It is Saturday night and you are enjoying your beer with your gang of friends. Next morning, you wake up early to clean up the home and throw away the bottles. But wait a minute, any bottle — be it beer, wine, perfume or plastic — has the potential to turn into attractive and useful décor pieces for your home. And of course, while repurposing the old discarded bottles you can do your own bit for the environment.
YouTube and other websites have numerous tutorials that tell you how you can transform these ‘unwanted’ objects into décor pieces that are light on your pocket as well. Girija Gokhale, city-based glass artist, says that the need of the hour is reusing and repurposing things. “Why add to the already existing trash when you can turn waste into beauty. Use bottles to make a vase, or upcycle them to use as flower pots. Even making a chandelier is a great idea, if you have the patience. Of course you can buy these things from the market but imagine the happiness that you derive from seeing something that you have created with your own hands,” she says.
A FEW IDEAS
Divesh Sharma, a freelance art instructor from the city, shares some tips on how to upcycle bottles:
Used perfumed bottles can be quite a treasure. Don’t undermine these bottles of fragrances — they can be turned into things that you can never imagine. The fact that these come in ornate and beautiful designs, automatically make them suitable for decorating your home. If you are fond of tiny herbs and plants and want them to sit on your dining/ centre table, perfume bottles can be an ideal choice. Apart from this, you can use them as glitter bomb, jewellery organiser, candle holder, light, and flower vase, reed diffuser, table décor and so on.
Repainted glass bottle vases make for an amazing décor item. If you have a huge stock of old beer/ wine bottles, you can cut the bottom and turn them into a hanging garden. If you have time and a creative streak, you can paint them or draw designs, and make a glass bottle fence in your verandah. You can drill holes at the bottom of each bottle and run a rebar through it and turn your dull verandah into an art space.
If you are good at cutting glass, and love pampering tiny feathery friends, the idea of turning a glass bottle into a bird feeder is great. Close the bottle cap, cut its bottom and turn it upside down and hang at a place where birds are most likely to come. They are pocket-friendly and look great too.
Wine bottles that have glided corks or caps can be used to serve summer cocktails or juices.
In case there are some wide bottles or jars lying around in the house, you can cut the bottle in half and save the bottom portion to make tiny terrariums.
We all love colours and when these colours become a part of the interiors, it only adds to the beauty of our home. Take some old coloured bottles and cut the upper halves to create an upcycled chandelier that will make a statement in any room. You can also make one with transparent
bottles.
