Hey friends, are you done Christmas shopping yet? I am about 85% done. I just have small things I have to purchase to get me to 100%. Today, my printable designer, Louisa from Flipawoo Designs, created a spa label for your gift giving. You can use it for bath salts, sugar scrubs, bath bubbles, lotions, soaps, etc. I love taking long hot baths so anything bath related is a good gift for me. The labels are completely customizable so you could really use it for anything. I am using mine on my homemade bath salts.
When I was running over the summer I came across a whole pile of empty Jack Daniels whiskey bottles laying on the side of the road. They have such a cool shape to them I couldn’t help but bring my van back later and scoop them up. ROADKILL RESCUE! Do I totally gross you out?
I bleached them and got the labels off of them and then ran them through my dishwasher so they were sparkling clean! They are not gross now!
There was well over 50 of them. My guess is that the farmer sneaks his hooch when he is out in the field and leaves the empty bottles there to avoid a smackdown from the wife…but that is just my vivid imagination. Either way someone close by REALLY LOVES THEIR JD!
Supplies:
Bottles
Coarse Sea Salt (Hobby Lobby — retails for $6.99)
Epsom Salt (Wal-mart — $.88)
Essential Oils (Hobby Lobby — retails for $2.99 each)
Funnel
Ziploc Bag
Flipawoo Bath Salt Label Printable
Aleene’s Tacky Sticker Sheets or other adhesive
1. I got this recipe from Martha Stewart’s Bath Salt Recipe. I mixed up 3 cups of coarse salt with 1 1/2 cups of epsom salt and 1/2 cup of baking soda. This was enough for 6 bottles.
2. I mixed up the big batch in a Ziploc bag and then separated it and added my essential oils. I used Honey Almond, Grapefruit Blush and Japanese Lotus. You can also use food coloring if you want to change the color. It used 2 drops for one bottle to turn it yellow.
3. Then I used a funnel to add it to the bottle.
4 Next I printed out the bath salt label printing as many as I could on one page (see here to learn how to print multiple images of a PDF on one piece of paper). I cut them out and used Aleene’s Tacky Sticker Sheets to create a sticker out of the label. Then I adhered it to the front of my bottle.
So I still have over 40 Jack Daniel’s bottles left. Can you give me some ideas of how I could use them?
Please show some love and visit:
some type of chandelier/hanging fixture?
I just have to say that it totally cracks me up that you went back for a pile of JD bottles…. too funny….. man does that guy love his booze! Wonder what he thought when he went to toss one on the pile and there was no clinking sound!
The bottles do have a great shape. And you are so lucky they still had their lids. My first thought is infused olive oil but I think a boat load of bath salts is a great idea too. What a great teacher gift.
Wow. This Roadkill Rescue. I am have to say the comment about how the farmer leaves them there to avoid the smack down from his wife had me laughing so hard. You ARE the queen of roadkill rescues. I never would have thought to pick those babies up. Way to go Beckie.
If I didn’t know you so well I would be really worried as to how you “found” all those JD bottles…. 🙂
Homemade vanilla?
Wow, I never thought the bottles would look that dirty! Amazing how you were able to make them look brand spanking new!
Laughed out loud at the farmer comment. Whoever it is, they loooove whiskey. Bravo to you for coming up with such a brilliant rescue!
I love that you repurposed those dirty old disgusting bottles. What a nice project.
Yah the strange thing was I picked them all up and then next day I went running and there was one more. I bet I will have a whole slew of them in the spring.
Ooooh I looooove that idea.
I swear I did. {giggle}…glad you know me!
Thanks Cheri…I swear I wasn’t looking for them…stuff just jumps out at me. {giggle}
Yah the funny part was I went running the next day and there was a single one sitting there. Too funny!
How about home made Kaluah (sp?)? It makes a great hostess gift for the holidays.
I love a pretty bottle like that with a bar pour spout for dish detergent or olive oil. I also make our own salad dressing and love putting it in pretty bottles too. I don’t drink at all but I’m seriously thinking of putting out an email among friends for a bottle or two. Great find!
You keep coming up with ideas like this one, and you’ll be able to sell clean JD bottles to folks like me! (As long as your farmer keeps stocking your discount JD bottle store!)
Fill the rest with more bath salts and sell on Etsy. Great idea to repurpose those bottles. I bet he was wondering what happened to them and hoping it wasn’t his wife that found them lol.
You could totally make some homemade flavored syrup or coffee syrup with the bottles!! Cool idea. I am now on the hunt for old JD bottles myself! 😉
really lucky find and great project!
I am so jealous of your talent and creativity! Not that I am a lush lol, but I have lots of liquor bottles that I should reuse like that! You should for sure do the flavored syrups and extracts. You could also fill them with little candies like M&M’s or lemonheads. Maybe bullets for the hunting guys or an aftershave oil of some sort……
HAHA! I need to go back and check since I got these months ago.
Well if you lived near me I could give you a few…giggle. I love that idea. Off to find a spout.
Do you have a recipe or a link online?
Hey Beckie;
How I wish that I had some of those Bottles!!!! They are Beautiful! I would use them for Homemade Vanilla, Infused Oil, Infused Vinegars, and so many other things…….
I Love what you have done with some of them so far, the Bath Salts look just Wonderful. I personally would be just Thrilled if I received a Gift like that!!!!
Gosh, I wish that I lived closer to you…..LOL I would Love to have some of your bottle stash!!!
Merry Christmas!!! 🙂
Do a search on Pinterest for bottles, you’ll probably find tons of ideas. I have some pretty ones pinned with pictures modpodged on them ! Just search for Diana Gashwiler! Have fun!
Dude in a heartbeat I would give you some!
Love your bottles and bath salts with spectacular label. You could make herb infused vinegars or oils. I did this as gifts for many years and used wine bottles. I much preferred making the vinegars. Making the oils was such a mess!
Some of the best projects come from the nastiest of things! These look so expensive , I love them!
Are those new tops/lids? I thought JD had metal ones?
Nope they are the original plastic ones. I think you are right they used to have metal ones. I guess they are plastic now.
They turned out great! I have to admit when you first posted about them I was kind of thinking it was gross, but this goes to show that you can make trash a treasure!
i love this idea. i recently went “bottle picking” and found some cool soda bottles from the early 60’s. my hubby thought i was crazy to be out in the woods looking for them, but why not?! any thoughts on what to use for as cap on a soda botthe?
A cork?
It would be a great idea to make a body lotion to go with the bath salts. Maybe get some fragrance free lotion and put a few drops of fragrance in to match the bath salts. Would be a great gift of bath salts and lotion to match! Just an idea!
What about spice bottles. They are so expensive and you could print labels and then put all your different spices in the jars. It would look marvelous! See http://www.instructables.com/id/Repurposed-Etched-Glass-Spice-Jars/ thats what I would do with all the bottles. What an awesome find!
Oh thank you..I want to make these..But I need bottles..LOL
That is the perfect UPcycle!!! Love glass bottles and they cleaned up so beautifully! Nice work with the bath salts, and really beautiful labels!
How about using those bottles to make beautiful bottles of homemade Vanilla for the bakers in the family?
I think I am going to do that this year. Have you done it before?
Hello, i seen you still had 40 empty bottles and i was wondering if you ever sell the empty bottles because i would the bottles for my wedding. I would to know please and thank you.
I love the idea of bath salts. Nice to have on hand for a spur of the moment gift or to hand out as favours. If you use them for favours then you can fill with anything and a cute label. I might even be tempted to use them to sort out different colour/sizes of beads or buttons.
Regardless, enjoy them and keep us posted.
I live in a town on Cape Cod known for it’s funny bumper sticker: “Chatham, MA: a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem”
so, about 8 years ago I bought empty pint size liquor flasks like these and I, too, created Chatham Soap Company Bath Salts in a liquor flask. People loved them! Great idea….
Oh that sounds adorable! See I am not the only crazy one who thinks liquor bottles are cool!