5 Creative Ways to Reuse Beer Bottles
After a big bash at your place, your recycling bin is likely brimming with beer bottles. While recycling certainly helps keep all those leftover bottles out of the landfill, you can do one better. Upcycle your post-party surplus of bottles into new (and useful!) items for your home and garden. Give these five ideas a shot!
1. Makeshift Vase
A lone beer bottle works great to pop a single flower in for an improvised vase. Full flowers, like peonies, roses or dahlias, will look particularly pretty in a single beer bottle. Peel off that Bud Light label to make your vase more attractive.
2. Pantry Storage
Contain your rice, dried beans and pasta in repurposed beer bottles. If you buy your grains in bulk and use reusable produce bags to transport them from the store, you’ll leave out the usual plastic wrappings that go along with these products and create less waste.
Once you get home, store your goods in (washed) beer bottles. A line of beer bottles turned storage containers will clean up the look of your pantry and make it easy to spot exactly the right food you need. You can find reusable silicone caps and flip top caps on the Internet to place on top of your beer bottles to keep food fresh.
3. Mood Light
Simply wad up a string of white lights (the Christmas variety) in a beer bottle, plug them in and voilà instant ambiance. This mood lighting will look good in clear, brown or green glass—use whatever bottle you have leftover. Stick your new light wherever you need a relaxing glow.
4. Garden Décor
Depending on the… we’ll call it success… of a party, your lawn might already be littered with beer bottles. Simply gather up those stray bottles and use them to decorate your garden! With a little digging, you can easily line a garden path or separate off a section of your garden using rows of beer bottles. Now, that’s a beer garden!
To create your beer bottle edging, dig trenches where you’d like to line your beer bottles and place them side-by-side top down in the dirt. Then, gather the extra dirt back around them to hold them in place like you would pot a plant.
You can leave the labels on your upcycled beer bottles for an eclectic look, or remove them to let the pretty glass steal the attention.
5. Drinking Glasses
This one’s good for the more expert do-it-yourselfer, or maybe just the tenacious go-getter. Repurpose your leftover beer bottles into your new favorite drinking glasses. All you need is a bottle cutting kit, which usually includes a candle, sandpaper and a bottle cutter. Just follow the instructions! (And don’t try it after having a brewski.)
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Image: nooccar
