In the corner of my kitchen there is a custom built floor to ceiling cupboard with rows and rows of slotted compartments. I have a collection of wine bottles stored in these. While most normal people have collections of full wine bottles – mine are all empty ones. I haste to add that these are not the accumulated result of excessive wine drinking or lonely inebriated evenings. Rather they have been collected over a number of years and stored in this convenient wine bottle cupboard for a rainy day.
My collection of empty wine bottles has often resulted in much head scratching and teasing from my friends and family. Questions like “Well Carol, what exactly are you keeping dozens and dozens of empty bottles for?” and “Good grief woman, you need to get out more!” and so on. I knew though that somewhere down the line I would find a use for them, and now I have!
Wine bottles it turns out, can be cut. This past Christmas I received as a gift, a custom designed and hand made glass bottle cutter from my dearest man in my life. Someone who is not only the kindest and most thoughtful person on the planet, but he also happens to be the cleverest and handsomest ‘Magyver’ of ‘Magyvers’ !
Cutting glass is not a simple procedure as we discovered. Glass can be unpredictable and tricky to work with. However with practice and a little luck one can usually get two out of three cut quite nicely. The edges can be sanded down by hand with water sand paper.
Of course it wasn’t long before I thought of painting onto my cut bottles. My Protea jar had worked so beautifully, why not painted tea light candle holders from the cut bottles. So that is what I have been happily doing in my spare time.
My man also just so happens to be a hopeless romantic, and I am spoiled with a bunch of flowers every week, how lucky can a girl be! The Chrysanthemums in my mixed bunch this week have been vying for my attention. Their cheerful colors and multi petaled flower heads have made them perfect models for my tea light holders.
I spent a happy ‘load shedding’ morning (in lieu of a rainy day one) utilizing the time to cut a wine bottle and paint these pretty purple chrysanthemum flowers onto it. All and all a pleasing result and lots of creative therapy for me.
Gesso I have discovered works well as a base for the acrylic – this eliminates the transparency problem of the glass.
Ah! What it is to have a romantic McGyver in your life – I am so glad to hear. Thank you for sharing your candle holders – what an excellent idea for the forthcoming periods of load shedding. One might as well have something pretty to keep the candle burning in!
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Thank you Anne. I do consider myself lucky indeed! Yes they have been allot of fun to make and paint..glad you enjoyed.
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I am intrigued as to how the bottle cutter works! But anyway, I like the result. I am always happier when candles can’t fall over, and these holders are practical as well as very attractive.
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Hello Carol – its actually quite simple. The bottle is turned firmly in place by hand whilst being held by the rollers (wheels). there is a blade which is set to one side to just score the glass. Once that is done its a case of heating along the line – with a candle, and then immediately rubbing an ice block over the heated line. This takes more than one go usually and if you are lucky a simple tap breaks the glass cleanly along the line. The cut bottles make excellent candle holders and the whole thing is allot of fun. Glad you enjoyed..
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Thanks for the detail. I’ll give that some thought 🙂
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That is some serious bottle cutter. Your You can also make great glasses to drink out of too. One of my friends made hers from asking the pub to keep the coloured bottles for her. I love your candle holders.
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Thank you ! Yes I think it must have taken some engineering! I have thought of that too, They are quite versatile and so nice to recycle and ‘upcycle’.
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