Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Plastic Soda Bottle Floral Candleholder

We all know plastic soda bottles are basically trash no matter that you toss them in the recycle bin. But who said plastic soda bottles can't be made into something decorative and useful at the same time! Something creative and treasured, too! Like a plastic soda bottle floral candleholder! Imagine one casting a warm inviting, colorful glow in the shape of a flower in your home!

Welcome to this month's Sustainable Craft Challenge Blog Hop hosted by Julie @Sum of their Stories! This month's theme is Trash to Treasure! The challenge is all about sustainable crafting with a different theme each month! The projects must have some sort of a sustainable element to them. This could be an upcycling or recycling element, or something that reduces waste, uses leftovers, etc.

Materials used:

Plastic soda bottle
Craft knife/scissors
Clothes iron
Flower petal template
White foam sheet - thin 3mm (19"x19")
Mod Podge
Parchment paper
Paint brush/sponge brush
Rolling pin (for shape)
Hot glue gun/glue sticks
Flameless color tealight

How to:

Let's begin by removing the label, and washing and drying a 2 liter, clear plastic soda bottle.

Once the bottle is dry, using a craft or utility knife, cut off the bottom portion following the ridge around the bottle or the imaginary line from the label that was once there.

I wanted the bottom portion of the candle holder smaller so I cut off . . .

a bit more, slicing it vertically and then . . .

horizontally around. Next, seal the edge with a clothes iron to give it a nice rounded finish. (I forgot to take a picture of this) Here's how to do it: First, set your iron on high. Then press the cut edge of the plastic bottle firmly on the flat portion of the iron for a few seconds until it starts to curve, giving it a nice clean finished edge. Doing this will not damage the iron in any way.

For the floral look, I found a flower clipart online which I copied and saved.

🠉

Then I printed out one of the petals that I enlarged to about five inches. I estimated that I needed fourteen petals. So I was able to put two petals on a sheet of paper to print.

Next, I took a large foam sheet and painted on a layer of Mod Podge and . . .

laid the petals on top of the Mod Podged foam sheet, smoothing them out. Then added a coat of Mod Podge on top of the petals to seal and let dry!

Once all the petals were dry, began cutting out the individual petals.

Since I wanted the flower image on both sides of the petals, I flipped the image on my computer and printed out fourteen more petals to be . . .

mod podged to the back of the first foam sheet petals.

The front and back petals fit perfectly together!

Once the double sided petals were dry, placed the individual petals on a hot iron (not shown) and then wrapped each petal around a small rolling pin to get the curved shape for all the petals.