For Christmas in July, I thought I’d share how I made my wine bottle Christmas tree. It’s a quick craft (well, it takes me less time now that I have done a few) and is a great way to have a tree out during this time of the year without having to dig one out from the attic or wherever you store your holiday decorations.
Supplies:
- Green Wine bottle
- 651 Vinyl: White for tree and various colors for ornaments, and gold for star
- Wine bottle lights (multi-color)
The first step is finding the perfect wine bottle. I have been known to choose a wine based on the color and shape of the bottle. Sometimes it’s been good tasting wine, other times not so much because of course one of the steps is emptying the bottle and I do that by drinking it. This shape is perfect for the project as it’s the right size for the Christmas tree decal, a lovely shade of green for a tree, and it’s wide enough for the lights to settle into bottle.
The next step is finding a Christmas tree design. I use an SVG that is available on Design Space. The design I picked is easy to weed, place on the bottle, and has enough space between the branches to add some ornaments (which are also on Design Space).
Now that I have all the pieces cut, I use transfer tape to get the tree from the backing sheet onto the bottle. For the star and ornaments, I just peel those off the backing sheet and place them on the bottle without using transfer tape. This works because of how small the pieces are. The decal size for the tree is 4 inches wide by 6 inches long, and the ornaments were 1 inch long (based on the tallest one as the design is with three), and the star was 1 1/2 inches long.
For those not familar with using vinyl, weeding is when the area of the vinyl that isn’t needed for the design is pulled away from the backing sheet. After that, transfer tape is placed on the design, and you rub the transfer tape down so the vinyl sticks to the tape. Most of the time, crafters will use a vinyl scraper tool to rub over the design and make it stick to the tape.
Now that decal is on the trasfer tape, I place the top of the tree onto the bottle and keep the remainder off the decal off the bottle by curling the tape up. I smooth/press the decal onto the bottle and work my way down, pressing and peeling the decal from the tape one set of branches at a time. One time I tried going from the bottom to the top to place the decal and found it didn’t work as well for me and the vinyl crinkled a bit when I was applying it. It’s also helpful with curved designs to make cuts on the tape (without cutting the design) so the tape can “bend/curve” more easily over a round surface. Once your tree is on the bottle, decorate it however you like or just leave it unadorned.
Last step is placing the wine bottle lights into the tree. You can use a solid color but I prefer multi-colored lights. The hardest part of the lights can be unwrapping them as they are usually wrapped pretty tight in the box they come in. When I’m putting the lights into the bottle, sometimes I’ll bunch some of the wire together so the lights are closer together. I also use the wooden handle of a skewer to arrange the lights in the bottle if I don’t like how they’ve “settled”. Just be careful not to poke the wire with anything sharp. Then I place the top on the bottle and turn on the switch. A lighted Christmas tree!
Even knee-deep in planning her wedding, Faith Hunter finds herself distracted by the town scrapbook she was commissioned to create. Eden’s oldest mystery, the founding family’s exodus nearly a hundred years ago, remains unsolved. When a search through the family’s abandoned mansion leads to the uncovering of bones on the property and ex-boyfriend Steve Davis announces a surprise heir has staked a claim, Faith is determined to dig up the truth left behind.
I’m thrilled to be part of Happy Homicides 6: Cookin’ Up Crime anthology that was released on Friday. My story is titled Simmer to Death: Did sibling rivalry lead to the poisoning of an up-and-coming food personality? Or were simmering hostilities among the staff the real recipe for murder?
There was the foot injured that was likely a stress fractured and kept me out of my garden, and pretty much house bound, except for work during the whole summer. It wasn’t easy walking around in the boot, or going up and downstairs, which the doctor told me was the whole point in it, keeping me off my foot. The treachery of navigating stairs had me writing on a laptop upstairs rather than in my office. On the bright side, at least I wasn’t in the boot while we were in California. It would’ve made getting around Disneyland, the Safari Park, and all the wineries difficult.
It’s here! A few months ago, I received an email asking if I’d like to contribute a story to 
The Self-Rescue Princess 