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Why not upcycle instead?  What is upcycling, you ask?  It’s taking something you’d usually just throw out, and re-purposing it into something usable and fabulous again instead.

Once a month, my creative, fun friend, Mary Katherine, hosts a girl’s crafting night at her place.  She makes it desirable for even the laziest of people…she gets all the supplies and tells us what we owe her.  This month: wine bottle wind chimes.

I started out with the best of intentions, but cutting glass isn’t nearly as easy as I thought it would be with the special tool we had to use, so my lazy ass decided to skimp corners instead.

What you need:

• Kinkajou Bottle Cutter (or another cheaper brand: Bottle Cutter Kit – I have not tried this brand, so I cannot endorse it…but I’m all about cheap! The Kink belonged to my friend)
• A glass bottle of your choice
• Ribbon
• Guinea fowl feathers
• Hot glue gun
• Glue sticks

This is the Kinkajou…get your mind out of the gutter and follow along here…

Here’s how it works:

Easy, right?  Wrong.  Okay, when it works, it’s wonderful, but it can be tough to get it perfect.  Tips for getting a clean cut:

• Choose a bottle with thin glass.  How do you know if it’s thin or not?  I’m not sure, but the Pellegrino water bottles worked nicely (and they’re a pretty green).
• Make sure the cut goes all the way around in a straight line and connects at its ends.

I only cut 1 bottle after 2 of my friends had failed, uneven cuts.  Mine just snapped right off where it was supposed to.  That’s it, I give up, 1 bottle it is. I made it into a wind chime at first (I’ll show you how to do that below), but ultimately decided on the candle holder instead.

My bag of ribbons is sorry, so this golden mustard color was the only decent choice.  Cut about 18 inches of ribbon (you can always cut it down more).

Tie the ribbon around the bottleneck into a bow and play with it until you get it to your desired bow size.  Then, cut off any excess ribbon.Pull the bow up over the top of your bottle and get out your glue gun.  Add some glue around the bottleneck where you will secure your ribbon back.Add some glue to the middle, inside of the bow so that you can slip your feathers into it.

All done!

As for the windchime, Mr. Beaverelli doesn’t like noises, so this was a no-go for this lodge.  I used 3 of these large plastic pearl beads (these came from an old necklace that Mary Katherine acquired, I might add).You have to play around with different ways of tying the beads and how much distance between them.  Pulling the cord through the bottle is the best way to eyeball it and then make adjustments accordingly.

She also throws away the key fobs and keeps just the key ring (she’s my hero).  You’d think that this old icky thing is not something you’d ever want to keep around, but I like it way more than the shiny, new looking ones.

If only the windchime didn’t make noise…wait? Huh?

You could even use it as both!  Try out on the mantle for a while and when you’re tired of looking at it and would rather hear it instead (and let your neighbors have a nice view) put it outside.

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