Turn An Old Wine Bottle Into The Cutest Fruit-Inspired Home Decor

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Any lover of both three-dimensional design and wine will tell you that vino bottles should be considered pieces of sculpture in their own right. When the glass flasks are filled with wine, those shapely bottles decorate your shelves with simple style. When the wine's gone, you almost feel guilty for throwing them away because they're so pretty. Fortunately, Instagrammer @that_craftybee figured out how to upcycle empty wine bottles into fruit-inspired decor, giving you a way to save those beauties. Some twine, an empty wine bottle, glass gems, and some paint will help you turn an empty wine bottle into art. 

You'll need at a standard-sized wine bottle to make this DIY. Also, blue, red, green, or purple FUTUREPLUSX Flat Glass Marbles to dress up the bottle. Get at least one large marble as well (your color choice for this one depends on the hues that you've selected for the smaller flat gems). For example, a bottle with purple gems needs a darker, aubergine-colored marble for the large piece. The big marble needs to be round instead of flat. You'll also need some masking tape and AOODOOM Floral Stem Wire, which become the raw materials for the grape leaves. As for the kind of paint, stick with chalk paint as it adheres more steadfastly to glass than many other types of paint. Choose the hue based on your design ideas for this project.  A utility knife, scissors, paint brushes, and a glue gun are also among the tools on this DIY list.

Start by removing the label from the bottle before painting the glass. Make a hot water bath in the sink for the bottles, adding a squirt of dish soap to the water. This step both cleans the bottles and makes it easier for you to peel off the label. Let them soak for an hour. Use a paper towel that you've dampened with white vinegar to lightly rub off any fingerprints or other grease marks. Then, scrape the label off with a utility knife. Rinse the bottle out and allow it to dry before starting the painting steps.

Some crafters don't prime the bottle, though you'll avoid a big chalk paint mistake if you do prep it first with spray primer. This step encourages the paint to stick fast to the bottle, so you should consider it. Once you're ready to paint the piece, brush on a coat of paint. Then, bounce one side of a round sponge brush or kitchen sponge all over the bottle while the paint is still wet. This adds texture to it.

Further texture comes from twine. This you'll wrap around the bottle, starting from the base of the neck of the flask, eventually moving up to the lip of the bottle. Glue the twine down as you go. Wrapping a couple of strands around the bottom of the bottle a half an inch up from its base adds more texture and some visual balance. However, this isn't a requirement.

In this DIY, stylized grapes bedeck the front of the wine bottle. You'll need the flat gems to create this illusion. Use the glue gun to paste clusters of the decorative marbles to the front of the bottle, starting the first row of grapes about two inches down from the bottom of the twine. You'll need seven or eight rows of glass grapes to cover the front of the bottle. If you're leaning toward making slightly more realistic grapes, use a couple of different colors of flat marbles in the same color family. Disperse the various colored marbles throughout the cluster of the glass grape bunch. 

Finally, you'll need to make the leaves for the grapes out of masking tape. Tear off a 1½ to 2-inch piece of tape. Lay one of the craft wires on the sticky side, stopping it just at the halfway mark. Fold the sticky half that the wire doesn't touch over it so the wire is now completely enclosed. Next, fold the tape in half again, this time along the line of the wire in the middle, which now becomes the stem. Trim the outside edges of the tape to look like grape leaves. Finally, paint the leaves green and glue them to the bottle. Adorn the bottle with a bow constructed from twine and glue the larger marble on top of that to finish it.