apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

One smashing game of bowling?

The larger ones... you can strip the label and chill them in the freezer. Then use them as pitchers for dinner w/ guests. A restaurant I went to a few days ago did that with old wine bottles.

I've seen doodads (not sure if I can call it art--folk art?) where bottles are, I'm guessing, melted to be made into all sorts of things--like cheese plates and such. I bought one that had old school beer bottles melted and then mounted onto a stick to be made into wind chimes (for my brother...he was in college, so it was very cool).

A+ for trying to reuse your bottles. and, it doesn't hurt that your kitty is super cute (and I'm not a even cat person!!!).

i don't know if this counts as a 'use' but lately i've been soaking the labels off my prettier bottles and using them as attractive visual filler for the tops of my cabinets, as there's a 15 inch gap between the cabinets and the ceiling. i'm thinking of running pixie lights or some other mood lighting feature up there amongst the bottles, as well, creating cool reflecty lightness.

if you can get that metal ring off the top, they also might make pretty impromptu vases. additionally, you could fill them with pixie lights for a diy lamp. you could also re-use them for your own homemade beverages and similar storage.

I thought NYC water is perfectly safe to drink. I've never understood why some people buy bottled water in this city. Or am I missing something?

I recently bought a bottle cutter with the thought that I would cut some prettier bottles at various heights and make a series of vases.

Also love what these guys did with the bottoms of wine bottles (link at my name).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/19261694@N00/172315574/


not so easy to see in photo, but these chandeliers in a restaurant in Budapest are made from plastic water bottles.

Some different thickness of metal wires, some creativity and one can make

a nice sculpture,

A bottle chandelier.

You can paint ( landscape, flowers, birds, abstract anything that you choose ) on them. .

I use bottles as rolling pins too.

fill the bottles with different levels of water and there you have it - a musical instrument

killer cucumber - not sure about this, but those look like they could be seltzer/fizzy water.

also, i've been told that the tap water in the lower east side and certain parts of the outer boroughs comes from a different source that isn't as safe. maybe this person lives there?

I see that the bottles are green. With red paint you can draw chinese characters on them and you have a Zen vase

That iconic form of Southern folk art: the bottle tree. http://www.flickr.com/photos/93983049@N00/111476496/

How about candleholders? Remove the labels, they would make lovely, modern, and simple holders for taper candles.

How in the world did you get Fuzzy to pose? Super cute kitty!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hearseenyc/11685184/in/pool-bottlehouses/

You could move upstate and make yourself a little bungalow out of your bottles.

Fuzzy just happened to be walking by as I was getting ready to snap the picture. She's such a ham!

Please give the dear girl a good scritch from her new fan base!

I know there is a way to make sandglass, but I don't know how. If you made sandglass you could make a pretty pebble bottom for a fishtank, or put them in a big vase to hold up flowers, or make a mosaic, or maybe even tile a wall in your bathroom or make a tile backsplash! I'm going to google making sandglass right now.

It's actually called beach glass, and here's how to make it at home:

Making Beach Glass With Your Tumbler

One of the most common requests we get via email is for directions for tumbling glass to recreate the frosted matte finish found in glass washed up on the beach. A rotary tumbler is recommended, as a vibratory machine won't give you the soft curves that are part of the seaglass look.

A few things to keep in mind about tumbling glass, in general:

*Safety: Handle broken glass with care! If you decide to break the glass yourself, put the glass objects in a heavy fabric bag before wielding your hammer, and wear both safety goggles and gloves. You can either choose to work with broken pieces of everyday glass (like bottles and jars), or for more variety in color and size/shape, try our slag glass.

*Out-gassing: Glass -- whether manmade or natural (obsidian) -- produces gas during the process. Check your barrel at least daily, and "burp" it if it shows any sign of swelling. You may also try adding a small amount of baking soda to your mix to minimize the gas production, though not during any final polishing step.

*Cushioning your glass: Glass chips easily, so you should add something to your load to slow the process down. You can use plastic pellets or a variety of other materials to do this, such as: corn syrup, cornstarch, sugar, molasses, rice hulls, gelatin, sawdust. You will need to experiment to find the right level, as too much thickener will make each step take longer than necessary.

*Rock hardness: Don't mix the glass (which is about Mohs 5) with any harder material.

Follow the regular directions for tumbling that came with your tumbler (or you can find them in our LEARN MORE section), with these changes:

*Step One: Process using 120-180 grit silicon carbide if you need to remove a lot of material. Otherwise skip this step. Cushion your load. Check the progress every day, which incidentally will relieve any gas build-up in your barrel. You may not want to do this step for more than two or three days. Experimenting is the heart of creating seaglass!

*Step Two: Use 320 grit silicon carbide and a cushioning agent. Check your progress daily, and stop when you've gotten the effect you want.

Instead of commercial grit some people just use ordinary beach sand -- if you want a lot of variation in your finished product, this might be for you.

For directions on how to give your glass a high polish, or just to browse our new online resource, visit our LEARN MORE section.

Here is the above referenced url for more info:

http://www.mamasminerals.com/issuesum2003.html

OK, back to work now.

LA water is technically safe to drink too, but I wouldn't drink it straight because of the strong chlorine smell.

I have to keep two Brita pitchers around, one in the fridge for drinking, one in the kitchen for cooking.

The bottles are Whole Foods' Brand Sparkling Italian Mineral Water bottles - part of my latest effort to kick my Coca-Cola habit with a healthier kind of fizz.

If you want to use the bottles as candleholders, a shop whose name I can't remember (but which is located on Avenue A inbetween 4th & %th steet, east side of the street) sells little stainless steel candleholders designed to fit into bottle tops. They're meant for wine bottles but if you really like these they should do as well.

NYC water tastes perfectly fine and not chlorinated at all (in my opinion) -- i know a few paranoid types with brita filters, but just about everyone else i know goes tap.

that said, there are many reasons besides safety that might lead one to occasionally purchase bottled water.

Dont know what your celing heights are like or your storage room..
but you can fill them with water/sand/small stones..
and use them as counter weights to a pulley system that can hoist baskets, jackets, bags up off the floor..say in a hallway...

too bad i dont have time to draw a nifty diagram..but if you get what i'm saying...
it could be awesome...
yeah....

but the easy thing to do is recycle them...

If you have a little bit of garden space, then the bottles look great buried neck down at varying depths to form a border around plants, trees, beds, etc.

I've seen people use glass bottles as picture holders. You just insert a picture, loosely rolled with the image side out, into the opening of the bottle and it will unroll. I don't know if it would work as well with your green bottles as it does with the clear, but it could lead to an interested result. I also like to use mineral water bottles of all sizes for flowers...the little perrier bottles make great bud vases.

your pipes can really affect the taste/health of tap water too. old nasty pipes can turn perfectly respectable tap water into something you don't really want to drink. that might be part of the reason tap water's gotten such a bad rap.

make some home-made ginger beer and use the bottles to give some away to your friends. a friend of mine does this every summer, and everyone looooves it.

oddly enough, i shop at whole foods & have been saving these very same bottles.

i have a few green soda bottles lining the top rim of my stove to add some color already.

as for these bottles, i've been wondering what to do w/ them. they have a very simple line & the color is so vivid. the seltzer is good too! :P

anyway, my idea was to think of it the way you would stained glass. you want light to come through. so, try putting them along a window in a long line. maybe around the edge of a tub w/ candles. i think the key, as someone else said, is to repeat the lines so as not to draw so much attention to the fact that they are bottles of 99 cent seltzer.

i plan on possibly putting them around the top of my fridge & maybe putting a tiny bundle of christmas lights (or some other hardly visable light) behind them that would cast a soft glow at night.

omigod archie
thanks for linking to the bottle house
now I have something to do in my old age in the woods...

there is an artist www.jerrykott.com that has done some cool things with recycled wine bottles.

That cat's expression is hilarious.

You could always start an outsider art environment - here's a link to one made primarily of bottles (Grandma Prisbey's Bottle Village)

http://echomatic.home.mindspring.com/bv/

Ok, not such a feasible plan, but I've always been fascinated by this place.

Guido -- If you are looking for something to do in your old age in the woods check out some of the projects done by Auburn University's hands on program, Rural Studio. Absolutely amazing.
http://www.ruralstudio.com/

I like Jackie's idea about using the bottles for bookcase legs but are they strong enough to support books and an adorably curious cat?

I saw a chandelier you can make from cool bottles in Ready Made (readymademag.com). I can't remember if I saw it in the book or one of the mags, but it was pretty cool (they used those Vos water bottles).

MAKE BEER!! I've used similar bottles and they are a perfect size for a hot afternoon.

I use all my old beer bottles to make juice glasses with. Of course then you need a bottle cutter and a lot of patience while filing.

http://www.etsy.com/view_item.php?listing_id=309068

Amy/Rachael- Can you tell me where to find more info on bottle cutters? What i've wanted to do, is cut off the bottom of bottles and pair them with wooden disks to use as a sort of hurricane lantern. You could carve out a groove in the wood that is the same size as the bottle, then set a candle in the center of the wood and put the bottle on top. Am I making any sense at all? I've wanted to do this for a while but didn't know of any (simple) way to cut the bottles.

http://www.bureauconform.com/ThriftDeluxe/projects/stencil.asp

i dont know if this will work for you but i thought it was such a cool idea

Sarah,
Here's where I got mine. it was expensive, but it was a birthday gift to myself (I know, no roses and flowers for me!).

http://www.khue.com/dept/cutt/bott.htm

I'd say get that one over any other brand, it's MUCH more sturdy and will really make a difference in getting a clean break. Email me if you ever have questions

Sarah -

I ordered mine through delphi stained glass. It came with detailed instructions and crazy ideas straight from the 70's.

I also wanted to make some hurricanes as you described. You could use a piece of tile instead of wood (maybe?). I actually cut a few beer bottles (the new ESB bottles have this nice relief pattern on them) to make drinking glasses. I've been trying to curtail my excitement over this new toy before everything in our house is made from an old bottle.

Cutting was surprisingly easy! The sanding takes a lot of patience, but for hurricanes it doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe other kits offer a better way to sand?

Just looked at Rachel's link. Seems that one may offer better flexibility. I bought the Ephram's cutter.

Be prepared for some breakage along the way - but then it gives you an excuse to empty another bottle!

Anyone see the headboard (or maybe it was a room divider) made of maybe 50 bottles (similar to the water bottles), each hung with ribbon, at Anthropologie? Very cool, but in my house it would
look more like junk than art.

buy a Doulton keramic water filter. Refill the bootles and cool them down, you dont ever need to buy mineral water again.

ok, really simple idea, just fill them with water and put fresh flowers in them. even weeds like sunflowers will work. it will look great in the middle of your dining table when you have company.

Using wine bottles, beer and soda bottles,
mortar, a level and a concrete base, build a wall.

:-)

See Jackie Stack Lagakos' work for something
similar, only Jackie uses whole bottles.

http://www.bottlestructures.com

My apologies to Fuzzy, whom I failed to
mention or greet in my last post.

If I could reach through the screen to
give her a hug, a kiss and a piece of my
Tilapia, I would.

What a precious baby!

Sign me, a cat lover, too!

kitty kitty. Hello little meow meow I live in farina illnois so anytime you want to come visit me and my fluffy white cat you are welcome. I order a lot of my water from aqua meastro, and fine water imports so the bottles are lovely. The elsenham bottle is square and makes a great flower vase, picture holder, beta fish, candle holder. some of the pretty bottles look good in a fish tank for small fish or babys to hide in. You can also glue the rock or sand on it to make it blend in. check out aqua meastro glass bottled water if you ever get a chance. I have the voss, lynx, gleneagle, perrie and plan on trying all of the others too. Also fine water imports has great water bottles. I have the elsenham and I get people wanting to mug me for my bottle. I like to also refill them with filtered water to drink save on money. It is also pretty to add sand of rock in the bottles and add twiggs from outside or those ting tings things at christmas. Also they make beautifull little ocean props. Fill with water, sand or rock, small shells, and a small sea sponge. Add a piece of twine at the tip and hang up on a hook or table for decoration. Ever try a message in a bottle. take a rolled up note on pretty paper, add a string. I use grommets and tie the string to it. Drop the note in the bottle with the string hanging out.put cap back on use glue sticks of any color to seal the bottle and at the top befor the glue dries use a pretty button, or stamp to put an impression in the glue. Just make sure you use a little cooking oil or spray so it comes off nicely.It is best to melt the glue in a skillet of glue pot and dip the bottle tip in the glue, or use a glue gun to seal the bottle. Then all they have to do is peal of the glue and read the note, or take out the small gift inside, such as earrings, necklace, bracelet, gift cards and so on. You can print, paint of draw your own labels on the bottle to custome create your own gift. I hope some of this is a little helpfull. I have a million ideas with things and it is nice to share them. If you ever have any you want to share I would love to hear them. thanks

also i forgot to add that they work well as dish soap holders just add a spout that you can get from target, or almost anystore. I also use them to make bath oils, salts, or so on. Take baking soda, epsom salt, sea salt. mix all of make your own combination. Use baby oil of other bath oils, and a nice scent to it. you can glue stick or wax seal the top, or use a small piece of cloth. I also put the bottle in a wine gift bag or sheer drawstring gift bag to use as a gift. I like to use a bottle and fill with oils or salts, and I use sheer drawstring bags filled with sea salts and add a small sugar spoon of wood spoon. these look great together for you are a gift. If you have a guest bathroom you can also fill the bottles with shampoo, conditioner, liquid hand soap for a pretty personal touch. I have more ideas if you ever want to hear them. =)
melena cyan howard

Wow, Melena, I order from Aqua Maestro as well,
but have somehow missed the square Elsenham. I will definitely update my order. Up until now I've been getting the cobalt blue Saratoga bottles, but the square bottles would be wonderful as well.

Thanks!

Hello Melena,

I just checked the Aqua Maestro website, and they do not seem to carry the Elsenham. Was this a recent purchase from A.M?

Many thanks,
Karen