How to Decorate Glass Bottles

Making your own decorative bottles is such a fun hobby, a great way to decorate for weddings and parties, or even for a home business. Decorated glass bottles and jars can be used for spice bottles, herbed vinegar bottles, jars for preserves, containers for your own homemade floral water, and so much more. You can even make your decorative bottles look like antique bottles.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• First choose the method you want from the article, which gives specifics and items needed for that method.

1. Paint on free-hand or with stencils. Craft stores sell paint and markers specifically for glass, including beautiful metallics and a material that rises above the glass surface to look like the lead connecting different glass colors in antique stained glass. Depending on which you choose, you may be instructed to bake them in a specific way to make the pains permanent and wash proof.

2. Use rub-on transfers meant for paper. There are thousands of transparent rub-ons at scrapbooking and craft stores. Adhere them with a burnisher as the rub-ons will instruct. You can adhere them in any pattern you choose. See the next idea for making them more waterproof.

3. Make your own bottle labels and stickers. The Resource section below leads to another e-how article on making your own personal stickers, which can then be transferred to your glass bottles. If you want them to be very waterproof, craft stores sell thin transparent laminating film that can be peeled and affixed over the sticker once it’s on the bottle.

4. Affix pre-made stickers to your glass bottles or jars. There are beautiful ones already made at scrapbooking and craft stores, and you arrange them as you please on your bottle, and make them waterproof once on the jar just as you did with your own homemade stickers.

5. Affix cutouts with decoupage. If your glass bottle is wide enough at the top and won’t carry food items or liquid inside, you can affix cutout images to the inside so you can see them from the outside. Cut out lovely images from wrapping paper or other sources. With a sponge, paint a material called Mod Podge found at craft stores to the *front* of your cutout image. Now stick the image to the inside of the bottle or jar so you see it from the outside of the bottle. Let dry and coat the *back* of the image from inside the bottle to further seal it. Let dry and repeat.

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   Glue-on decorative items. Buttons, jewels, and other flat-backed ornaments can be glued directly and permanently onto glass bottles. Craft stores also sell this glue, along with murriads of little inexpensive decorations that work with glass.

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   Affix pretty labels with ribbon or metallic string. Tied on bottle labels can be useful or just plain pretty. Find floral trinkets, beads, or inexpensive pendants at beading, hobby or craft stores, string them with ribbon or pretty string, and tie to your glass bottles.

8. Spray paint the outside of your lids with food-safe paint if they’ll be used for consumables. Spray paint comes in shimmering metallics bright colors, or subdued colors. If large enough, lids can also be decorated in most of the ways described above for glass.

Tips & Warnings

• There may be new information and regulations coming out soon about lead and other substances in paints and printed products people have been using, previously assuming they were safe. Take responsibility for knowing what's safe for any item, including items used around food.
• Author disclaims liability and offers article for educational purposes only.
• Parents are responsible for any activities involving their children.
• Author’s articles are registered with the national copyright office and protected with Copyscape

Resources

• How to make your own stickers

[rjspindle]

on 2/28/2009 This is a really creative idea, therefore, I love it. 5* of course. Glass paint is so much fun. My best friend's mother works a lot with it. She also does stained glass. Both really cool. Thanks again.