Fall Decorations

Caution: Photo heavy blog entry

Happy fall, y'all! So this year I really wanted to clean out all the clutter in our house and to do that meant getting rid of a lot of my beloved seasonal decorations (sigh). My backup plan, however, was to create a decoration that could be changed seasonally while still being one set of decorations for all the holidays. I'd been saving all of these wine bottles for about a year trying to decide what craft to make with them and finally I landed on the tried and true... spraypaint them and slap them on the mantle! Here is the finished product:

Step 1: Gotta get the labels off. I really hate this part of any project so I let them soak overnight in a bubble bath.

 Step 2: Peel off labels. This was much easier with some bottles than others. I used a combination of steel wool, razor blade, and the classic woman's fingernail maneuver. 

 Step 3: Choose your paint! This was the hardest part for me. My fireplace is white and the mirror that sits on it is gray, but I already have a lot of color in the room via couch/curtains/pillows, so I went to my garage and looked through my leftover cans. The chalkboard spray paint appealed to me because of it's seasonal versatility, so chalkboard it is!

 Step 4: paint those bad boys! Make sure you double check that there are no glass spots left and it's completely covered. Also, I am super impatient so I sprayed fast and ended up with a few drip marks. If you go slower this won't happen!

 Step 5: Get a good friend and write all over the bottles! Our goal is to let students come over and write messages on the bottles when they visit.

(yes, I wrote this, and yes, I have the handwriting of a six year old. it's not my fault, I'm left handed. So what, who cares?!) 

 Step 6: Find your filler! I chose fall colors (hence the seasonal decor theme) and also colors that matched my living room.

 Step 7: Arrange fillers into your jars and place them on the mantle. I hoisted a couple of bottles onto old books to give some height to different areas.

The end!