7 Ways to Upcycle Your Empty Wessex Distillery Gin Bottles
Upcycling gin bottles is a great way to get creative and create sustainable decor for your home! Our award-winning gin bottles took months to design and perfect. We know that our customers have a hard time throwing our beautiful glass gin bottles away after the gin is gone, so we’ve put together some ‘ginspirational’ ideas on what you can do to DIY them! But first, please be safe when handling glass, if you’re cutting glass make sure you have the proper tools such as goggles, gloves and a quality glass cutter!
Gin Bottle Candleholder
This is a super simple hack and won't require any tools! Simply clean your bottle and secure a candle in the top. Just make sure your candle is secure before you light it, and then enjoy watching the wax drip down the bottle!
Gin Bottle Vase
Source: @letroudelalune on Instagram
This gin bottle DIY can be as simple or creative as you like! The simple way is to simply clean up your bottle and put some flowers in water into the bottle. Or, if you’d like to add a larger lid, you can use a glass cutter to cut the bottle at a wider point. If you’d like to decorate your new vase, you can paint the bottle or wrap it in different materials! You can use dried flowers too for a long-lasting decor piece!
Gin Bottle Plant Pot
This upcycling gin bottle hack will require you to cut the gin glass in half with a glass cutter. This way you’ll be able to use the base as a plant pot! For this, you’ll need a good quality glass cutter, which can be obtained for about £10 on Amazon, to sand the edges down you’ll need some sand paper, and we recommend using gloves and goggles for safety measures. You can even go a step further to personalise this to your decor style by painting it!
Gin Bottle Lamp
Source: @mullanjoan on Instagram
This is a great way to modernise a classic table lamp, but it’ll likely require more skill, patience and clean up than the rest of these hacks! First, you’ll need to drill a hole in the side near the bottom of the glass bottle. To do this through glass, you’ll need a drill bit that’s specifically for glass, which you can typically source for about £10. The main priority here is safety. You’ll need to wear goggles, ensure your bottle is secured in position (between two blocks of wood is ideal), drill really slowly with almost no pressure, and keep the tip of the drill lubricated in water to keep it cool (you can slowly pour this onto the soon-to-be hole while someone else drills).
Once there’s a hole in the glass bottle, you can feed the lamp’s wire through the top of the bottle and the hole, and then check the light is working. Place the heard of the lamp head and lampshade in the right position, and you’re done! You can also source wireless, battery powered bulbs and cut the wire if you’re not keen on drilling through the glass.
Gin Bottle Diffuser
To turn your Wessex gin bottle into a fragranced reed diffuser, you’ll need to clean your glass bottle, add the fragranced oils, add your reeds, and rotate every few days.
To create a homemade reed diffuser for this, mix 60ml of mineral oil and add 30 drops of essential oils of your choice, such as 2:1 Grapefruit oil and Rosemary Oil for a citrus smell. Pour the mixture into the gin bottle and clean down the sides, then add 3-5 reed diffuser sticks for a few hours before turning upside down to allow the fragrance to travel up the sticks.
Gin Bottle LED Fairy Lights
Source: @lucy_hewes on Instagram
If you’re not interested in making a lamp, you may prefer using LED fairy lights instead! This is a simple but effective DIY to upcycle your gin bottle. Simply wash your bottle and add the fairy lights! You can even get lights specifically created for bottles, where the battery pack is concealed in the bottle cork. Either way, this is a great decor piece for your bookshelf or bedside table.
Reuse your Gin Bottle
We’re currently in the process of production for refillable pouches! This will be a sustainable option for our customers to refill their existing Wessex Distillery gin bottle with their favourite gin flavours! Our packaging is 100% recyclable and this will allow people to minimise their waste further. While we work to create this, you can also have a go at creating your own gin! We provide a gin lab experience day where you can come to our Surrey based craft gin distillery and make your own gin. Or, you can try out our elderflower gin recipe at home!
Share Your Upcycled Gin Bottles With Us!
Feature on our Gin Bottle DIY’s gallery page by contacting us on our website or social media, just find us @wessexgin on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!
To submit into our competition and potentially win a free bottle of gin, show us your creation on Instagram with the hashtag #WessexGinUpcycle