message in a bottle

a faux vintage bottle gift wrap...okay...i have to admit, the choices of gifts you can store in a bottle are quite limited...apart from liquids, i can only think of gift vouchers...or...a love letter.

so basically we are talking about the quality of the gift not about the quantaty...i sort of like the idea of a message in a bottle.

this bottle makeover started as a spray-paint project with a simple "herzlichen glückwunsch zum geburtstag" stamp, which means happy birthday...and ended up as a vintage style bottle, decorated with a wax seal.

i am always surprised, when a project turns out different to what i planned, because most of the time it becomes a better version of the original one.

so here you can see what happened to the empty blue bombay saphire bottle.

this is what you need

- empty and clean glass bottle

- spray-paint

- clear stamp

- ink pad

- black paint

- sponge

- butchers twine

- sealing wax

- sealing stamp

- wax paper 

this is what you have to do

- spray-paint your glass bottle

- if you are planning to stamp your bottle, it is a good idea to choose a rather square bottle

- get your clear stamp and your ink pad ready

- press the stamp firmly onto the bottle

- i knew it was going to be quite difficult to as the surface of the bottle was very slippery, but i didn't know that it seemed to be impossible to get a flawless label.

- as you can see, i tried again...better...but still not perfect

- according to my initial plan, the project would have been finished by now...but i considered the outcome not as puristic as planned...not i found it simply too boring

- i had to come up with a creative idea to pimp the gift wrap bottle

- i decided to give the bottle a faux vintage style, which i created, by adding some black colour to the edges of the bottle by using a sponge

- adding a wax seal seemed to be another fancy idea

- get your sealing wax, your sealing stamp, your lighter, your butchers twine and wax paper ready

- create a loop with your butchers twine and place it onto the wax paper

- light your sealing wax

- drizzle the sealing wax onto the butchers twine to fix the loop

- press your stamp firmly onto the sealing wax

- let sit until the sealing wax gets firm

- while trying to remove the stamp, you will notice how easy the seal can be removed from the wax paper

- still there isn't any problem with removing the stamp from the seal

- the seal in combination with the butchers twine created sort of a necklace for the bottle

- you just have to place it around the neck of the bottle...pretty, isn't it?

- now you just have to unscrew the lid of the bottle and place your message inside

- that's it...another beautiful gift wrapping idea, this time made from an upcycled glass bottle.

i hope you enjoyed the tutorial,,,thank you very much for stopping by...best regards...silke