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How To Make DIY Halloween Lights With Old Bottles

Last Christmas, I made some fabulous illuminated bottle lights for my home. I loved them so much that I thought, why not make some DIY Halloween lights too?

You can use any old bottles for this craft as they are transparent glass. I like bottles in different sizes, so I used a variety of bottles from other drinks.

It also gave me an excuse to finish the small amounts of gin I had in the cocktail cupboards. Why is it that gin is always in the best bottles?

Scary Upcycled Bottle Lights For Halloween

What makes this craft is those very affordable cork lights you can get from the internet or your local dollar/pound store. These handy little lights enable you to make DIY Halloween lights in bottles without drilling into glass.

empty bottles

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What You Need To Make Bottle Halloween Lights

what you need for DIY halloween lights

How To Make DIY Halloween Lights in Bottles

Step 1: The first thing to do is remove any labels from the bottles you will use. Most labels peel off if I soak the bottles in hot soapy water for about half an hour.

After soaking, you are still left with a sticky residue where the label was. Either scrub this with a scourer, or you can get a special sticky label remover.

soaking labels off bottles

Step 2: Dry the bottles and choose what silhouettes you want for the DIY Halloween lights on each bottle. Stick the Halloween stickers or die cuts onto the bottles. If you use glue for this, use a repositional/temporary adhesive.

Halloween die cuts
Sticking Halloween die cuts on bottle

Step 3: Then spray paint the bottle either black or Halloween orange. I painted a few bottles black and a few bottles orange, so I ended up with enough bottle lights for a Halloween light display.

spray painted Halloween bottle

Step 4: Finally, carefully peel away the Halloween shapes once the paint has dried. Then all that is left to do is to pop one of the cork lights into the top of each bottle.

cork light
upcycled DIY Halloween lights bottle

I love the way the lights shine through the Halloween silhouette. You can easily create a fun DIY Halloween lights display for your mantle by using a variety of bottle shapes in both orange and black.

I think that the black bottles look particularly good with the skeleton silhouette.

DIY Halloween lights

These upcycled Halloween lights are at their best on nights when the tiny fairy lights inside the bottles shine through the scary Halloween shapes.

The cork lights are straightforward to use; they have a simple on-off switch on the top. You can buy various lengths of string lights and even rechargeable ones.

If you still have the original corks from your old wine bottles, save them for another fun Halloween craft. They can be turned into spooky Halloween wine cork Characters to hang in a garland.

DIY Bottle lights for Halloween
upcycled halloween bottle lights
Halloween Bottle Lights
Yield: Illuminated Halloween Decoration

Upcycled Halloween Bottle Lights

Upcycled Halloween Bottle Lights

A fun and unique Halloween decoration for the home made by upcycling old bottles. This is a great craft to do with the kids. It's a very affordable Halloween decoration that is great for the front porch or the mantle.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Active Time 20 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Difficulty Easy

Materials

  • An assortment of old clear bottles.
  • Montana Gold Black Spray paint
  • Montana Gold Orange Spray Paint
  • Repositional adhesive
  • Halloween shaped die cuts
  • Cork lights

Instructions

  1. Soak the empty bottles in hot water to remove all labels
  2. Stick the Halloween die cuts to the bottles.
  3. Spray paint each bottle either black or orange
  4. Once the paint is dry remove the Halloween die cuts
  5. Insert cork string lights into the top of each bottle.

Notes

It's the cork string lights that make this project. By using these lights there is no need to drill into the glass bottles. You can use this method to make illuminated bottles for other holidays, such as Christmas and Valentines.

If you want something different for Halloween instead of the usual orange and black colours, check out this illuminated pink neon DIY skull decor. Or these Scandinavian DIY Halloween felt decorations. Or, for an eco-friendly holiday, these upcycled Halloween ideas.

These Halloween bottles are featured under B in the A to Z of upcycling.

There are some lovely vintage skeleton pictures to download here. If you liked these bottles’ lights, don’t forget to check out some of my other illuminated crafts and DIYs. And this collection of other wine bottle ideas.

Or, if you are looking for more Halloween & Fall decoration crafts.

For more affordable Halloween crafts, visit cheapandthriftyliving.com.

Debbee

Wednesday 14th of October 2020

Claire, this is my first look at your blog, coming from Party in PJs. These decorated Halloween bottles are spooktacular! I hadn’t heard of the wine cork lights before. Great tutorial too. Pinned.

Claire Armstrong

Wednesday 14th of October 2020

Ha ha ! Thank you

NINA LEWIS

Monday 12th of October 2020

I love, love, love these Halloween lights! This is something that I've just GOT to make! I'm going to feature this at our Party in Your PJs tomorrow night on my Grandma Ideas site. Thanks so much for sharing this awesome idea!

Claire Armstrong

Tuesday 13th of October 2020

Thank you, that’s awesome I look forward to seeing the feature.

Naush Samama

Monday 12th of October 2020

I love upcycle projects ! Your Halloween lights are perfect. They really look high end. Bravo ! Thank you for sharing it with us at Meraki Link Party. Naush

Claire Armstrong

Tuesday 13th of October 2020

Thank you so much, they do look good on the porch at Halloween.

Amy

Wednesday 7th of October 2020

So creative! What a fun craft. Pinned!

Claire Armstrong

Friday 9th of October 2020

Thank you so much, they do add a fun and spooky glow to my decorations.

Kasia

Wednesday 7th of October 2020

I love how these turned out! Such a simple and creative idea to recycle unnecessary bottles :) I'll be making Christmas ones this year. Thanks for sharing the tutorial, Claire!

Claire Armstrong

Wednesday 7th of October 2020

Thank you, Kasia. I've made Christmas and Valentine's one too, great to use the cork lights all year round.

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