Weddingbee boards

since seeing a diy on here to turn wine bottles into vases i had set my mind to doing it for my reception. all i really needed was a bottle cutter, candle, some cold water and the bottles of course. so i kept this in the back of my mind for awhile.

i started looking into it a little more a few months down the road so that i would know what i was getting into. in the process i stumbled upon miss crabcakes (not sure on the spelling) blog about her experience with it. she had bad luck with the bottle cutter and described how to use a dremmel tool. after reading this i was stoked. we have a dremmel. just needed the right blade.

i bought the blade and in that process stumbled upon a dremmel drill press that holds the dremmel in place. i got even more excited about it.  yesterday with the help of my FI i got it all set up. i had 3 bottles for test bottles. so i set out to attempt it. i was nervous as hell at this point...not knowing if i was really going to be able to take on this task of cutting all these bottles and still keep my sanity in the process.

long story short with the dremmel and the 3 test bottles...the dremmel cut them but the edges were fairly jagged....they needed TONS of sanding. that would take FOREVER!! last night i got on google and youtube and began researching even more. turns out i should have just bought the bottle cutter. it would have cost me just as much as the dremmel drill press thingy did....i told my FI happy early bday and pointed to the dremmel drill press after that...lol.

i ended up being able to do the task for less than $10 (thats not including what i had spent on the dremmel stuff) i went to lowes and bought a $5 glass cutter and $1 metal clamp to be able to put a clean straight line all the way around the bottle. i also used a 25 cent votive that i already had and a bucket of ice water.

armed with these new tools i cut almost 40 wine bottles tonight! they are in a big plastic tub right now soaking in soap water to get the labels off and so i can clean out the inside of them tomorrow. i'll also sand down the edges so they're not sharp tomorrow.

i just wanted to share my story with all the bees on this topic. if this is something you are interested in doing...you MUST have patience. its kind of easy but takes time.

ill be posting pics very soon for all of you!! i was going to do it right now but my camera battery died on me.....lol! bare with me and my technical difficulties :)

while im waiting for my camera battery to charge i'll try to explain the items i used a little more. my glass cutter i got at lowes. the brand name is kobalt and it comes with extra blades. the metal clamp i used is one of those pipe clamps you tighten with a screwdriver. as i said before....i only used the metal clamp to draw a straight line around the bottle. as far as using the glass cutter. its whatever you're most comfortable with doing.

 i held the bottle at the top in my left hand and set it on top of my leg. in my right hand i held the glass cutter. i placed the glass cutter on the line i had drawn and with my left hand i turned the bottle. i did my bottles in groups. i scored about 8-10 bottles and then heated them and cooled them to get the top off. after scoring about 8-10 bottles my right hand was starting to cramp because you have to apply a decent amount of pressure to get it to score the bottle.

after scoring the bottle i held it over the candle and heated it along the score line. once the bottle was heated i dipped it in a bucket of ice water. some bottles needed a tap against the side of the bucket and a couple had to be heated and cooled a second time.

pictures are coming soon...i promise :)

This is a GREAT IDEA.

heres a pic of the glass cutter and metal clamp that i used

well darn.....this thing isn't liking my pics....hmmm....let me see what i can do to fix this.

her post was the first post i saw on this and its what made me decide to do this! after i saw another post about someone having alot of issues with the bottle cutter i went with her method of using the dremmel. that did not work out well for me. in an effort to save money since i had already put a descent amount into this project already i went with the way ive done my bottles.

ok bees. heres an update on my progress with this. after i cut all of the bottles i had i took a few day off from messing with them. i didn't want to burn myself out on them too soon. lol! we had a day of gorgeous weather so i grabbed the plastic bin that holds my cut bottles and headed outside. i figured why not enjoy the weather and be productive. :) armed with my safety goggles, face mask (so i didn't breathe in any glass dust), my ipod (gotta have my music!), and my FI's sander i sat down on the back porch and began sanding away. i have almost 40 bottles to sand....i only made it through 11 of them. by the time i had finished sanding the 11th bottle my hand was cramping from holding on to the sander. sanding the bottles is ALOT more time consuming than cutting them was. i still havent sanded any more of my bottles. they're currently mocking me from my back porch. im determined to take them down. they will not get the best of me.....it just might take me awhile to get through them all. lol!