Saturday, November 22, 2025

Holly Jolly Recycled Craft

7:00 AM Gail @Purple Hues and Me Do It Over Designers Blog Hop, recycle/upcycle, water bottle craft No comments

Hello and Welcome to the 'Do It Over' Designers Blog Hop!! In case you haven't heard, the "Do It Over Designers" is a group of creative bloggers who love to recycle/upcycle/ DIY, hosted by Anne @The Apple Street Cottage. It happens the 4th Saturday of every other month and it's all about taking something old and/or unused and 'doing it over' into something new. Once in a while, Anne will choose a theme for us to do over. This month it's The Holidays! Thanks Anne for hosting this wonderful blog hop!

Here's a fun way to make a holly jolly recycled craft for the holidays! Can you imagine creating hollies out of clear plastic water bottles? This holiday season why not embrace the opportunity to re-purpose and recycle material into beautiful art, ensuring your holiday decorations are both eco-friendly and unique! A creative way to reduce waste while beautifying your space! I bet you liked the way that rhymed, lol!

Enjoy making an eco-friendly Christmas Holly decoration made out of water bottles with almost unbelievable simple techniques using recycled materials! Offering a stunning, sustainable decorative piece!

SUPPLIES:

Plastic water bottles
Knife/scissors
Parchment paper
Iron
Holly leaf templates
Double-sided tape
Green glass acrylic paint/metallic acrylic paint
Sponge brush
Hot glue

Disclosure: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites, this post may contain links. I may receive a very small commission at no cost to you! Plus Google Adsense provides a platform for me to monetize my content by hosting ads from Google's network of advertisers. The money I earn helps pay my crafting expenses. Thanks so much for your support!

HOW TO:

First, remove the labels and then make sure your clear plastic water bottles are clean and dry. Then begin cutting off the top and bottoms of the bottles.

Next, cut open the bottle straight down the middle and . . .

lay it out as best you can on top of the parchment paper.

To create a flat sheet of plastic, place the plastic piece between two sheets of parchment paper.

Then gently and evenly press a medium hot iron onto the top sheet to flatten the plastic, moving the iron slowly in a steady motion. Allow the plastic to cool completely before touching it.

I flatten eight water bottles to make holly leaves.

Next, it was time to make four different holly leaf templates - I found a holly leaf template online that I've used before here, copied, changed the size, pasted in Word, printed, and cut out.

Once all the different sizes were cut out, instead of trying to draw around the shape of the templates with a marker or pen on the plastic, it was easier to apply a strip of double-sided tape to the back of the templates and . . .

attach the template to the plastic to cut out eight holly leaves in each size.

This way was so much easier, quicker, and with no marker or ink marks on the plastic to remove!

Do this for each size holly template - for a total of thirty-two plastic holly leaves.

Once all the holly leaves were cut out, it was time to paint them! Use a sponge brush to pounce on a thin layer of acrylic paint. I started with glass paint since the leaves were clear plastic thinking the glass paint would provide a glistening effect.

I'm not too sure about using glass paint!

For a richer color, applied a second darker green multi-surface shade in a satin acrylic paint after the first dried.

I like this color so much better!

And if I turn the petals over, they do glisten and sparkle from the plastic!

Now, to put the holly design together. I started using Beacon Super Fabri-Tac Glue and . . .

Aleene's The Ultimate Multi-Surface glue but . . .

none of them really worked. I waited a few hours and the leaves still didn't stick. So I had to get my trusty . . .

hot glue gun out and tried that! And it worked!

To finish the look, I glued on a smaller group of holly leaves and . . .

placed a few berries in the center.

I haven't started decorating for Christmas yet. I usually start just after Thanksgiving but I tried this piece in a couple of different places to see how it would look.

and noticed that the green color changes with the wood background in the photos. I tried taking it in different ways and the green color always turned out different than it actually is. Maybe it's the time of day, so I will try later when the sun goes down a bit.