DIY Halloween Wine Bottles

GIVEAWAY CLOSED. See the winners here!

Fall is certainly in the air around here. Not only is the weather cooler, but all things pumpkin, fall and Halloween are filling up the stores... and our house :) I went to Aldi yesterday and they completely sucked me in with their fall food! I went to get things to make some simple cupcakes, and left with that and pumpkin cider, pumpkin cookie mix, and butternut squash pasta sauce. But tonight I'm not here to share a recipe, but rather a craft project that I first made last year after seeing it on a blog somewhere. I wish I could remember where so I could give them credit.

Joe and I save most of our wine bottles and we have several of them lining the tops of our kitchen cabinets (classy, I know). But when we have duplicates or ones that I don't feel like displaying, I typically save them because I know they'll get used for something. That's where this craft comes in!

To start you need to remove the labels from your bottles and make sure that all the residue is gone as well. Sometimes I use a little Goo Gone for the labels, but just make sure that you clean the Goo Gone off too. Then, depending on the design you want, you could tape off part of the bottle with painters tape. The designs I made were a jack-o-lantern, a ghost and Frankenstein. For the ghost you'll need a clear bottle and some frosted glass spray paint, but no taping is required. The jack-o-lantern will need a green bottle, orange spray paint, and the neck of the bottle will need to be taped off. Frankenstein will need a green bottle, black (and maybe green) spray paint, and painters tape for his hair. When taping off his hair, you could either cut notches out of the tape first with scissors, or put the tape around the bottle then use an X-acto knife or utility knife to cut out the notches.

I tried making Frankenstein two ways. First was to paint the entire bottle green and then tape off the hair and paint the top black. But for some reason, the green paint I bought (Krylon brand) was NOT sticking to the bottle! I just could not make it work, and there were little spots all over the bottle. I moved forward with it anyway and my attempt to tape off the hair only ruined it more. I did end up hand painting over the green with acrylic paint, so it ended up OK I guess. The more successful way to make Frankenstein was to not paint the bottle bright green and just paint the top black for hair. I do think that I could have made the green spray paint work if I would have used a spray primer first. But the Rustoleum orange spray paint that I used worked just fine, so maybe it was just a problem with the brand.

The green bottle only looks ok in this picture, but it was not good in real life.

So once the bottles are taped, sprayed and dried, it's time to add the faces. A paint pen works really great for this, but acrylic paint and a brush would work just fine as well. If you plan on covering the face parts with glitter, then you could even just use a Sharpie marker to draw the faces on. Just don't be impatient like me and try and rush things before the spray paint is dry. If you want to add the glitter then use something like Mod Podge or any kind of craft glue to paint over the face you drew, then sprinkle the glitter on and tap off the excess.

This project is actually really quick and I think they turn out super cute! But I like wine and glitter, so they're kind of right up my alley :) Now for the giveaway!

Since I made these this year and last year, I've actually got 3 sets of Halloween wine bottles! So I'd like to give two of the sets away to two of you. I'll let you pick glitter or no glitter, and bright green or plain Frankenstein :) All you have to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite thing about Fall is! Everyone should be able to comment even if you don't have a Gmail account, just select "Anonymous"  on the list of profiles. If you can't seem to comment for some reason, then just email me and I'll be sure to get you entered. I'll choose 2 winners at random on Thursday evening, then this weekend I'll mail the bottles! (Giveaway is closed now, but you can still tell me your favorite things about fall!)

Oh, and one last thing! You may have noticed that there is now a "Pin It!" button under each picture. That is in case you want to add one of these pictures to your Pinterest board. Now if you don't know what Pinterest is, (that's probably for the best) but it is an online bulletin board of sorts where you can organize all of the ideas you see online that you might like to try one day. It's a little addicting!  :) I hope you all have a great week and don't forget to comment so you can win these super sweet wine bottles haha