Potion Bottle Tutorial

Hi everyone!

I'm back with my next tutorial! The idea for these potion bottles came to me several years ago when I was sitting around the campfire with a bunch of friends, and I thought it would be so wasteful to just throw these shooter bottles away when we finished the drinks. I collected them all up and saved them for when I finally got the courage to use them, which I recently just got! These potion bottles are super simple to make and don't require a lot of materials (to purchase at least!) so it is really accessible to a lot of people. 

So let's get on with it!

I didn't end up taking pictures while putting these bottles together because I was having too much fun, but there truly isn't much to see anyway!

So first off, let's go over materials. 

You need:

- small plastic bottles (I got mine for free since they are liquor bottles, so if you know someone who likes to drink shooters, maybe they can spare some empty ones! Otherwise, you can find many different kinds on Amazon)

- my free label printout (embedded in this post further down)

- Mod Podge in the matte style

- food dye

- paintbrushes

- potion ingredients (I will go over this when we get there!)

- scissors

Okay, let's start!

1. Cleaning the bottles

If you purchased your bottles online, you can completely skip this step and move onto the next one. But if you are like me and like to save what some may call garbage, then you have to clean the bottles first. I soaked my bottles in warm soapy water for a while to get the smell and stickiness out, and then set them out to dry.

I then tried various different ways to get the labels off the bottles, and I would say this is the hardest part of the whole project. Soaking the bottles helped get a good portion of the labels off, but the stickiness remained. I tried rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, nail polish remover, and Goo Gone, all of which seemed to work pretty well. The only problem I had was the rubbing alcohol left some streaks in the plastic where it was starting to wear it away, so just be aware of that. The streaks seemed to be covered up pretty well in the next steps however, so don't fret too much. 

2. Painting the bottles

The bottles I used were plastic, so I'm unsure if this same process will work for glass bottles, but it would be interesting to test!

I wanted my bottles to be colorful, but also look aged, so I did three coats of paint total. I started with pouring some Mod Podge into a bowl and adding a couple drops of food dye. I made six different colored Mod Podge mixtures, including yellow, orange, red, blue, green, and purple. The more food dye you add to the Mod Podge, the darker the color becomes, so this is completely up to personal preference. 

I then painted two coats of the Mod Podge color mixture on each bottle and waited until they dried. Since the base is glue, it dried fairly quickly. I did not paint the bottom of each bottle because I didn't think it needed it, and frankly I was too impatient! You really can't tell they aren't painted at all.

For my third coat, I wanted an aged look so I attempted to make a brown color. I'm not sure where I went wrong (because I made a brown color on accident when I tried to make purple!) but the color came out to be an ugly green. This color turned out to work well at looking aged, so I painted this on top of the color coat on every bottle.

3. Adding the labels

I created some aged-looking labels to go along with these bottles, which you can print out here.

Cut them out and decide which bottles each one will go on. I used some Mod Podge that wasn't dyed and painted it on the back of each label before adding it to the bottle. Then I painted more clear Mod Podge over the top of the label to glue it into place. Don't worry about getting messy with the Mod Podge, it won't be visible once it dries.

4. Adding the ingredients

Now here comes the fun part! 

Since the bottles are fairly clear, you can add ingredients that will actually be partially seen! The ingredients I added are just a suggestion, and you can get really creative with the ingredients you put in yours. 

Here is what I collected for my bottles:

Spider eggs: Q-tips with the ends cut off (discard the middle part)

Mermaid scales: the ripped off "leaves" of a large pinecone (what are these even called??)

Werewolf fur: pet fur

Phoenix feathers: fake feathers, or ever real feathers you find left behind

Dew on spider web: cotton stuffing mixed with large glitter sparkles 

Sands of time: beach sand

Grave dirt: instant coffee, or just use regular dirt that is dry (unwanted moisture is not good)

Deadly nightshade: tomato plant leaves that I dried inside the bottle

Bonemeal: broken up pieces of a seashell

Jellyfish tentacles: strip of hot glue (easy to make, just use a hot glue gun to make strips on parchment paper)

Carnivorous plant seeds: small, round birdseed

Coffin nails: old rusty nails (be careful with these!)

I have also included three blank labels, so feel free to really get creative with these! I would love to hear of all the witchy ingredients you come up with!

~~~~~~

And if you've made it this far, then you probably have your own set of witchy potion bottles now! I truly cannot wait to add these little bottles to my Halloween display this year, and I would love to see what you all do with your bottles!

Be sure to tag me in your posts if you share them, or feel free to message me privately so I can see! I hope you all have a wonderful spooky season, and enjoy your crafting!

~Hannah at Ladybug Stitches Shop