Mummy Bottles

It is NEVER too early to plan for Halloween!!  Granted, this is coming from a girl who has an entire shelving unit in her garage comprised of tubs containing Halloween decorations.  But still, it is never to early to get ready for the most spooktacular holiday, ever.  This little project happened to be a bit of a challenge because I tried a couple different ideas (that clearly didn't turn out) before I came up with this one.

My first idea was a take on this gem, which I found while I was perusing Pinterest.  I wanted to paint the bottle black and decorate it with spider webs, so I could make a spooky flower vase.  However,  the idea of the crafting challenge was to only use items that I had lying around the house and clearly, after several attempts of trying, I realized I did not have the right kind of paint.  I will revisit this idea though and let you know how it worked with puffy paint and spray paint.

So, in order to cover up the bad paint job on the bottle (trust me this looks a lot worse in person than in the picture) I decided to turn my spider vase into a mummy vase.  

I started off by using an old piece of scrap fabric to make the mummy wrap.  I cut slits into the fabric, each about an inch apart and then ripped the fabric to make the strips.

After, I pulled the loose strings on each strip to give the edges a nice fray.
This part can get a little tedious but it is definitely worth it because the strips look really cute when you're done.


Next step was to knot all of the ends together, this way I had one long piece of fabric to work with rather than a bunch of smaller pieces.
I kept the knots as small as I could because I knew there would be several on the bottle and didn't want it to be overwhelming.

Time to start the mummification process.  Since the fabric is slightly transparent, my first layer was designed to cover the whole bottle,
then I just wrapped the following layers around the bottle in a rather haphazard manner.

I finished by tying the loose end to one of the preexisting knots and bingo-bango, I had a mummy on my hands.

The cherry on top, if you will, was to give this little sucker some eyes. I used some construction paper to cut out the eyes and attached them with the sticky photo squares.  

I decided to make my mummy a family, because he/she seemed so lonely, so I wrapped up my two mini bottles of Sutter Home wine (don't even ask why I have those in my liquor cabinet.  Apparently, I feel like I am going to experience a wine crisis and will need to open up the mini bottle to hold me over until I can get my hands on a real bottle) and added them to the mix.

I can't decide whether I should turn the larger bottle (aka former vodka bottle) into a vase or refill it with booze/mixer for the Haunted Bar (this is the bar that will replace the current liquor cabinet in my home, come Oct 1 of course).  Ah, such a big decision!  Thankfully, I  have some time to figure that out.  One thing I do know is that I am definitely going to decorate a bottle of wine/six pack of beer/bottle of booze like this for Halloween.  It would make a Boo-tastic (Sorry, I couldn't resist :) gift for someone.  

Hula Wine Kozie

My craft wall does tend to get mocked on a regular basis but I like to think that it provides me with the necessities needed to do something festive on the quick.  I always keep a drawer full of Raffia available for when I need to swiftly decorate a present or upgrade a blah old' bottle of wine to a gift.  It is the most amazing stuff in the world.  Let me give you the rundown. You can pick it up at any Michael's and comes in a variety of ways.  I usually go with bagged stuff (seen on the left) but it also come on a roll and in different colors.  Cost wise, it can run anywhere between $2.50 and $5.00, depending on which kind you get.  I love this stuff because nine times out of ten, we are swinging by the liquor store on the way to someone's house to pick up a bottle of booze/wine and I will grab some raffia as we run out the door so I can put the gift tag on in the car.  I think it jazzes up a package and makes it look like you spent time decorating something, even when you haven't.  

Sorry friends!! :(  

I wanted to use the raffia in a different way and decided to take the bundle I had on my craft wall and create my own ball of yarn out of it.  That way, I could crochet myself a square piece that could be used as a decorative wine kozie.  To start, I just tied the ends together and then wrapped them around the nearest object, so it wouldn't get all tangled up.  

Don't panic, I used an old remote so I was still able to TiVo through the commercials of Renovation Nightmares.  Thank you HGTV!  I wasn't concerned about making it look 'clean,' so I left the knots a little longer to give it some character (and cover up any mistakes) in the end.  The look I am going for here is hula grass, so I wanted little bits of raffia coming out every which way.  Once I made a long enough bundle, I attached my crochet hook and got down to work.  

I used a bottle of wine (it was just lying around) to measure out the length of my first piece.  Note: the piece will shrink a little bit as you crotchet further so it's better to have it be a littler longer rather than a little shorter.  

I discovered that the best part of this project was that it didn't have to be perfect.  I definitely skipped some holes and had some sections that were longer than others.  Raffia is pretty unpredictable and has a bunch of random strings that will get in your way or get stuck on the crochet hook.  However, when I was done with the square, I pulled at it till some of the bigger mistakes weren't as noticeable and then pulled out all  the knot ends to cover up some of the other areas.  

I knotted two longer pieces of raffia on opposite ends of the square.  

This allowed me to tie it onto the bottle, just like you would lace up a corset.  The raffia provides a decent amount of give so don't panic if there is a large gap in the back.  You will be able pull the corset strings tight to close it up.     

For the last part, I made some gift tags, which can once again cover up any errors in the kozie, and shockingly, tied them on with some strings of raffia.  

And you are done!  It took me a little longer than an hour long episode of Renovation Nightmares (are you really surprised when chunks of drywall fall on your face because you were THROWING your hammer around the room...

(not so much Renovation Nightmare as Renovation Stupidity) and I think it was well worth it.  Now, I can give a bottle of 2 Buck Chuck as a gift and no one will know until I'm gone :)  Kidding, maybe...