Repurposed Wine Bottles!

Hi Cupcakes! 

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week and a happy hump day! The future hubs is away for the week at training camp so today I spent the afternoon soaking up all the puppy snuggles and Gossip Girl episodes I could get before getting up and being somewhat productive with my day! P.S. Blair Waldorf is everything, and if you don't know who that is, stop what you're doing right now and go watch season one of Gossip Girl...

Alright, onto the good stuff...wine. Or rather, wine bottles. Today, I'm sharing a fun DIY project that can be used in your home, for a wedding, a birthday party, anything really. They are totally versatile...and super pretty! 

Here is a list of all the things you'll need for this project:

- Empty Wine Bottles ( emptying them is half the fun ;) )

- An Oven (and oven mits/hand towel)

- A Knife / Razor Blade 

- Baking Soda

- Dish Soap

- Vinegar

- Peanut Butter (secret ingredient)

- Spray Paint In Your Choice Color ( I used Champagne Mist )

Side Note: I don't have pictures for every single step because I did this project for a bridal shower and this whole process happened at 10pm the night before the shower. Needless to say, I was in a rush...my bed, and my puppy, were calling my name! But not to worry, I have pictures of all the important steps!

STEP ONE:

First off, I want to explain that there are two different methods for getting the labels off your wine bottles. You will most likely need to use both methods depending on how many bottles you have and if they are all different or not. I had six bottles of wine that were all different brands so I needed to use both methods. The best way to test which method you will need to use is to wedge your razor blade or knife under the top corner of your label..just enough to test the tackiness of the glue. If your corner lifts fairly easy AND (this is the important part) the razor blade or knife sticks to the back of the label, then you have a tacky glue and you will use the oven method. If your knife or razor does not stick to the back of the corner and the glue feels a little more crunchy rather than gooey, then you are going to want to use the soaking method. Don't worry, we'll go over both methods so hang in there! 

STEP TWO: Oven Method

Go ahead and separate your bottles into a soaking pile and an oven pile. Turn on your oven and preheat it to 300 degrees. Once the oven is preheated, put your "oven bottles" in with the top labels facing up. Set your timer for 10 minutes! Once the ten minutes are up, get out your oven mitts...seriously, if you follow any of these steps, let it be "get out your oven mitts"!! (So freaking hot). Pull out all your bottles and place them on your counter..carefully! Holding the bottle with an oven mitt, you can wedge that blade or knife under the corner again, as far as you can this time...once the label has started to peel back, go ahead and peel the rest off with your fingers...again...carefully! The labels should come off in one piece, however, if you misjudged a label to be an "oven label" and it's just not working...don't freak out! I intentionally put all my bottles in the oven so I could show you the difference! You can see in the photo below that the bottle on the left is completely label free! But, the other two bottles are being a pain in the you-know-what...that's another way that you'll know those bottles need to be soaked. 

STEP TWO : Soaking Method

For the bottles with stubborn labels, don't pull your hair out...believe me, I've tried that, it doesn't help. First make sure you plug the drain in your kitchen sink. Next, fill your sink with really really really hot water. While the sink is filling up, fill up the rest of your bottles with hot water and drop them in the sink. Add 1/2 cup baking powder, 1 tablespoon of dish soap, and 2 cups of white vinegar. Let them soak for like 10-15 minutes. drain the sink, and grab your knife/razor! I really hate the word scrape...it makes me cringe...but that's how you're going to get these wet labels off the bottles! So scrape away!

Soak the bottles for 10-15 minutes

use your knife or razor to peel off the soaked labels

STEP THREE : Get Rid Of That Glue!

Once all your labels are off your bottles will look (hopefully) like this...

You can't see it, but just trust me when I say there is a lot of left over sticky annoying glue where the labels used to be...if you spray painted them just like this, it would leave texture marks where the glue is...and nobody likes that, for real...

It took me so many failed attempts and so many hours of researching pinterest and googling like a crazy person to find the true secret to getting the glue off these bottles...and before you smarty pants say goo-gone...its not! Surprisingly enough...drum roll please...it's peanut butter? That's right, peanut butter... I don't know what it is about peanut butter, wether it's the peanuts, or the butter, (lol) but I swear it works, every time. 

All you have to do, is spread the peanut butter over the areas that have the glue on them. I used a rubber (batter spreader thing? I can't remember the technical name right now...but you get it). You can use whatever tool you want, if you really want to have some fun with it, use your fingers ;) Once all the bottles are covered in the peanut butter, grab that handy dandy razor/knife again and start scraping (Ew, theres that word again...) I learned that the best way to get it off is scraping horizontally, rather than vertically, because the bottles are round...obviously. 

The glue will come right off with the peanut butter. Do your best to get it all off, but whatever is left just wash off with dish soap and really hot water! Now you finally have clean, label-less, glue-less wine bottles!!! 

STEP FOUR: Paint

This was the other step I completely forgot to get pictures of...super spacey that late at night...sorry 'bout it! But it's super basic I swear! Make sure you put up some sort of paint cloth or cardboard behind the bottles while you spray so the fall out doesn't get all over your surface! Hold the spray paint a little less than a foot away from the bottles and paint in an up and down motion! Don't lay it on too thick, instead, put multiple thin coats, so it doesn't drip and so that it dries in a reasonable time. I stuck my finger in the top of the bottle to spin it around to paint the other side! The most important tip is to make sure you have your mouth and nose covered when you spray paint because the fumes are so nuts its ridiculous! Once you've got even coats on all the bottles, leave them to dry overnight and in the morning...done! You can coat them in a clear acrylic coat for protection if you like! I ran out of time so I was just sure to be extra careful, but for prolonged use or display, I would add the clear coat!

Here are a couple projects I snapped of these babies in use at the bridal shower! Aren't they so gorge?! I will be doing a whole post on the bridal shower soon so stay tuned!! 

Thanks so much for stopping by today! It means so much to have such amazing readers! I hope you guys enjoyed these repurposed wine bottles. Leave me comments or send me emails at thecaliforniacupcake@gmail.com !! 

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XO.