BEACH BOTTLE

I've been dreaming of the beach lately, so I made a beach bottle!

I liked everything but the top of it.  For some reason, the coral on top just looks too much like antlers.  I'll probably change it.  Nevertheless, here is the run down:

I've had this bottle forever.  It had bath salts in it and it will probably always smell like lavender!

I wanted to paint it some pretty sea glass color, but, I didn't have any paint that looked good enough to me and I also wasn't sure how to paint the inside of the bottle.  I decided to try a variation of an idea I saw at Serendipity and Spice which you can find here.  Melissa used food coloring and watered down glue.  I wanted a thicker coating, so I used Mod-Podge and a blend of craft paints to get the color I wanted.

I poured it in the empty bottle and rolled it around until I got it colored almost to the top.

If you are planning to leave a clear space at the top like I did, here's a tip I learned the hard way.....Don't put too much paint in at first.  You can't pour it out and still have a clean line at the top.  Better to start with a little and add more if you need it.  (Otherwise you'll have to let it dry out like I did.) 

I made a template out of some plastic and used a piece of craft paper to cover the label. I wanted a kind of worn look to it, so I crumpled it up and then smoothed it back out. I adhered it with some Alene's Tacky Glue. I love that stuff!

For the center part of my bottle, I used a circle cut out of a piece of coconut shell.  I have about 50 of these that I saved from an old wind chime that didn't survive our ice storm.  I drilled some holes in the sides, painted it blue, and then coated it with some Triple Thick to make it look wet.  I love that stuff too.  It's a glaze that has a glass-like finish.  I got it at Hobby Lobby.

I put a little dried starfish on a piece of glass tile with some hot glue and then attached it to the front of the blue coconut shell also using hot glue.

To attach the center piece to the bottle, I strung some garden twine through the two holes and tied it on to the bottle.

I hot glued a piece of coral to the top of the cork. 

That was pretty much it!

Oh how I wish I had a beach out my back yard to make this picture complete....but alas...it's just a farm field!!  Maybe I'll put a message in this bottle and throw it in the ocean next time I go.  (Probably should take that silly piece of coral off the top first though.)