When I think of Christmas some of the things I think of are starry skies and sparkly lights. Often times that\’s what you see in nice nativity scenes and pictures. Without the stars and the lights, Christmas might seem a little less magical. Yah, I know they are not the point of Christmas, but they do seem to help make the season feel more special. My 9 year old daughter, Elizabeth, helped me to create this starry sky in a bottle to add to our Christmas decor. It\’s just perfect for sitting behind a small nativity!
Elizabeth did most of the painting in this project. She not only had fun doing it, she did a great job!
You need:
- Bottle (We used a large wine bottle)
- Set of battery powered lights -10 to 20 sized set (I bought ours at Walmart for $2)
- Mod Podge
- Blue food coloring drops
- Disposable bowl
- Paint brush
- wood skewers (optional)
- twine/ribbon (optional) (Walmart has well priced twine)
- Wax paper (optional)
Pour about a half cup of Mod Podge into a disposable bowl. Add about 10 drops of food coloring.
If you are using a large bottle, you may need to make 2 or 3 times that much.
Using your paint brush mix the color into the Mod Podge until it\’s one even color. You want the color to look like a medium blue. It will dry darker.
Stand your clean bottle onto the wax paper. Paint the bottle with the blue Mod Podge. It looks best when brushing from top to bottom. Be sure the bottle is totally covered, except the bottom. If the blue Mod Podge runs onto the wax paper it should be easy to peal off the wax paper when it\’s dry, but you may wish to wipe away large amounts.
Let the bottle dry. Then, you may want to give the bottle another layer of blue Mod Podge to make it a darker blue. If you want to store your blue Mod Podge till later place it into a zip-loc bag and store in a safe spot.
After you have painted the bottle with several layers of blue Mod Podge, it\’s time to add the lights.
I added two wooden skewers (criss-crossed) into the bottle so the lights didn\’t just fall to the bottom of the bottle. Then I added the lights.
Once the last light was in the bottle\’s neck I ran the light\’s line down the outside of the bottles neck and tied it down with some twine. I made a bow with the twine on the front. The light\’s line was run down the back so you can\’t see it. The battery box was hidden behind the bottle and sitting on the table.
Now it\’s sitting on my window sill with a small Nativity.
It\’s such a glowing and beautiful sight!
Note: Sunlight will bleach the food coloring if it sits in the sun for a few months.
Wishing you all a blessed Feast of the Epiphany!
~Jennifer
Follow Catholic Inspired via:
Don\’t miss a thing!Sign-up for our free email subscription:
What a wonderful idea! I especially like the blue bottle. This year, I did a Marian inspired Christmas tree with 'lots of blue, and had touches of blue decorations around the house. This bottle would have been perfect! I think I'll make one too. Thank you for sharing!
brilliant idea, absolutely brilliant
I'm sure your Marian inspired tree was gorgeous, Cheryl! That's such a beautiful idea! I'm glad you like the blue bottle. Hope you enjoy making it! God Bless!
Thank you, Melanie! (I'm turning 5 shades of red) God Bless.
You are so clever this bottle is great as well as the baby Jesus stones and the idea of leaving the stones here and there is a wonderful idea…..thank you so much for sharing……………………the kids I teach will love this….God Bless you and Merry Christmas. I did want to tell you that we made the Jesse tree and it came out so beautiful…..thank you for that also