sail with me

I guess I lied when I said I couldn’t do anything crafty. I should have just made some constraints: it needs to require very few supplies, very little skill, and has to be nearly impossible to mess up.

These bottles seriously fit the bill. I needed something to hang on my bedroom wall and since I love all things ocean, I decided a combination of blue/green + alcohol would do the trick.

Start with some clean, empty beer bottles. Peel the labels off if they’re Smirnoff; don’t even bother if they’re Corona [I tried rubbing alcohol, brillo pads, sand paper, everything and they just won’t budge].

Fill the bottom of a plastic cup with good ol’ Elmer’s Glue.

Add some water. Stick your cup under the sink and turn your faucet on and off real fast. That’s how much water you need. It’s really technical.

Squeeze in a few drops of dishwashing liquid.

Put in a few drops of blue and green coloring. I made a few different cups and just closed my eyes and squirted the little vials till it felt right. Like I said, totally my kind of project.

Mix it up with a paintbrush, adding more color if it looks too pale and sickly.

Lay down some newspaper and go to town on those bottles.

[I used the comic section in case I got bored while painting]

Laying them out to dry is really the trickiest part of this whole project if you live in West Texas. I practically had to cement the paper to my walkway so that the wind wouldn’t blow all over and smash my bottles. Real dangerous around here.

The paint might look bubbly and gross but  as it dries it’ll smooth out. Seriously, impossible to botch this one.

When they’re good and dry, tie them by the necks to a piece of driftwood [or firewood if the nearest beach is hours and hours away]. If you don’t want to hang them yourself and your brother is gone and you haven’t really got a dad, just ask the nearest cowboy to hang them. Be sure he’s decked out in boots and Levis…or whatever the cowboy equivalent of Levis is…

And there you have it. Right above the headboard so that I can get a concussion from beer bottles falling on my head while I sleep. All for the sake of decoration.

[Title from Sail by AWOLNATION]