DIY PAINTED BOTTLES
The last few days I've been spending my precious freedom by doing something slightly quirky and surprising: painting an accumulation of glass bottles which were leftover from a house party. It started off as an experiment of sorts, as I'm part of the design team for The Closet and we've been trying to focus on sustainable design, using recycled, unwanted bits and bobs and giving them a new lease of life. I'd been keeping an eye on the leftover bottles in our kitchen for a while, wondering what could be done with them, and if I could put them to good use at all, especially as part of the shop design. I previously mentioned in this blog post, how in my eyes, I view the world as being full of creation, the tools needed to create, and the potential of what is still waiting to be created. There's so much possibility, potential, inspiration. These bottles were no exception. To me, it always feels a shame to throw away such fantastic resources like bottles, boxes, jars, packaging, when it could all be re-used, given an injection of pazzaz and turned into something completely new and amazing, with a whole new purpose and function. There's just something so beautiful and wholesome about it, as does it ensure originality and a whole lot of quirkiness, which is right up my street. A lot of the time I'm never quite sure what I'm going to use resources for, but I love to store them away for safekeeping for a later date anyway. You never know when the urge to create will strike!
Alongside being able to create completely unique, handmade, beautiful new things, another thing I love most about doing these random DIY projects is the actual painting and design itself. It's just so much fun! 99% of the time I'm careless, clumsy, pay no attention to detail and I have the attention span of a fish. However when I'm creating, I seem to suddenly become exceptionally good at all those things. It seems to draw all those qualities out from some hidden place inside of me, and I don't even mind because I take such pride and joy in the art of creation. It seems to do something funny but amazing to my soul. I also find creating, especially drawing and super especially painting, to be so, so, so relaxing. It's like the whirlwind of thought and stress settles and I become lost in my own little world, and as you can guess I'm very, very happy. Especially with doing a more science focused degree, which I also love so much and find so interesting, though it stimulates my mind in other ways, I find that taking the time to create is often put on the back burner. Likewise I'm so much more busier these days, that even having time to myself, to do whatever I please, is often few and far between. There's always something that needs doing. And that's why with these few days of freedom, I quite literally jumped at the chance to do a bit of creating, unleash those stored up creative juices, and have fun making pretty things. Chances like this don't come around too often,
I was thinking earlier about what makes me truly happy in life, and I realised that lame as it sounds, the simple joys like painting, drawing, being creative, baking, listening to music, reading, laughing, watching a film, photography, being with loved ones, are what makes me feel happiest and most content. That's when I feel like I'm loving my life and appreciating it the most. And now, having done this little painting project, I can't help but feel that I should definitely start making more time to do these things that make me happy. Or maybe I should stop spending ages on social media, or stressing out and working myself to hard, and instead do things like this. And hopefully I will. In the mean time, I wanted to share with you a little DIY step-by-step guide to creating your own painted bottle, because it's soooooooo easy, so much fun, so relaxing, so cool and also pretty damn cheap. They make the most beautiful, special and unique decorations and gifts, and I promise you that you'll love creating them as much as you love the finished result (and showing them off to people too). Take a look and see what you think, and even if you've never done this kind of thing before, or you don't consider yourself to be a creative person capable of painting or designing, again I promise that you can do this! As do I challenge you to throw caution to the wind and find out just how capable you actually are. Make yourself proud. Live the bottle painting dream.
Also I hope you appreciate my super cool, super professional photography with my 2MP mobile camera. You know me, keeping it real and all that.
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-STEP BY STEP GUIDE-
001. Buy some acrylic paints from an art store or somewhere like Wilko's/ The Range/ a supermarket/ WH Smiths, along with some paintbrushes, unless you already have them! They're often very reasonably priced and will last a long time. I've had the ones above for two years!
PAINTBRUSHES: A medium sized brush for larger coverage // a small sized brush for detail
PAINTS: White and black paint are an absolute must to provide a consistent base layer, as well as for adding detail. Then get your core key colours like red, blue, yellow, which can be mixed together to create other colours, or get a pack of paints with a mixture of colours.
002. Whenever you have pre-drinks, friends round for drinks, go out for drinks, finish using a bottle of something, or you friends finish with their own bottles, make sure you keep it. Even if it looks a bit weird (eg. I've been known to put finished bottles in my bag after I've been out for drinks), just put the bottles to one side and you'll soon start to build up quite a collection. (It's also a good excuse to drink & party too *wink wink nudge nudge*)
003. Before you begin, wash out the bottle with water and leave to dry. Then try and peel off the labels as best you can. Most are stuck on surprisingly strong so you're unlikely to peel all of it off. Soaking the labels with water is the best way too peel off as much of the label as possible.
Once the bottle is dry, fill a little tub with water, get your paint brushes ready, lay down some kitchen towel on the surface and choose what colour you want your base to be. You can either use a very strong, pigmented, opaque colour, like a brown, dark green, blue or black, or likewise a complete white base. If you want a lighter base colour, such as in the picture above, mix a little bit of white paint with a colour of your choice.
Paint the bottle all over, as neatly or as mismatch as you want. If you want it to look more authentic and rugged, be messier with your painting. Think lots of short strokes all over, some cracks here and there. If you want it to be neater, try and aim for continuous strokes right from the top to bottom.
004. When the bottle has had one layer of paint, leave to dry on a piece of kitchen towel (the paint should dry pretty quickly!). Again, if you're aiming for an authentic look (eg. like the yellow bottle in the photograph above), leave it at one coat however if you're aiming for a clean and consistent look (like the dark blue bottle), wait for the bottle to dry and then add a second coat of paint in the same colour.
005. Once your bottle is dry, it's time for the fun part- THE DECORATION!! Anything and everything goes! Think of the bottle as being your canvas and the paint brush as your magic wand. Get inspiration from Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and tailor your decoration to who the bottle is for.
IF IT'S FOR SOMEBODY ELSE: What are their favourite colours? What kind of person are they? What are their interests? What kind of colours and designs would go with their house/ room? Do you want the bottle to be a representation of yourself (eg colours, patterns, designs that they'd associate with you), or be specialised to them and their tastes? Is the bottle signifying an important event or milestone, or is it a little sweet gift?
IF IT'S FOR YOU: What are your favourite colours? What colours would match your room/ house colour scheme? What colours match the bottle colour? Do you prefer intricate designs or more simplistic designs? Are there any particular artwork or artistic styles that appeal to you? Pictures, music, quotes, books inspire you? Do you want the bottles to form a collection, and if so, will there be a common theme, or will each bottle be individual?
006. Put the colours you want to use on a piece of kitchen towel, refill your pot of water and get your little paintbrush ready (and a cup of tea/ coffee as painting fuel). If you're painting from an image, have it up and ready, whether it's a print out or on your computer. If you want to make sure everything is absolutely perfect, or you're trying to paint something more complex like an image or lettering, it's a good idea to loosely outline your design in pencil, but if like me you're a fan of winging it, just go for it and see what happens! You might go for a very simple, minimalist design, or you might go for the full whammy. You might have your design mapped out to a T, or you might just let your imagination go absolutely wild.
HANDY TIPS: Use one paint at a time, and fill in all areas of the design that need the colour // Clean the brush whenever paint starts to build up, as it gives you more control over your paintbrush, and gives your paintwork more clarity // if you make a mistake do not, repeat, do not freak out. I've always found that the best thing to do is work with it. Turn the mistake into something else, or work with it // For more control when doing precise and intricate details, use the finest material you can, for example in the starry design you can see below, the stars were done using a stalk from a punnet of grapes! // Use different materials to add texture your design and to create interesting effects // If you do your design over a few days, keep the pieces of kitchen towel with paint on them, so you can recreate the paint shades at a different dates. // Accentuate details with white paint to make them stand out more. // Always remember where you last applied paint, so that when you hold the bottle you don't smudge anything!
007. Here are some designs that I've been working on recently, some of which will hopefully be featuring in the shop design of The Closet project, that I'm a part of. Personally I really love pattern work, and I'm quite inspired by Japanese/ Aztec/ American Indian artwork, as well as bright, vibrant, bold colours. Anything that's beautiful, colourful and pleasing to the eye!
008. Once your bottles are finished, you can use them as simple decoration for your bedroom or around the house. You could give them away as a gift. You could use them as decoration for a wedding or special event.You could take them into your workplace to brighten it up. You could put a candlestick inside the bottle (though be careful of the melting wax!. You could put a rolled up, handwritten note inside it and give it to someone special. You could buy some fake flowers (eg. Wilko's do them really cheap!), and again use it as decoration or give it to someone you care about. The possibilities are endless!
