Chalk it Up to Crafty-ness

For my friend’s upcoming birthday gift I decided it was time to roll up my sleeves and get crafty.  Several birthday’s ago this friend told me I had to stop giving her serving bowls….what can I say? I am addicted to serve ware.  Is it wrong to want to share that love with others? But, at her request I ceased looking in the bake ware isle for gifts and turned my energy to what else but…WINE!

My latest endeavor is a crafty spin of a gift for a wineo enthusiast on a pretty sweet budget.  For this project you will need an empty wine bottle (drink up!), acrylic paint, craft stamps in the design of your choice, a paintbrush, scrap paper, and chalkboard pait.  Yes, chalkboard paint, are you intrigued yet? Optional items include a piece of twine and a stick of chalk. 

Start out by peeling the label off the wine and washing off all the sticky residue.  For me, just plain soaking it in dishwater usually works, but if you are tackling an extra hard label you can use Goo Gone to get the stickiness off. 

After the wine bottle has dried fully spray the chalkboard paint on the wine bottle and let it dry.  With the spray paint, start on the ground and work your way up and down your wine bottle with nice even strokes until it is fully covered.  Never start or end your spray directly on the bottle because it will leave drips and runs.  It took me four coats for the paint to be even and durable enough to withstand chalk markings.  I used RUST-OLEUM brand chalkboard paint because it was the cheapest. 

When the chalkboard paint has dried, get out your painting and stamp supplies!  Make sure the paper you lay down is thick enough to withstand a couple coats of paint.  Start by putting a drop of whatever color acrylic pain you choose on your paper…

and spread it out into a thin layer with a brush. 

This is so when you place the stamp in the paint it is easily coated and doesn’t glop all over the wine bottle you worked so hard to paint.  The stamp I picked out isn’t really meant for acrylic paint, it’s meant for ink stamping.  BUT following the rules is no fun so I went for it!  Ink stamps have so many cool and fun designs I thought it would be the perfect compliment for my chalk wine bottle.  I choose a peacock feather!

I found a towel to lay my bottle on so it was stable when I was ready to attack it with my stamp.

Once I spread my paint out, I rubbed my stamp in the paint and practiced a couple of times on a sheet of paper so I could gauge the correct thickness of the paint to achieve the design I wanted to. 

Notice that I changed my colors from pink to green.  The GREAT thing about acrylic paint is that until it is dry it is wipeable so I tried different placements and colors until I found one that worked.  The designs and placements I didn’t like I just wiped off and since the chalkboard paint is permanent it was like a clean slate!

After I found what worked I came up with a design a little something like this:

I then tied a twine to a piece of chalk and attached it to the neck of the bottle so my friend will always have something to write on her bottle with. I put the chalk in the throat of the wine bottle for a fun little twist!

This is a great project for a gift for a friend, or for you to make as an accessory in your own home!  I would store it by my olive oil bottles from my honeymoon trip, or you could put it in a collection with real wine bottles.  The messages you can write on the bottle make it versatile for a welcome for guests or as part of your centerpiece for an amazing dinner.

So here is the budget breakdown:

Wine Bottle: Free if you save your old wine bottles!

Stamp: $6.00

Chalkboard Pait: $4.99

Paint: $1.00

Grand Total: $11.99