’70s flashback: bottle vases

You, too, can own two halves of a bottle!

Urban Outfitters, in their aggravating way of selling expensive prefab DIY kits, now has a $58 kit for making votive holders/cups/vases out of glass bottles.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the example they gave of a finished product (see right), which is two bottle halves that frankly look as if one misstep might have you asking “WHY SO SERIOUS?” But I have been wanting to make some bell-jar terrariums for growing herbs lately (that may well be another post), and bell jars are expensive, so if there’s a DIY to make what I need, all the better!

But is the word here really DIY? I usually am a sucker for projects in which you get to use chemicals and fire, and the Urban Outfitters kit has both. But I cannot abide pre-assembled kits that treat the DIY aspect as a bonus that should be priced accordingly, as if the added sex appeal you get from being able to say, “Oh, this half a bottle you’re drinking out of? I cut it myself!” is worth that extra thirty bucks. Dammit, you Do It Yourself to save the money it would take to pay Someone Else to Do It! You’ll never live like common people!  You’ll never do what common people do!

Whew, sorry there. So the picture wasn’t appealing, the price wasn’t appealing, but a touch o’ the google and several ways to actually DIY with nothing more than string, rubbing alcohol, matches, a bucket of cold water and sandpaper turned up. I chose this video for its cheerful soundtrack.

I would seriously advise that you make sure you’ve got all-cotton string if you attempt this; five years of girl scouts taught me that string with plastic inside to strengthen it smells real bad when on fire.

The Urban picture was not that appealing, but it seems worth it if I could end up with something like these:

Images ganked from Green Wine Bottles and, uh, Weddingbee.