Wine Bottle Recycling

This weekend some friends, myself, and my husband tackled a really fun project - making drinking glasses out of wine bottles! They turned out gorgeous and we figured out some ways to make them even better next time!

You start with empty wine bottles and soak them so scraping the labels off is is easier.

Once the labels were scraped off we put a glass cutter in a vice and scored a circle around the bottles at whatever height we wanted the glass to be. David's strength proved to be helpful for this part, he could score them deeper than I could.

Next we lit some candles (note: you need candles stronger than tea-lites) and rotated the cut of the bottle over the heat of the flame then spun the bottle in a bucket of snow (ice water would probably work too). After a couple heatings and coolings - SNAP! You have a glass! (or you have a cracked glass, they won't all work out just right as you can see in the photo on the left)

Then David used a dremel and sanded down the edges, the rest of us helped by using emery paper. This is the part that we think we'll do differently next time. A friend of ours has a lamp work torch and we think the edges of the glasses would look nicer finished with the torch then with the dremel. Although the dremel and emery paper give them a cool rugged look.

For your own notes, we found that thicker glass snapped best. Oh and the bottle tops can be used as a really cool look for a mantle - put little votives under them! I'll have to get a photo of that too so you can see the coolness.


We are going to try it again soon and maybe make some sets for wedding gifts. The left one (green) is one of the super large bottles so I am going to put stones in the bottom and use those for planters.

FYI: I also have a few new things up in my shop. Two French Press Cozies, and a funky hat!