March 17, 2013

Easy Soldered Bottle Look


Have you seen the lovely sea life soldered onto bottles?
These are from Greyfreth.  Click on the link to see more of her work. 

In an attempt to copy that soldered bottle look for a
St. Patrick's Day display, I experimented with some normal craft
 supplies that do not require the special materials and tools that
 real soldering requires.  Of course, real soldering looks better. 

Because I don't want these green bottles to forever be 
St. Patrick's Day bottles with a shamrock on top, I was 
attempting to get the soldered look without actually going over
 the lip of the bottle and really sealing the stopper on there.

For a topper, simple card stock punch outs were first given a 
coat of Aleene's tacky glue and allowed to dry.
  This step gave the paper more strength and substance. 

The shamrocks were then glued onto a piece of floral wire
that had been stuck into a painted cork 
(or in some bottles rolled up paper) bottle stopper.


Extra Tacky Glue was added to the stopper in hopes that would
be enough to make it look soldered when it dried...it did not...

...even after painting the dried glue a similar color to what real
soldering looks like after the patina liquid has been applied.
The shamrocks were also painted with the same dark brown
and almost black acrylic paints to try to mimick metal. 

Since just painting the corks was not enough and adding
bottled glue was not enough to get "the look", I tried some 
sealing wax I had left over from a past wedding project. 

Ummm...that just looks like a candle in top of the bottle now.
Even after painting the sealing wax, it still looked like a 
candle but now it is a black/brown candle. 

Next, I tried globbing hot glue around the cork but trying not to
get too much on the bottle ('cause I want to be able to take
these toppers off after March 17th).

The hot glue technique worked much better than the bottled 
glue or the sealing wax because I could turn to bottle sideways
while the hot glue cooled (which is just a few seconds) and control
how "drippy" the glue looked on the cork.  If you try the hot 
glue method and don't mind if the topper is sealed on the 
bottle, come on down the neck of the bottle a little more
with the glue to get the look of real soldering. 

Because the cork was already painted, it was easy to paint 
the dried hot glue to match...I recommend that. 

So, my imitation soldered bottles are as good as I have time
for right now....you won't be able to tell the difference "from 
a galloping horse".  That's a phrase my mother passed along to
us from her great aunt who used to say, "It'll never be seen 
from a galloping horse", meaning that even if something 
wasn't perfect, it was good enough.  











Even though these green bottles are not expensive (most were
$2 or less from Hobby Lobby and Jo Ann's...the bigger ones
$4-5) I will be on the lookout for bottles I wouldn't mind
sealing up to get more of the real soldered look in the future. 

I'm sharing this post over at
Dishing It and Digging It @ The Stonybrook House

11 comments

  1. How pretty! Great St Paddy's Day post! Such a unique idea to "solder" items to bottles. One could get carried away doing this!

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  2. Love love the colors together. Very nice project...Great job! Thanks for the share...
    Have a Wonderful Sunday!
    Loretta

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  3. Happy St. Patrick's Day, Gayle! I love those bottle. Great idea. I also love your phrase about the "galloping horse. :0)

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  4. Those are really cute, Gayle. What a lot of "tries" before getting it right- but in the end you did it. I have not heard that saying in years and years an years...lol I love those "old folks" sayings, don't you? xo Diana

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  5. wow! Those turned out really cool! I love that you can re-use the bottles too! Fun project!

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  6. Those green bottles with sharmacks..SWOON!!! I love how you finally did the great looking vignette!! What a treasure your old folk sayings are, such fun for me as I'm not Irish, lol..Have a wonderful St. Pat's Sunday.
    FABBY

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  7. So Cute!!!
    I would love for you to share this at the creativity blog hop if you would
    http://dollysdesigns.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-creative-blog-hop-4.html

    Thanks,
    Dolly

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  8. I think more than anything I'm in awe of your amazing green bottle collection! This looks fantastic!

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  9. Thanks for sharing these cute bottles at my party. It's always nice to see ya here:)

    Blessings,
    Linda

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  10. Stopping by from Coastal Charm! Those look good! Sharing your trials and errors is great too! Thanks!

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  11. the heated glue technique Essay Help and don't care either way if the clincher is fixed on the jug, come on down the neck of the jug somewhat more with the paste to get the vibe of genuine fastening.

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