Lacy Wine Bottle Lanterns

Lacy Lanterns

I'm really excited for this post for LOTS of reasons! They include:

• I have never seen this idea anywhere else...it's an SB original!
• I thought of this idea months ago, but never got around to it.
• It's my first post on one of my wedding crafts!
• I've been working on it ALL week!

Here's the finished product:

And here's how I got there:

First, drink lots of wine in clear bottles (HUGE sacrifice, I know). Mom, don't worry...this part of the process was started a couple months ago, NOT at the beginning of the week!

 

Second, give your bottles a bath...no really! Put them in a HOT bathtub for about 15 minutes. You'll have to make sure water gets into the bottles, so the whole bottle stays submerged. 

Next, peel off the labels. If you are not a wine snob, Yellow Tail wine is good AND the labels peel off really easily! Once you have peeled all the wine bottles, grab your materials: the bottles, about a half of a yard of lace, scissors, white spray paint, Christmas lights, and tape. I started by using scotch tape, but soon realized that the blue paint tape worked a lot better.

After you have gathered your supplies, take one of your bottles, and wrap it in the lace. Once it is wrapped all the way around, cut the lace. Tape it off with the painter's tape. Repeat once more with another bottle. Take the wrapped bottles into a well ventilated area and spray! Let dry for a few hours.

By the way, this is the step that took me all week. I only did two bottles at a time, and reused the lace. I wasn't in a hurry and it saved money on lace. If you are in a hurry, or don't care about spending a few bucks more, buy a little more lace and do all at once.

Once you have all of your bottles sprayed and dried, it's time for the most time consuming (a little annoying) step. Put your lights in your bottles. I used between 5 and 7 lights per bottle with 1 or 2 lights between as spacing. Here's what one bottle looks like up close!

Now, there's a couple things you could choose to change about this project. I'm a big fan on the imperfect. All of the bottles have been spray painted for a different amount of time, causing differences in the lace contrast. If you would like them to all be the same, just pay attention to how long you are spraying each bottle. Also, if you look at the picture of all 7 bottles, you can see that the tops of the bottles are not as clearly lacy and nice as the thicker majority of the bottle. If you are a perfectionist, I'm sure there's a way to cut the lace to fit the top of the bottle. For me, it wasn't worth the headache...however, if you could think of a way to change it up, I'd LOVE to hear your ideas!

The second feature you may choose to change up is the thing I may want to change about this project. The lighting right now is just the Christmas lights stuffed into the tops of the bottles. If you have an idea of a better way to change the way the bottles are lighted, I'd love to hear it! I'll even change up my project, put the picture up on the blog, and....(wait for it)...write your name in my blog giving credit for the idea. I know, really exciting stuff!!! haha!!

I am having so much fun planning our wedding! I'm excited to put the little details into the wedding that will make the wedding our own! At our reception, we have a beautiful, second floor outdoor balcony attached to our room. I can just picture these lights outside, lighting up the conversations our guests will be having! 

Until next time, keep crafting!

SB