You guys all know how much Corey and I love a good ol' practical DIY project, right? Well, years ago, we ordered glasses made from wine bottles from Etsy. Unlike the picture, each glass in our set is a different shade of green and we love that they are so unique.
When I posted ideas for our wedding recently, I loved the picture below. This idea is brilliant! Guests can just rinse out their glasses if they want to change drinks, but it saves us from having our catering staff run the dishwasher at our venue constantly just to keep up with demand. It also saves us from renting a gazillion glasses and then paying for all the broken ones after the wedding.
It wasn't long before I combined the ideas in my mind and thought: Wouldn't it be even better if our guests could each take home their own glass? Then, our theory came into play: Why rent or buy something when you can just make it. Seriously! We could just collect bottles and make these cute little glasses that each person could take home!
But how would we ever collect so many bottles? Luckily, our friends are coming through for us... in a BIG way! We mentioned the idea at a dinner party on the weekend and we left with boxes of bottles. We also have a few other friends collecting bottles for us... We're probably already up to 75!
Of course, my mom had a practical thought. She was concerned that people would put down their bottle glasses to dance and wouldn't be able to figure out which one was theirs...
Enter Martha Stewart craft supplies! We found an acid that etches the glass for us. You just paint it on and wash it off after fifteen minutes. We thought we'd etch each glass with a guest's name. Here's our test version:
Not bad, right? We ordered a glass cutting kit from Amazon and tested it last night. It was one of those rare evenings where neither of us had to work... so we thought we'd take advantage.
You begin by adjusting the bottles cutter to the height we wanted. Then we scored each bottle, making sure to press firmly and evenly on the blade.
To actually break the bottles, we alternated pouring cold and boiling water along the seam. We broke a few as we figured out the best technique but it actually made for a pretty fun evening and by the end, we were flying through them!
We still need to sand the edges and we'll etch the names closer to our event date.
We managed a big batch and even tested the etching again with our own names.
This is a large project... so for the next several months, if we're not working at our actual jobs or tackling a project around the house, we're going to try to squeeze in a few glasses every couple of weeks! I also have a couple of girlfriends who have promised to help me with wedding DIY in December, which is when I'll probably do the bulk of our craft projects. I'm sure they'll also help me empty some more bottles for this particular project. ;)We love the idea of recycling and we think it's a fun take-home for our guests! What do you think?
