Pages

Friday, April 13, 2012

Pinterest Picks

It's Friday! It feels like I have been waiting for this day all week, I'm sure everyone has.  Spring is officially here & in gear in California, the flowers are blooming left and right, the garden party invitations are showing up, it's time to go outside! I love bringing flowers to people's homes, and I love having fresh flowers in our house as much as possible - but I don't have a ton of vases here people!  I mean, this is a little house..

Today's pinterest picks showcase some really great ways to turn your empty beer & wine bottles into some great vases & similar.  What could be better, flowers AND recycling?!  I don't know if someone has coined this phrase yet, but here goes: direct recycling - ha! By this I mean, where you can get another good use out of something without having to send it off to the recycling plant, to be melted and recast, expending all that extra energy.  And I'm not talking egg carton arts & crafts here folks, these creations are CUTE!

Alright enough chit chat, first up - the greatest gift budweiser has ever given us, the beautiful cobalt blue bottles of "bud light platinum":
Source: adf.ly via Jesse on Pinterest

I know you've seen 'em! They are certainly an eye catcher.  These bottles are good enough to recycle AS IS! No paint necessary with a color like that.  For a little more disguise, you could cut the bottles like in this next pin:

Nice...! I have yet to use a bottle cutter, but a friend of mine that is making some votive candle holders from bottles told me that it's pretty easy.  If you don't want to get into the sharp world of cutting bottles, how about we just wrap those puppies up in colorful string:

There we go! Quaint. Just think, it can be an activity. You could drink the beer, and wrap your empties, all at the same time.... OK maybe not. I'm sure 2 or 3 bottles in, that the vases would take on an entirely different look!  Up next is my personal favorite, the pin that started my search for the rest of these, and most likely the one I'll do soon: Behold...  the six-pack vase:

Woot! This is perfect!  OK I know pictured is a 4 pack, but I'm more likely to have a 6-pack around.  Just think, it has it's own carrying case... it has flowers.. it has everything! I imagine myself walking into a party, a six pack of flowers in one hand, a six pack of beverages in the other.  These are ready to disperse around the house too!  Plus, I can use up the last bit o spray paint left in all those cans.

Ok, we've favored beer this far, let's not forget the ever-versatile wine bottle.  I was in a restaurant recently where they used clear wine bottles full of ice, water, and lemons as a carafe on each table.  I thought, that's so simple, it's brilliant!  Imagine getting ice into those things though...yikes.... First in the wine bottle spotlight, you guessed it - vases:

Look at those angled cuts! How in the world did they do that. Mine would probably come out with a flat cut. Or not cut at all, but I still love these. It only gets better in the vase department, wine JUG vases:

I have had a secret crush on wine jug vases for years, and I'm finally admitting it. Here, publicly.  I just can never bring myself to buy that huge thing! One of these days I'm going to have to muster up the courage, because I can't wait any longer. I love 'em! I did a post a while back on glamming these up a bit, but they honestly look great as-is. Check out this lamp:

Um, two please! Now that's awesome. I always see those bottle lamp kits in the hardware store, but imagined them on wine bottles. Which seemed small to me. I never thought about the wine JUG!  Maybe wrap that cord up like in this DIY post earlier this week.  One day my house is gonna be full of these things. Vases, lamps, whatever. I'll have to throw some mega party first though, because that is seriously a lot of wine!

Dang, this has been quite the post... If you've made it this far, hang in there with me - one more! Last up is this handy-dandy summary of uses for bottles, & brings a whole new set of ideas for giving a second life to these glass darlings.

I mainly noticed this one for those colorful yarn bottles there. Why yes, of course I thought of ombre! Haha, someday that fad may fade, but that day is definitely not today.  While I won't get all link crazy on you, all of the ideas above can be found through an easy google search.  Those cobalt blue (skyy vodka?) bottle torches there were a design sponge tutorial, and I just happen to have that link handy, here.  Look at number 1 there, a bar?! Really!? I wonder how long that took to stash that many bottles. It is pretty with the light though!

Well there you have it, a use for all those bottles you keep sending out the door. Turns out recycling can be pretty darn cute. Have a wonderful weekend, keep these ideas in mind when you're cleaning up!

1 comment:

  1. I saw the Pinterest post of the yard beer bottles, and decided I had to do that. So I picked up cheap yarn and drank a lot of wine (I substituted wine bottles) and it took forever to do them. They turned out pretty great though! Cheap decoration!

    ReplyDelete