Photo Bottles

I think you're all familiar with my love of glueing twine to things - exhibit A, exhibit B, and exhibit C. I also love taking photos while on vacation. So when I came across a project by Kirstin at Craftiments.com that combined these two things, I knew I had to copy it.

And it came just in time for the summer edition of the Pinterest Challenge, hosted by Sherry at Young House Love and Katie at Bower Power. The Pinterest Challenge is a get-off-your-butt-and-make-that-thing-you-saw-on-Pinterest call to arms. This edition is also being co-hosted by Kate at Centsational Girl and Michelle at Ten June.

Head on over to their sites to see what everyone's been up to, and to add your own project if you'd like. I can't wait to see the other projects - this challenge always results in a dozen more inspirational pins.

So let's get to it shall we?

This is the project I decided to tackle. And here is my inspiration. Isn't that photo bottle gorgeous? I love the old-time feel of the black and white photo, and the added texture the twine gives it.

I had so many different bottles stored away that I couldn't limit myself to just one. Not to mention the thousands of pictures I had to choose from - every one is a winner, right?

I started with a plain clear wine bottle, washed and with the label removed.

I printed out some of my favourite pictures, editing them as black and white with a vignette border. The two pictures of the dogs are from our trip to PEI last summer, and the photo of Tom & me is from our recent trip to Cuba. How cute is that shot of the dogs bouncing across the sand? They were in heaven.

I began by hot-glueing the twine to the bottle starting from the bottom - about 12-15 rows. I then repeated it starting at the top and wrapping downwards.

I added sand to one of them to give it some weight. It's also cool because the sand in the bottle is from the same beach as the dogs are running across in the picture.

I will admit that the picture is mod podged onto the bottle rather than it being inside. The photo was being stubborn and wouldn't uncurl. I got frustrated and slapped some glue on it, and then sprayed it with a high gloss finisher. I'd like to do some more and actually put the photos inside next time.

The tall bottle is a mason jar glued to a candlestick, with a finial attached to the top of the lid. It started out as an apothocary jar project but I never got around to refinishing the wood. I had painted it, then started to sand it off because I didn't like it, but then never went back to it. The worn, half-sanded finish fits in perfectly with this beachy, rustic look.

I found the pattern for the tags with google and printed them on coloured cardstock. I then wrinkled them up and sanded the edges to give them a more aged look. The tags state the name of the beach and the date the photo was taken.

This project was a lot of fun and one I would like to repeat as we take more vacations. The one benefit of having the photo on the inside is that it can be swapped out when you stumble across a new favourite.

(the "beach" frame in some of the pictures is from this project)

~~~~~

I'm linking up here this week!