Bottle Chandelier

I saw this on Pinterest, of course, and I started searching the web for other ones.  This lady is the only one who has made one I guess, I could not find anything else like it!  I was intrigued with it, so I asked friends and family to save their colored wine and booze bottles for me.  After finishing our "homework" (haha) I washed and dried the bottles well.  I had a metal wall medallion that was round, and I knew it would work perfectly.  Here is a pic of it in it's former life hanging over the fireplace:

 I took 19 gauge wire and secured two pieces around the neck of the bottles by twisting tight with plyers. Keep one twist on each side (to keep them level).  I pulled the two sides to the top where I gave the tips a little fun "twist and curl" to keep them from stabbing me, and at the same time look cute.

I then used the same wire to suspend them at differing lengths from the medallion. After securing all the bottles, I started winding the Christmas lights.  I had a colored string to put in the clear bottles, and white lights for the colored bottles.  I carefully strung them through the metal, then looped them down into each bottle. This step took a little time, as you have to feed the bulbs in one at a time.  I found if I folded up the amount of bulbs I wanted in the bottle and inched both strings in at one time, I did not crimp the cord or pull out the bulbs. ALERT.  BE SURE YOU DON'T HAVE A BULB WEDGED INTO THE NECK OF THE BOTTLE. My first attempt went up in a stinky white cloud of smoke when one of the bulbs was tight against the cord and melted it, shorting out the whole string. Boo. Anyway, you just loop the lights into the bottles, then drape them down and around them until you run out of lights. At that point I plugged them in to be sure they would burn properly--so far so good!  I had to do some minor adjustments to get the lights evenly spaced, and plug-ins plugged together. I then plugged the tops of the bottles with a modeling clay that will stay soft--I did not want the bottles to fill up with water and/or bugs.

I had some chain in the garage from our old swing that I attached on three points with some colorful carabiners.

The daytime look is not that great, but at night, wow

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By the time you get all your bottles and whatever you choose to hang them from together,  the whole unit is heavy, so it has to be hung from a secure hook. I have a hook up under my cover for when there are high winds or nasty weather, and another hook off the lower deck tree. 

LOVE, LOVE!!<3

**Click on the pictures to view in a slideshow for better photo resolution**

Stained-In Deck Design

I love maps. I love compasses.  When we moved to San Marcos, it bothered me that my house was not set at any true angle--it is sort of catty-cornered to the world, so I wanted a compass on my deck. I started by researching images of compasses on the net, and found 2 or 3 I liked that were similar.  I combined those to come up with the final image.

 

After I determined location and size, I placed a nail in the center, I went high-tech and drew my two circles with a pencil on a string. Then I got my old school compass out and determined true North and South, and marked the center line with pencil.  I used a right angle to get my East/West line, and marked it with pencil as well. I then found the halfway point of the edge of the outside circle, and that was the mark for the sides of the long pointed lines, and found halfway between the N/S and  E/W lines for the shorter points. After I had the pencil outline in place, I used my metal right angle as a guide and drew the outline in a medium-tip oil-based paint pen from Hobby Lobby. This not only edged it in black, but it would keep the waterproofing stain I was going to apply from running and blurring the design.

My next step was to use a dark chocolate waterproofing stain on one side of each point.  I chose the left side of each one (looking out from the center), and repeated all around.

On the inner circle, divided it up in line with the points, and so I dark stained every other one of those, too.

 

I allowed the dark chocolate waterproofer to dry 2 days. I freehanded the letters marking the directions, and painted them with the black oil paint pen.  I then stained the entire deck with honey gold waterproofer.

I love it!  I placed it where there should never really be a table when we entertain so it can always be seen!!