Wine Bottle Lights

I'm always looking for cool crafty cheap gift ideas. A few years ago, my sister-in-law made a light out of a wine bottle, and I LOVED it. These are a GREAT gift, and cost almost nothing to make.

I started collecting wine bottles (by drinking wine, and asking friends to do the same) and got a pretty decent collection. I soaked them in warm water to remove the labels (left the labels on a few of the nicer bottles) and then got really, really busy. I got pregnant (heh heh, I really did get busy...had a second kid, moved, worked, etc. etc.)

Two years later...(yeah, seriously.)

I bought a special drill bit to drill a hole in the glass. You can find that here. They come in a set, and I used the largest. You have to run water (use the hose) over the bottle as you drill through. I'd do this outside, because clearly you wouldn't want to bring the hose in...but also, there is a serious chance you'll break a bottle or two. Better out than in! Our friends let us invade their house and use their drill press, which REALLY helped!

So...cleaned the bottles, drilled the holes. I bought strings of 20 white Christmas lights from Ace Hardware. These are much easier to find around Christmas time, but if you want to make these now, you can order the lights here. They are about a dollar cheaper from Ace Hardware closer to Christmas. Threading the lights through the holes is a little difficult, but if I can do it without throwing things, you can too.

Finally, I decorated them. I wanted to see what the bottle looked like with the lights on and off as I decided how to decorate each one, so I did that part last. First, I tried a few different things that I wasn't thrilled with. I ended up buying a few cans of gold and silver glitter spray paint from Hobby Lobby. I sprayed the bottles first, and decorated when they were dry. I used different ribbons, and just played with it until I got what I wanted. I bought wine corks from the craft store. The hot glue gun was my tool of choice for this project - and several blisters (and two years) later, I have 10 beautiful wine bottles to give away.

I'd definitely do this project again. It probably cost less than four dollars per bottle to make, and people just love them.

Besides, who doesn't love a reason to drink wine?

This would be GREAT to do with a special wine bottle - like for a wedding or anniversary. I'd just leave the label on and add lights.

That pork is magical

Generally, I'm not a big meat eater. I was vegetarian for a little over a year, until I got pregnant with my daughter. Since then, eating meat is something I've done because it's WAY more convenient when eating out and in other homes. If I really sat down and gave it some thought, I would probably stop eating it. Except for that super expensive, farm raised organic stuff.

Pork bothers me more than other meats, because of an experience I had while translating in a hospital right after college. You can read about it (google worms in brain and pork), but I don't recommend that you do. Especially if you're paranoid like I am.

Anyway, our schedule is pretty crazy, and Wednesdays are the busiest. So I aim for crock pot cooking if I can on Wednesdays. I bought a pork roast, threw it (ok, gently set it...don't want pork juice all over the kitchen) in the crock pot, COVERED it in garlic powder, added some seasoned salt, dumped a beer and a can of beef broth over it, chopped up an onion and threw it in, and turned it on high for about 6 hours. Sounds redneck, huh? Well, it's magical. About 30 minutes before it was ready, I shredded it and let it keep cooking. We had it on mini whole grain rolls, but it's also great on tortillas with chopped onion, cilantro and lime juice on top.

I leftovers the next day for lunch. So good. You should try it!

A favorite picture

I've been looking for this picture of Madeleine, taken when she was about 15 months old. It's one of my favorite pictures of her. Such a sassy thing! I finally found it! Buried in the archives of gmail, and with the (finally!) correctly worded search, it popped up.

This was taken at a friend's house. There's not much to do in the summer out here in Hades, I mean AZ, other than some kind of water activity. So for this day, it was the hose.