Empty Plastic Supplement Bottles
Most supplement bottles are now made of plastic. Even pharmaceutical medication comes in plastic bottles. These plastic bottles take up a lot of energy to dispose but they are not of much use because of their size and make. Here is an idea on how to reuse them by turning them into fancy pencil holders that you can give away as presents or souvenirs.
- Wash the empty bottles thoroughly. Leave them out to air and dry. For certain supplements such as garlic pills, you may have to soak the bottles for a few days to get rid of the smell. For this project, you will only need the bottle without its cap. You can save the caps for other projects such as button badges.
- Once they are dry, you can begin work on transforming them. Start by turning them over so that the base faces up and the bottle is standing on the mouth of the bottle.
- If you plan on repainting them, you may use plain white face tissue paper. If you don\’t plan on painting them over, you may use coloured face tissue paper. If you are using two-ply tissues, you may want to separate the two plies and work on them one by one. Also, you will need to tear your tissue papers into strips so that they are easier to work with. If you are working on a small bottle, you may also need to cut the strips into half or thirds, depending on the size of the bottle. For starters, cut up squares of tissue paper that is slightly bigger than the base of the bottle.
- Mix one part PVA glue with two to three parts water to get a dilute solution that you can easily spread. You are now ready to do \’Papier Mache\’.
- To “Papier Mache” a bottle, place the squares onto the base of the bottle. Using a flat-bristled brush, spread the PVA glue and water mixture all over the tissue paper so that it seeps through and sticks the tissue to the bottle. Continue onto the body of the bottle with the other strips of tissue paper. You may need to add another layer of tissue paper later, but work on the bottle one layer at a time to avoid messes.
- Once you have entirely covered the whole bottle, leave it to dry. Depending on the amount of glue and layers, it may take up to days to completely dry.
- Once the bottle is dried, you may now start decorating it. The \’Papier Mache\’ surface is easy to paint on. All you need is poster paint. You may also stick glitter on them, or even Leave them as it is, if you have used coloured tissue paper.
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/118970265/
