It is a very rare occasion that I sip on liquor, but for my 30th birthday I was given a nice bottle of my preferred liquor, Tequila.  I kept in for a few years, and recently decided to enter a contest by Team Upcyclers.  During the month of June participants can submit something they upcycled from leftover glass.  I turned my birthday bottle into a night light!!!

Materials Lists:

Glass Bottle with Cork

Power Drill with Glass bit

Strand of White Decorative Lights

Wire Cutter

Quick Wire Plug

Craft Glue

This is what I did…

Glass drill bits come in all different sizes. It just needs to drill a hole big enough for the light’s wire to fit through.  It takes some time to drill through glass so don’t be in a hurry.

It is also good to do it outside or in a well ventilated area because you will create glass dust.

Once my hole was drilled, I washed my bottle and let it completely dry. Now the lights…

There are two types of lights: strands that connect to each other with a plug at each end and lights that just have one plug for the wall. Ideally, a light strand with one plug would be the best for this project. However I only had a two plug light strands on hand, and I couldn’t go buy lights for an upcycled challenge, right?  So I had to get creative.

I cut the plug that goes into the wall off the strand of decorative lights.

Then I fished the wire through the top of the bottle and pulled it through the drilled hole with a pair of tweezers.  I pushed the rest of the 12 feet of lights into the glass bottle. When I came to the connector plug it wouldn’t fit into the top of the bottle so I turned into a cork.

A Patron bottle comes with a nice champagne style cork. I cut off the round top, and then broke the cork stem into a ton of little tiny pieces. I used craft glue to cover the plug with the pieces of cork, and then I glued the round cork top into the plug.

Next step was attaching a plug back onto the cut wire.  I stripped the white coating on the wires to reveal the copper insides.  I needed about an inch to be exposed for the new plug. I had to purchase a two pack of quick wire plugs for $1.79. They are simple plugs that open, you enclose the wire into slots and then close the plug with a screw. It is really easy to do, just make sure the two copper wires are not touching inside the plug!

Then it was time to plug in the light!

My new little night light was a fun keepsake memory of my 30th birthday AND a cool entry into Upcyclers Creativity Challenge, that maybe will score the shop a little advertising.

Of course the little bee on the bottle of patron is one of my favorite things too!