Christmas Bottle Decor and Bunting With Martha Stewart Paint

Today, I ‘m sharing a Christmas Decor Project using recycled bottles, paper, ribbon and Martha Stewart Paints!  This Christmas Bottle Decor and Bunting can be used on a vignette, mantle or even a buffet table for a party. I’m even thinking about keeping it in my kitchen window.

After working on this project I decided that I might as well just start decorating for Christmas because that’s about all I’m working on these days! And guess what, I’m loving it. But no matter how much fun I’m having getting into the spirit of the season, I just can’t bring myself to officially decorate until after Thanksgiving. That’s the rule :)

I try to use recycled materials as much as possible because 1) it’s good for the environment 2) it’s easy on the pocket-book and 3) it’s always a challenge. I’ve seen painted bottles before and I’ve always wanted to try it, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity.

I kept it neutral with metallic silver and white and added a few pops of red for some festive cheer.

Out of the entire display, the snowflake bunting is my favorite. I love the contrast between the dark gray and white and the stencils were so much fun to work with. They are actually silkscreen stencils and they are extremely easy to use. They would also work beautifully directly on glass or fabric. I can’t wait to try them out on other projects.

For this project, I received a huge box full of goodies from Martha Stewart Paints. The box was filled with several different stencil packs, just about every kind of paint brush, glass paints, paint cracker (which I am dying to try) and lots of other fun things. I could seriously spend months playing with everything! In fact, I already have another project in store for Monday :)

For my Christmas Bottles and Bunting, I used Metallic Silver Gilding, Wedding Cake White Paint, letter stencils, snowflake stencils and at the last-minute I added some Habanero Red Glass Paint in the mix.

I started by cutting 4″ triangles out of dark gray cardstock. Then, I used my snowflake silkscreen stencil and  Wedding White Multi-Surface Paint to paint the stencil onto the paper. I used the paintbrush to gently move the paint around the stencil and it worked perfectly. The stencils also have an adhesive backing which helps prevent any leaking. These are probably my favorite stencils to date.

After the paint was dry, I glued each triangle onto white ribbon to create the bunting.

For the bottles, I started with an empty wine bottle and two cider bottles and soaked them in hot soapy water for a few hours. This helped remove all of the adhesive residue. I also wiped them down with rubbing alcohol to prepare the surface.

After they were dry, I applied a thick layer of liquid gilding. This was the first time I have ever used it and it was a lot of fun. It reminds me of spray paint but in a jar. It goes on beautifully.

After it was dry, I used painter’s tape to create my color blocks and then applied 3 coats of the Wedding White Multi-Surface paint. LEARNING EXPERIENCE: If I had to do it all over again, I might paint the bottles white first and then do the liquid gilding so I wasn’t painting white over a dark color.

Lastly, I used the stencil letters with the Habanero Red Glass Paint.

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Here are some other great Holiday projects using Martha Stewart Paints: