We saved loads of wine bottles for months to make into centerpieces. To do this we had to cut the tops off and this proved to be not at all as easy as we'd been led believe from internet tutorials. But Jim persevered and finished about 50, caulking the tops and applying about 5 coats of shiny white spray paint to each one while only once asking "How much do real vases cost?" :) We're so economical and also, ecological, however the good we did by "upcycling" the wine bottles may have been negated by the spray paint fumes introduced into the air. Sigh, we do our best. I guess we could have whittled out stumps or bought "real vases" thereby stimulating the economy if not saving the environment. It's damn hard work being conscientious, good god, but there's such waste in planning big parties, like a wedding, you know, so many things to be used only once and then thrown away that we wanted to avoid that waste of money and also waste of materials.
I've been joking with Rebecca that I'll open a party rental store after the wedding - customers can choose from 3 tents, 50 vases and 200+ tissue paper flowers - what a selection!
The beginning bottles - we probably broke half of them in the process. (Yes, we and our friends drink a lot of wine - the easiest part of this process for sure.)
Scoring the bottles with the Dremel on a jig we made out of clamps and wood scraps to hold the bottle steady.
Heating the score over the flame.
A quick cold bath to shock the glass into breaking.
Some of the decapitated bottles.
The finished product with the first flowers of spring - the lovely crocuses from the front yard with a little bit of queen Anne's lace greenery, also from the front yard.
There will be groupings of 3-4 different height vases on each table.
I've been making tissue paper flowers all week to hang inside the tents, and to decorate with all around. The first photo is maybe half of them, or about 100. The second is all of them finished. Silly me - when I began I thought that I could fit most of them in a laundry basket for easy toting - you can see how off my calculation was!
The first batch for now stored on the hearth, awaiting transport to Wasilla - they're going to fill up my entire car!
All of the flowers, thanks to Rebecca for helping me to finish.
Then tonight I had the idea to make the table number cards using Talavera tile art. I swiped a whole bunch of different patterns off this gorgeous site which I hope to patronize very soon for improvements de la casa, and made borders for the 5 x 7 cards in Fireworks. The font selection took the longest time - I finally settled on Zapfino for the spice names (all the tables are named for Mexican spices/herbs) and Bell MT for the numbers. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.
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