint.
Wad up a small piece of paper towel and dip it into some metallic paint. Start by lightly rubbing the metallic paint onto the clay pieces. It will stay on the high parts and the cracks and crevices will stay dark. It will not only give the piece a lovely metallic finish but it’s an easy way to give the piece some depth.
TIP: A little paint goes a long way. LESS IS MORE. Blot off most of the paint from the paper towel before rubbing it onto your piece. It’s a lot easier to add more metallic paint than it is to repaint the base color and start over again.
Be sure to rub some of the metallic paint onto the paper towel part of the bottle as well to highlight the lovely texture.
Once the paint is dry, seal the entire piece. Spray it with a couple coats of matte finish Mod Podge and allow it to dry.
CONGRATULATIONS on creating a truly beautiful and unique art piece. Display it in a prominent place in your home or make several so you can gift them to all the wine lovers in your life.
Did You Make This?
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