Tutorial: Glass Bottle Monsters

First off, let me just say how much I'm loving Link Parties!  :)  Seriously, not just to feature my own projects, but to get ideas, recipes, and projects for new things!  Isn't sharing great?

Last week, I linked up my Bread in a Can Tutorial to my newest obsession, Project Queen, (yup, new obsession added to the list over there ---->) and she loved it so much I'm going to be featured on her blog tonight!  Go check it out (yes, I'm pretty excited about it---so once you're done reading this tutorial, go check her page.  For real.)  This is my second project to be featured (remember, my jewelry holder was featured at the Sasse Life) and it's pretty great :) What a fab way to start my week, especially since I'm not feeling so hot today.  I think whatever bug has been going around the preschool kids and teachers has finally hit me.  Boo.




That's not stopping me from uploading my latest project: Glass Bottle Monsters.  I did this last week,  but it was a very busy weekend and this is the first chance I've had to actually sit down and post it.  So here it is!

How stinkin' cute are these guys?! Super easy too.

Get your stuff together first:

Glass bottles (any size and shape will do) that are rinsed out and labels have been removed
White primer spray paint (not pictured)
Light green paint
Dark green paint
Orange paint
Brown paint
White paint
Black paint
Brushes
Burlap
Hot glue gun and glue stick (not pictured)

In the pic, you can see that I've already removed the labels from my bottles and primed them with white primer spray paint.  This will make painting them a hundred times easier, I promise!  

Once the primer has dried, paint them accordingly.  I used 2 different sized olive oil bottles for Frankenstein and the mummy and an old sangria jug for my pumpkin (since it's round, it made sense to use that one for the pumpkin).  I painted the Frankenstein with the brighter of the two greens, and I did pain the main face area of the mummy with a white acrylic paint to make it brighter and make it stand out more.  Because the mummy will be wrapped with burlap, I didn't see any point in painting the whole thing.

Once the acrylic had dried, I painted the eye details on the mummy.  I wanted him to be more of an angry monster, so I gave him angry eyes.  Once they were dry, I used the non-bristle end of my paint brush to put a small white dot on the inner part of each eye.

Once his eyes were dry, I cut 3 strips of burlap to wrap my bottle (1 inch width, 12 inch length on each strip).  I started my strips at the back of the mummy and used a small dot of hot glue to secure the end.  Then I wrapped the mummy, using hot glue sparingly to help keep the strips in place--basically, I only used glue to keep it attached around the curves of the bottle and the ends of the strips.

Next, I moved on to Frankie.  I started out by painting the lid and top part of the bottle black for his hair (sorry the picture is a little dark--we don't have good lighting in the livingroom at night).  I thought Frankie should be a nice monster, hence the cute smile and cartoon eyes; I've always felt Frankenstein was just a little misunderstood and was actually probably a very nice monster! :)  Then I used a thin brush to paint on a few scars and stitches.  Voila!  Frankie is done!

Last, we have Jack O. Lantern.  This can be fun--use black paint and paint on any fun jack o'lantern face you want.  I kept it pretty simple, but you could have a lot of fun with this one.  Get creative!  I painted the lid and top part of the neck brown (the stem) and used the softer, lighter green to paint the jug handle (a leaf) to give it a little more character.

Once all three bottles have dried, I used a matte finishing spray sealant on Frankie and Jack to make sure the paint didn't get scratched off and to finish them up, and lightly sprayed the mummy with the white primer to give his burlap wrap a little bit of color.

Just too cute, and a great upcycle of glass bottles you probably would have just recycled or thrown out anyway.  What a fun decoration!

Here's the wrap-up on cost:
Glass bottles: Free (well, I mean I paid for them at the store but I consider them free since they were trash)
Paint: Already had
Burlap: $1.00 for 1/4 yard at $3.99/yard

Total Cost: $1.00
WOW!!  What a cheap, easy, and fun project!!

You could do this with any Halloween creature, too:  black cat, witch, spider, anything!  Get creative with it, and then let me know how your bottles turned out :)

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