Make: Spooky Upcycled Containers
At Austin Creative Reuse, it’s spooky season all year long! Follow along this tutorial by ACR Communications Specialist, Tanya, to learn how to take old glass and plastic containers and turn them into apothecary style jars! You can make these all year ‘round, and save them for October! Finally! A use for those old prescription bottles and face serum dropper bottles!
Materials
Any size glass or plastic bottles
Hot glue gun (Optional: E3000 for the pros! Please wear proper PPE if using this!)
Black acrylic or chalkboard paint (Optional: Use red and white acrylic for dry brushing)
Old broken jewelry or a $3 bag of jewelry from ACR
Pen, pencil, and/or markers
Scissors
Foam or paintbrush
Pre-printed spooky labels (you can find these free online) or make your own
Optional: Yarn, twine, glitter, old door knobs, googly eyes, etc. The possibilities are truly endless!
Instructions
1. Gather materials.
2. Make sure your surface is prepped for glue and paint messes! Gather any optional materials in this step as well.
3. Paint bottle(s) black. Alternatively, if you want to display the inside contents, fill bottle(s) with filler of choice. I used glitter and yarn for two of my examples.
4. Screw on a coinciding bottle cap or hot glue the stopper of choice (Hello cool, random doorknobs!) to your bottle.
5. Next, print or create spooky/cute labels for your bottles.
6. Glue on labels and decide which additional embellishments you’d like to add to your bottles.
7. Glue on embellishments as you’d please. Have a theme for each bottle or simply use hot glue to create a spider web effect! You can also use the dry brushing technique to add a more weathered look in this step.
8. Do this activity at any time of the year! If you’re not a spooky pal, that’s okay! You can definitely try it with a different theme. Love potions for Valentine’s? YES, PLEASE!
9. Take a picture and share with us by tagging @austincreativereuse on social media!
Pro Tip!
It’s ok to mess up! You can always cover any mistakes with embellishments or dry brushing. Trust the process.