Colorful Mini Vases

Painted mason jars, wine bottles, and so on and so forth have been soooooo popular on Pinterest lately. But what's the point of a vase if you can't put water in it without making the paint run?

These vases are recycled bottles—the green is a white truffle oil bottle, the pink is a bottle my hens dig up in the yard, and the purple is from a reed diffuser air freshener.

I got all labels off by soaking in water and then using glue gone. The truffle oil bottle was difficult.

Supplies:
Cleaned bottles
Alcohol inks
Acrylic clear coat
Cotton balls
Paper plate
Small dowel

 

For the small bottle, I used butterscotch (yellow) and wild plum (pink) inks. I applied a bit of each to a cotton ball...

 

And dabbed onto the bottle.

 

And dabbed and dabbed—but not on the bottom. I did the threads as best I could, but did not worry about them.

 

After letting the bottle dry for awhile, I sprayed it with acrylic clear coat. Though the alcohol inks won't run in water, the bottles did feel a bit tacky without a sealant. I held the bottles upside down on a dowel to spray all sides evenly. Three coats, each 10 minutes apart.

 

The only flowers I have? Dandelions! The green bottle is butterscotch with stream (blue), the purple is wild plum with stream.

So many possibilities! I only have 1 set of alcohol inks, and there are a whole lot more colors I would love to try. Rubbing alcohol will clean up any mistakes.

Ideas: using alcohol on a q-tip to draw a design, trying a stick-on stencil with more ink or alcohol, using just one color to create a solid effect, stamping a design, maybe even trying to add gold leaf of some sort. So many possibilities...


Linked to:
Take-A-Look Tuesday 
Fluster's Creative Muster