If you haven’t noticed, I love Halloween.  Really I love all holidays, but Halloween involves some of my favorite things: costumes, candy, and creepy.  I love all types of Halloween decorations, but when it comes to my own house I am a bit of a Halloween snob.  I want my house to look like an actual witch lives there.  I’m weird, I know.  In middle school my best friend and I pretended we were witches, and we may or may not have tried to cast spells we found on the internet.  Witches will forever have a soft spot in my heart.

My goal was to make my mantel look like a witch’s altar.  I got the skeleton head, skeleton candle sticks, and candles at Target a few years back.  I wanted to make spell bottles to match.  The best part, these were virtually free because I made them with everything I had laying around!

Materials:

• Glass bottles- I knew I wanted to make these for a few months, so I have been saving various glass bottles after we use them.  My bottles are from: vinegar(s), peanut butter, jelly, soy sauce, fish sauce, and others!
• Black paint- I used black acrylic chalkboard paint, but really any would work.
• Modge Podge
• Labels– The only thing I had to purchase (for only $1.99!).  You could easily make your own if you are more talented than myself.
• Twine
• Hot glue gun
• Sponge brush

Directions:

1. Gather your materials.
2. Pour your black paint into a disposable/paint safe bowl.  You want your paint to be thick enough to cover the walls, but thin enough to be easily spreadable.  I very slightly diluted my paint with a few drops of water to get this consistency.  The thinner the paint, the less opaque it will be.  Error on the side of too thin, because if the paint doesn’t stick well you could always do a second coat.
3. Paint the interior of your bottles.  Pour some paint into one of your bottles.  Swirl the bottle around until the entire interior of the bottle is covered in paint.  Store the bottle upside down for a few minutes to let the excess paint drip out.  Repeat with all your bottles.   
4. Dry your bottles.  I think my paint was a little too thin, it kept dripping down the bottles and leaving the walls way too clear.  If your paint is sticking to your liking, congrats!  Leave them out to dry and move on to other things.  For me, I had to trick the paint a bit.  I would swirl the paint inside the bottles, then put the bottles into my oven.  Warning: I would only turn it on until it reached 130 degrees, then I would turn it off and shut the door.  That was hot enough to speed up the drying, but it wasn’t too hot to melt anything.  I had to do this step a few times to get the paint dry enough to stick.
5. Paint your lids.  Cork would look really cute in these bottles, but I couldn’t find any that worked in my price range.  If you have some laying around, go for it!  Otherwise, paint your lids black.
6. Glue your labels on your jars.  Make or buy your labels.  I bought mine off Etsy, downloaded the labels, and then printed them on regular printer paper.  Then I cut the labels out.  Next, I brushed on a light layer of Modge Podge and glued the labels to the jars.
7. Modge Podge your jars.  I wanted my jars to look old and warn, so I wanted to Modge Podge the jars to add a layer of stipple.  You could skip this step if you wanted!  Make sure you add a layer of Modge Podge to the top of your labels to protect them.  Once my first layer was dry, I added a second layer just on the label and front of the jar.  Let dry completely.
   

   
8. Hot glue twine to the jars.  I felt the twine added a touch of vintage uniqueness to the bottles.  I tacked all twine with a dollop of hot glue on the back of the bottle.
9. Enjoy your super spooky, realistic looking spell bottles!