Rainbow Coke Bottles

Hurray! First blog post! With this first post, I've got a really fast and cute tutorial that's perfect for St. Patrick's Day (fun fact: St Paddy isn't even Irish. He's Welsh.). I think in all it took a little over an hour and that was with more than a couple fails. And spills... But let's get started. 

You're going to need:

• Glass Coke Bottles
• Liquid Food Coloring
• Wine Corks
• Exacto Knife or Craft Blade
• Hot Glue Gun
• Lots of Paper Towels

First off, you're going to want to cut three wine corks in half. Or you can use six and get the tall cork look. But my bottles are kinda short, so I cut them. :)

Next, if your bottle necks are especially narrow, you're going to need to shave off parts so you can actually cork the bottle. The best way I found to do this was lay the cork upside down, jam the knife down close to the side, and slice down about half way. Then you can just break off the sliver. It's best to keep the overall shape as close to a circle as you can, but my hexagon-ish shapes ending up working pretty good. I didn't draw lines on mine until I realized the actual cork didn't photograph the best. But that's the general shape you want to follow. Also, it's better to cut off not enough than too much. You want the corks to really be jammed into the bottles.

After you do a dry run with the corks in the bottle (If you don't have to smash the cork in, it's too small) fill them with water and tip them upside down. If you get anything beyond drips, cut up another cork. We can fix a little leakage later. Then empty the bottles back out again and drop the food coloring in the bottom of each bottle. I just used Walmart brand liquid food dye.

Red: 5 drops red   Yellow: 6 drops yellow   Blue: 3 drops blue

Orange: 3 drops yellow, 1 red   Green: 3 drops yellow, 1 blue   Purple: 2 drops red, 2 blue

I held mine up to the window to make sure the light shone true. The purple one, for instance, looks almost black with out back light. After all my colors looked how I wanted, I did a circle of hot glue around the ridge on each cork and jammed it into the bottle. If there were still any leaks after that dried, I did a thin ring around the outside of the cork. Then you're done.

My sister pointed out that an ombré line of bottles would look cool too. Like two drops in the first, then four and six and eight etc. You can always just pull the corks out after whatever holidays and refill them in a new scheme. It's a really easy up-cycle to customize. 

Happy Paddy's Day!