DIY potion bottles! For Halloween this year, I wanted to make a display that would attract kids to our house and make them remember those awesome, if not a little weird, neighbors.
I thought of the idea a while back and just never really got around to executing it. When Halloween morning rolled around and I didn’t have a cool display, I launched into action. First, I removed some labels from beer bottles. I soaked them in hot, soapy water for a few minutes, then scraped the labels and residue off with a bottle scraper. I dried them and gathered them up with some other jars and bottles I bought at AC Moore. They were on sale.
I set up a spot in the yard to start painting. I used a cardboard box and sprayed them two at a time.
I used a Rust-Oleum Hammered spray in dark bronze to give the bottles a rustic base coat with a little bit of texture. I sprayed one layer just to make them opaque.
Then I sprayed a light layer of a flat black spray paint over the dark bronze layer. Not enough to cover it. Just to darken it up a little and give it a mottled look.
Once I let all the bottles and jars dry, I brought them inside to apply the labels.
I found some great FREE labels here on Pinterest. I printed them out in two different sizes and cut them out. I decided which labels I wanted to put on which bottles based on their sizes. I took into account what the ingredients were as well, but that wasn’t as important. I just made sure the “Feathers of the Crow” weren’t stuck in a tall beer bottle that they obviously couldn’t be easily removed from. Even though I had no intention of putting anything in any of the bottles.
To apply the labels, I used Mod Podge. For a more detailed tutorial on the awesomeness of Mod Podge, click here. As for this project, I just applied it like glue to the back of the labels and stuck them on the bottles.
I was strapped for time so I just smoothed the labels down with my hands and did not apply another layer of Mod Podge on top. I might do that before I put the bottles in storage just so they last until next Halloween without getting ripped up.
Once I had all the labels glued on, I added them to my other porch decorations. Considering the table with the potion bottles was a last-minute addition, I was pretty pleased with the results. It’s only the second year we’ve been in a house for Halloween, and this is a vast improvement from last year’s display. I figure I will just step it up every year.
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