DIY Wine Crafts: The Frame
So, I recently posted about my success with wine cork wreaths and I thought I would continue my wine art theme by sharing how I upcycled my labels from all those bottles where the corks once resided. I still have a cache awaiting future projects, but I love how my frame art came out!
The Idea
My husband and I traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee a couple of years ago for a softball camp for our daughter and we strolled around an area that had lots of cute boutiques and some great restaurants. In one of these home decor boutiques he fell in love with this enormous framed quote about love and weirdness. The piece was $500 and it was just stretched canvas over a reclaimed wood frame. I thought at the time I could do something maybe a little more unique and personal for him as a gift so I tucked the idea away and went about my business.
I must make a confession at this point about my cork and label collection- I am sucker for a cool label. I know we should not buy a wine for a label, but I have and continue to. My issue was we consume a fair amount of wine between ourselves and gatherings we host. You can imagine the bottles start to pile up (just look at my previous post with the multiple banana boxes of corks). I knew I wanted to do something with all these great labels so I started researching how to get labels off the bottles without ruining them.
Let me just say I tried everything and big kudos to those who can do it with water etc.- those methods were a big fail for me. This led me to try out the “baking” method. I was a little nervous about putting a glass bottle in a 350 degree oven, but I rogered up and did it. It was wildly successful! I have to thank Thirsty Bastards blog for breaking all the different methods down for me and ultimately, pointing me in the right direction.
My labels came off very easily after 5 minutes in the oven, but don’t start this without a razor blade handy to ensure clean removal. I also laid out wax paper to put the labels on while cooling. I found this method allowed me to then put another piece on top and leave it pressing under a heavy object overnight. This makes for perfectly straight labels to then craft with.
The basic tools you need for a wine label frame are:
- Enough fun labels to cover whatever size frame you choose
- An unfinished wood frame, your choice of size
- A razor blade
- Mod Podge (a big bottle)
- a foam brush to spread Mod Podge
- Patience, a lot of patience
Step 1: Obviously, choose your bottle and remove the labels (whatever method works for you)
Step 2: Cover a large work surface with newspaper, gather your labels, Mod Podge, frame and blade
Step 3: Lay your labels out around the frame to be sure you like the orientation and everything fits snuggly
Step 4: One label at a time, apply some Mod Podge to back of label and stick to frame. You may have to trim labels at this stage and be sure to hold them down for a few seconds to ensure adherence.
Step 5: Once all labels are down and cover frame, you need to cover the front of labels with Mod Podge and let it sit- I left it overnight to be sure everything was going to stay before I tried to frame something in it. The next day, I did find a couple of non-conforming edges so I just re-glued and let it sit some more.
Once it is dry and you are happy with the appearance, you can either frame something yourself in it- family picture, piece of art or whatever makes you happy. I actually created a calligraphy canvas with the quote my husband loved and took it our local frame store to have it matted and framed in my own custom frame. All the labels I chose were from special occasions we shared over the years and I gave it to him for our anniversary.
I still have a book of parchment paper encased labels waiting for my next craft- I just have not decided what it will be yet. The best part about these projects besides reliving all those great memories, is how you are helping the environment. Each label you reuse is one label you are not sending to the trash.
Originally published at http://strawbabiesandchocolatebeer.com on January 31, 2020.
