If you have been reading through my wine bottle centerpieces crafting projects – Easy Wine Bottle Centerpieces DIY or Fun Wine Bottle Centerpieces Project you already know I love crafting with wine bottles. Today I am going to be sharing a few useful tips that will come in handy when you decide to give these projects a try.
Let’s go and learn the tips! No Time to read this Right Now? If you need to come back to this, be sure to save or share this free tutorial. Most people save it to a crafting pinboard or share it with a Facebook group focused on crafts.
Tip #1 – Where to get the bottles? The best place to get your wine bottles is at your local bar. Most of them will happily save one or twenty bottles. Give them a call at the beginning of the week, a reminder call in the middle of the week, and head over there on a weekend to pick your bottles (ask them to keep the original boxes for the empty bottles). The wine boxes are specially designed storage boxes that have inserts to keep each bottle separate. This comes in very handy if you plan to paint your bottles. It will prevent bottles from touching each other and possibly breaking and/or rubbing paint colors off. It wouldn’t hurt to ask for extra boxes.
Tip #2 – Cleaning inside the bottles. To get rid of the wine smell rinse the inside of the bottle and spray with a bit of lemon juice. Dry them over 24 hours in an upside-down position. And this is where those extra wine boxes come in handy. The dripping water will make the boxes soggy and potentially dangerous to carry around because the material might tear. If you use them for drying only and not to carry bottles around you can re-use them again and again. Just make sure you let them dry up between each project.
Tips #3 – Removing the labels off of the bottles. This specific tip came from trial and error. I have tried several recommended methods before arriving at the one that has proved to be it. I have tried:
- Putting them through a hot wash in dishwasher
- Using rubbing alcohol
- Using lemon essential oil
- Using WD 40
- Pouring hot water inside the bottle
- Putting in the oven for 20 min at 230 temp
All of those have failed spectacularly. What worked was to let them soak over 24 hours in a large bucket filled with hot water and Oxy Clean – With this method some of the bottles the labels came right off, on others I had to scrub them with my butter knife to get the labels off, and then re-soak them again to get the goo off. For me, this method was the best as I didn’t have to work with a major mess, even though it was the wet method! Ensure that the hot water doesn’t get inside the bottles, the Oxy Clean smell is strong and you don’t want to have to re-soak the bottle to get the smell off.
Tip #4 – Keeping the outside surface free of glue and oils. When you are removing the label, try not to let it slide all over the bottle to ensure that you don’t spread the label glue everywhere. I know WD40 is often recommended for removing the label, It isn’t the best method at all. The label still doesn’t remove easily, and it will introduce oils that will require additional cleaning and could make painting the bottle more difficult.
Tip #5 – Spray painting the bottle. Make sure to let your paint can soak in hot water for a bit to help you “loosen” it. Doing so will help the paint spray evenly and you’ll avoid having paint streaks. For best results set your bottle up and spray it from top to bottom as you walk around the bottle. Cover the surrounding area with plastic to avoid overspray and get busy painting.
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