Dale Wayne is a Central Florida-based artist and educator who was kind enough to share this awesome tutorial for turning plain old soda bottles or water bottles into glittery ornaments for your holiday tree! Dale has actually created two entire Christmas trees covered with these painted and manipulated recycled ornaments for the Orlando Museum of Art Festival of Trees. Now, you can try your hand at making some with the instructions Dale so graciously provided. Enjoy!
What you’ll need ~
- 2 liter soda bottles or water bottles
- Embossing/heat gun (*optional)
- Rubbing alcohol
- Acrylic paint
- Scissors
- Glitter
- Wired floral picks
- Hot glue suitable for gluing plastic
How to make them ~
Painting:
1. Rinse out bottle and remove label. You do not need to get every bit of it off.
2. Clean bottle with rubbing alcohol. This will help the paint to adhere better.
3. Paint the bottles with acrylic paint.
4. Roll wet paint in glitter.
5. Let dry completely.
6. Cut the bottles.
Cutting:
1. Pinch the uncapped bottle to start your first cut.
2. Cut off the bottom of the bottle.
3. Create your shape. There are endless shape possibilities. Here are a few of our favorites:
Cut a spiral. If you cut the spiral wide, you can go back and cut it a second time, creating two springs instead of one. To help them dangle well, keep cutting spirals until you are relatively close to the mouth of the bottle.
Cut petals or strips.
4. Manipulate plastic by hand or with heat. Petals can be bent back and pinched to stay in place. If you want to add to the glass-like look, an embossing gun works well to ripple the plastic into a more organic shape. Hold the gun fairly close to the plastic and work in a well-ventilated area, preferably outdoors.
Finishing:
1. Nest two bottles together.
2. Thread two wired floral picks into the center of the bottles. Hot glue the bottles together if necessary or use part of the pick and wire them together.
3. Hot glue extra petals and embellishments if desired.
4. Attach the ornament to your tree! Use the ends of the wired pick to wrap ornament to the branch.
Editor’s Note: You can learn more about the Christmas tree project by clicking here »
Photos and instructions courtesy Dale Wayne.
