DIY Review: Wine and Beer Bottle Vases

Last weekend, I hosted a craft night to turn a couple everyday recyclable items into treasured pieces of decor. I invited some friends to come over with any glass bottles or jars they had to color and glitter them with a little Pin-spiration. 

The supplies:
Martha Stewart Crafts® Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Craft Paint– I got a couple of these in a Her Campus Survival Kit a couple months ago, and this was the perfect opportunity to use them. They were a little too thick for this project, so I'd recommend using a lighter body brand of paint or watering this paint down.
Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic Paint– I use this paint for everything from crafting to painting. Water it down just a little bit to create the ideal texture.
Gloss-finish Modge Podge glue– This is some of the best crafting glue out there, and worked perfectly for applying the glitter.
Like, way too much glitter– Pros: glitter is amazing. Cons: our apartment now has glitter everywhere. Even the dogs are still shaking glitter out of their fur.
Glitter glue– We used this to glitter-ify the candles and as a 3D effect on the bottles.
Tapered candles– Make sure you measure the width of the wine bottle opening to make sure the candle will fit! We had to whittle ours at the base because they were too big.

Step 1: Remove the stickers from the bottles. We did this by filling the sink with hot, bubbly water and leaving the bottles to soak for 10-20 minutes. It worked on all but two of the bottles.

Step 2 (colored bottle): Following a tutorial from SITSgirls, we poured the paint into the bottle and swirled it around to spread it out equally. Pros: Picking up the bottle didn't smear the paint, and it made for a cleaner-looking finish. Cons: It took a lot more paint than we were expecting (don't listen when the tutorial says "a couple tablespoons"). Plus, it was hard to get it to spread evenly!

Step 2 (glittered bottle): Following a tutorial from Hustle + Halcyon, we coated bits of the bottle with Modge Podge, which we then covered with glitter. Pros: This was super easy and worked really well! Cons: There was glitter everywhere.

Even our dogs got in on the fun!

The final products! We used a combination of both DIYs on all but one of the bottles. I love how unique each one ended up looking; especially with the mixture of colors.

All-in-all, our first craft night was a huge success! It was so much fun and a great way to reuse something we all have lying around.

National Suicide Prevention Week: Words of Wisdom

One of the hardest things I've had to figure out since being diagnosed with chronic depression five years ago is how to get through the rough times. I don't mean "rough times" as in times when I have five essays due, a midterm to cram for, job apps to submit, and a million other things to do. I mean "rough times" as in times when I cannot possibly get out of bed, let alone go to class or even feed myself properly. This is one of the hardest symptoms of depression for me. 

I figured out a long time ago, though, that these periods of debilitating hopelessness pass with enough time. I used to liken it to drowning in the shallow end of the ocean: eventually the tide will go out and I will be able to touch my feet to the bottom and keep my head consistently above the water. The hard part is waiting for that time to pass. One thing I've found that can help distract me during these periods is doing art.

My favorite form of art is painting. I used to exclusively use acrylics, but I recently rediscovered the box of Crayola watercolors we have leftover from our elementary school years. Sometimes I illustrate quotes, especially if I've found one that's especially fitting to the place I'm in. Given that it's National Suicide Prevention Week, I chose to illustrate a quote that I find particularly inspiring in rough times.

This quote is from the TV show Game of Thrones, an unlikely source for such non-ableist inspiration. Whenever I am worried that I am "too much to handle" or that I am a burden on those around me, I think of this quote. When I look around, most of the people I know don't need to be treated like a child the way I often need when I am suffering the most. I may need more at times than someone who is mentally healthy, but that doesn't mean that I don't deserve the help I need. Hearing this sentiment for the first time at 20 years old was revolutionary, and encouraged me to continue to ask for the help necessary to keeping me alive and (mostly) well. I hope that you read these words or share them with someone who needs to hear them the way I needed to.

I didn't like the colors in my first draft, so I decided to do it again!

I believe that this sentiment is an important contribution to the discussion of mental health. If this or any of my other blog posts on National Suicide Prevention Week have touched you, please join me in engaging in dialogue about mental health tomorrow, September 10, for National Suicide Prevention Day. I will be drawing on my wrists and sharing my story and the stories of others on social media tomorrow, and encourage you to do the same in whatever way you feel comfortable.