DIY Sparkling Bottles with Lights

What to do with old wine bottles? Better yet - what to do with the empty bottles you bought at the dollar store? You knew you wanted to get crafty with them....but how?

Well, I can show you a super easy project that will add style and grace to your patio. And you can tell all the bugs outside that you made them - because we're not supposed to have get-togethers, dang it. Someday...

And a daylight shot:

• Empty, clear wine bottles

• Sticky-back foam shapes

• Spray paint

• Glitter spray or Sparkle Mod Podge

• Fairy lights made for wine-necked bottles

Step 1

Decide which foam shapes you want as “windows” on your bottle. Peel the back off the shapes and place them where you want the light to shine through.

Make sure the foam shapes have all areas sticking to the bottle.

Step 2

Place your bottle on a tarp or somewhere you can get spraypaint on. You can choose to stand the bottle up and spray the paint all around. Or you can lie it on its side and spray down on it, for better control of where youre spraying the paint.

Step 3

Spray an even coat of the color of spray paint you choose.

I had the choice of matte dark blue or gloss of the same dark blue. I did a test on an empty jar of spaghetti sauce. I couldn't really decide, but my husband said to go for the matte color. His name is also Matt, so...

Let the side with paint dry before you do the other side. Unless you've decided to stand your bottle and paint around.

It sometimes gets breezy here in Sacramento. I didnt want it to blow over or have my kids knock it over, so I stuck it someplace safe to dry.

Now get ready to sparkle!

Step 4

After your whole bottle is painted and dry, grab your can of glitter spray paint and do the same thing again with it, this time.

However...

Test the glitter spray first. For mine, it made a difference on how far away I held the spray can. I didn't want my bottle all glitter. I wanted the blue to sparkle. So do a test run so you know what you should do to get what you want.

A close up:

Step 5

Once your bottle has dried from everything, start peeling off the foam stickers

Now, see how you have little windows? Cool, huh?

We're almost done now!

Step 6

Grab the made-for-wine-bottle fairy lights. You can tell they're made for bottles because the batteries and light switch is on a cork shaped piece of plastic.

They come wound up but I found I needed to unravel to stick them down the neck of the bottle.

Step 7

Start pushing the lights down a little bit at a time.

Now, after I had shoved it all down there, I saw that most of the lights were jumbled at the top of the bottle.

So, I made a tool. I tied my hair tye around a wooden dowel. The dowel itself didn't work because it didn't have enough girth to push the lights down.

Step 8

Do what you have to to get the lights how you want them. For example, use a hair tye dowel.

Once you're satisfied, turn the lights on and ooh and ahh at your new porch light!

I also made a couple more. And with one, I decided to give it a coat of Glitter mod podge instead of using the spray can.

I also decided to cover the windows in sparkle.

See...

And here they all are:

And when it gets dark...

While finding inspiration for this project, I came across a post by The Spruce Crafts that featured a round-up of wine bottle crafts. I suggest you take a look there too.

Update:

So, while I made them as decorative porch lights, we have come to find, they make excellent night lights for the kiddos :)

So, there you have another fun and colorful project from Artsy Karma. Sign up for my newsletter to find out when I've got more colorful fun for you!

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Get the supplies on Amazon: