Decorate with Painted Old Bottles

It’s been terrible weather here at the Jersey Shore, heavy misty rain, non-stop with lots of wind for days!  Gloomy and messy!  The kind of days that either make me want to crawl back into bed or to get projects done.

One of the projects I tackled was painting some of the old bottles we have collected!  It’s super fast and easy to do with minimal effort and gives you a lot of bang for your buck.

My husband and I have amassed a quite a few bottles over the years.  He found most of them while working with the excavator and we picked up quite a few at flea markets.  Some of them are in great shape, but others have crud embedded into the glass that just will not come out, no matter how many times I clean them, or what I clean them with.  They have no real monetary value, but I like them just the same.   I love to fill them with flowers and scatter them around the house, or even group them together to make nice little vignettes.

I gathered up the worst in the bunch and grabbed some paint.

It doesn’t show up well, the weather and lighting were not cooperating for photos, but this bottle is pretty scratched up and had a thick layer of something etched into the bottom-most likely because it was buried for years in the dirt.  This bottle is from an old dairy that was in two neighboring towns and says “Manasquan and Bay Head Dairies”.  It’s a quart size and great for my favorite hydrangea.

Here is a list of things you will need to do this project!

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Supplies

Old bottles, new bottles, glass containers, plastic jars, anything that has a pattern or shape you like

acrylic craft paint

paint brush

sandpaper or nail file

The minute you start to paint the bottle, all the details become enhanced and literally pop.  This is the back of the milk bottle.  I used simple acrylic craft paint and chose white and navy blue.  The first coat looks awful but don’t worry, let it dry and then do a second (sometimes you need a third).

Sometimes the paint pulls away, but just let it dry and paint over it, it will be fine.  When the paint is totally dry (I usually give it about 24 hours) take a piece of sandpaper or my favorite tool -a nail file- and hit all the high spots to reveal the glass.

All the details just pop!  That’s all there is too it.  I painted a few plain bottles with navy blue paint too.

Now they’re ready for display!

Grab some bottles and paint and get busy.  If you don’t have old bottles, use mason jars, soda bottles, any glass or plastic container with an interesting shape or pattern will work.  You can even purchase bottles with interesting details  Use seasonal colors, holiday colors, or colors to match your decor.  You can decorated plain bottles with fabric and embellish them too.

Here are some bottles I painted for centerpiece groupings for my daughter’s baby shower a few years ago.  Paint, burlap and handmade rosettes.

The possibilities are endless.

Oh, did you know that it’s super easy to dry hydrangea?  See the ones above.  I cut them last week, put them in the mason jar with water and walked away.  When I touched them today there were dried already.  Now I can pour out the water and use them as long as I want!

This post was written by Karen Ploransky and is the property of The Decorated Nest blog.