Decorating With Glass Blocks

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It can be a fun and interesting project to decorate with glass blocks. Glass blocks come in large and small sizes and make wonderful walls and seats for around gardens. They come in all kinds of textures including smooth, ridged and waves. Some have chunky protrusion. They are also a cheap decorating tool. They only cost about ten to fifteen dollars to purchase.

Glass blocks can look quite nice painted. Before you paint it you should clean it with vinegar and wipe it with dry.

Etching the glass can be an interesting thing to do as well. You can easily do this by applying etching cream that you can buy at a hardware store. However remember that etching cream does wash off. However etching cream is handy stuff. You can put a stencil on a glass block and then paint it over.

You can also paint a glass block completely over and then scratch a design in it with wire. This allows the light to shine through in a particular way.
Clear varnish in various tints or colors can also enhance the look of a glass block. You can sprinkle glitter in the varnish to create a wonderful sparkling effect. This type of effect looks especially fetching f you are making a display case for store.

Glass blocks also make nice “shades” for other types of lights. You can ball up some mini-lights and place them behind a pyramid of blocks. You can also make a beautiful block case to showcase anything you like including showers, pictures, candles, lights, treasured objects…whatever you like.

You can also build water fountains out of glass blocks. It is simply a matter of digging a hole for a pond liner and then stacking the glass blocks around it. Glass blocks that are lit from underneath make particularly lovely step style waterfalls. Hoses and pumps can be run from behind and the pond can also be stacked with pretty fish.

You can also stack glass bricks so that they make lovely encasements for round flowerpots. They make especially fetching containers for trees with white or silver bark like beech or birch.

If you do not have a bed frame or legs for your bed you can use glass blocks to set your bed on. This can be quite glamorous looking, especially if the bed is high and you want to build steps to a loft-style bed.

Decorating With Old Wine Bottles

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There are all kinds of different ways that you can use old wine bottles to make incredibly decorative objects. You can make both works of art and recycled objects from old bottles of wine.

One interesting way to make a poster is to soak all of your old wine bottles so the labels come off. You can then use the labels to decorate lampshades, tray or make an interesting poster.

It is easy to turn an old wine bottle into a lamp base. In fact the old chianti bottle in a basket look is just as popular as it as ever been. All you need to do is simply rig it with a light bulb and a cord and then find an old fashioned pale white or checkered shade to go with it.

You can also make lamps out of wine bulb by drilling a hole in the bottom of a bottle and then stuffing it with a string of mini lights. You can use a straightened out hanger to push the lights into the bottle and the plug cord comes out of the bottom of the bottle so you can plug it in. You can also glue beads and other decorative objects to the bottle to make a unique one of a kind light.

If the wine bottle has the right bottom bulbous shape you can actually make a light bulb out of the bottle with the bottle body serving as a colorful glass shade.

Wine bottles can also easily be turned into tumbler style drinking glasses. You can buy special saws and little hammers for cutting the bottles of bottles and then polishing them. These often make better vases than drinking glasses depending on how smooth you can get the lip of the cut glass to be. The cut off bottoms of wine bottles also make nice bottoms for hurricane candles. You can use a small bit of wire to hold the candle stable in the cut of bottle.

Wine bottles can also be used to make an edging for a garden. You dig a hole and bury the bottle upside down and have the bottom of the bottle showing like a round glass patio stone.

Wine bottles can also be recycled to be used as containers for flavored olive oils. You can make your own by adding dried basil, rosemary, sun dried tomatoes or sticks of oregano to a bottle. Tie this all up with a ribbon and it makes a great gift.