It's time for another Christmas craft! Today I'm going to share with you my latest adventure: Wine Bottle Light Accents.
If you Google wine bottle lamps, you'll get a lot of different types and ways of making some pretty cool lamps. A number of these will show you instructions on how to make them yourself. I decided to make some of these cool feature lights myself as a Christmas gift for my dad who is a wine lover.
For this project I needed:
A drill
A glass cutting drill bit (large - you need to make a hole large enough to feed your lights through)
A bucket large enough to submerge your wine bottle lying down
Fairy lights (led work well). I used a string of 80. This is probably the max you could fit in the bottle.
Patience!
So, when drilling glass, you need to keep the drill bit and the glass wet with water as a lubricant. Rather than having to stop drilling on a regulag basis, or have my bottle under a running tap I submerged the bottle completely. Make sure that when your bottle is submerged there is enough water to cover the tip of your drill bit.
Dry your hands thoroughly and then grab your drill and start drilling about 3 - 4 cm from the base of your bottle. Make sure that you do not apply too much pressure or drill too quickly as it is quite easy to break your bottle when doing this - as you can see in the picture!
After breaking the first two bottles I figured out a technique that worked well for me. Drill at a 90 degree angle starting with mild pressure, drilling slowly until you have a little divit in the bottle. Then, drill more quickly, still using mild pressure. Stop regularly to check your progress. The further into the bottle you drill, the less pressure and speed you apply. Once you have broken through the bottle, drill slowly until your hole is the size you want.
You'll then need to wash out your bottle to remove all glass dust and pieces. Dry the outside with a towel and let the inside dry thoroughly before feeding through your lights.
Voila! A festive wine bottle accent!
