Oct 25: Samhain Siren's Saturday Craft-Tacular - Potion Bottles

Welcome to the Samhain Siren's Saturday Craft-Tacular. Each week we'll bring you a fantastic craft that will help bring in the haunting Halloween spirit. Our crafts will range in age and complexity and we would really love to get your feedback on them.

Today's craft is going to be a bit more complex. The tools required include a hot glue gun. I have burned myself several times using these and recommend caution. The end result on these are fantastic. I loved how they turned out.

Please enjoy this amazing craft from Sandi Crawford.

Decorative Potion Bottles!

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Items Needed

Vampire Potion Bottle:

· Glass Bottle from Michael’s

· Hemp Rope

· Black Spray Paint

· Hot Glue Gun

· Charm

· Acrylic Paint

Ghost Skin Potion Bottle:

· Glass Bottle from Michael’s

· Label (provided)

· Tissue Paper

· Clear oil (Sweet Almond)

· White Glitter

· Glue

Swamp Fog Potion Bottle:

· Glass Bottle from Michael’s

· Elmer’s Glue

· Cotton Filling

Life Elixir Potion Bottle:

· Glass Bottle from Michael’s

· Silver Spray Paint

· Label

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Potion bottles are among the easiest and most versatile Halloween props you can make! It is fun to make them look old, and depending on what you fill them with they can also be creepy or cool! Your imagination is the limit. Today I am going to show you how to make four of my favorite bottles. Before making potion bottles it is a good idea to think about what you want in them first. This is going to help you make a design that will make sense!

Vampire Ashes Potion Bottle

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

First up the Vampire Ashes Potion Bottle. This one is the most involved out of the four we are going to make today. As this bottle is holding Vampire Ashes I thought it should look expensive and old. I wanted to add something special to the detail though. So I thought how can a pile of ash be magickal? Even if it was from a vampire before it was ash. So I thought what of it was because of the way they turn to ash, more specifically, by the heat of the sunlight. Capturing the heat in the ash! However, since we are human and can’t touch something that hot it HAD to be collected in a magickal bottle that would be cool to the touch. To depict this idea I used a hot glue gun to create the gold decorations on the bottle, BUT instead of nice crisp solid lengths of gold I made them look as if they were melting. I started by cleaning off the bottle with glass cleaner, and then I scratched it up a bit with sandpaper. This should help the hot glue you are about to use hold to the glass bottle. I applied the glue unevenly and pulled at it as it dried to make it look “melty”.

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

While I was at Micheal’s the other day they had a sale on these red and black charms. So of course I grabbed a hundred of them! I didn't know what I was going to use them for but one of them reminded me a lot of the amulet that Dracula wears in almost every vampire movie pre-1990! So I shoved it into the glue before it dried!

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

I covered the charm with foil so it wouldn't get sprayed. The charm was a good “vampire” decoration idea but I wanted something s little more “gross”. Vampires live off of human blood. It is what keeps their dead heart beating and them looking young! If you wanted the vampire ashes to stay useful as vampires should be then they could thrive from a blood source, right? So I used the hot glue gun to add veins on the bottom kinda like a human heart!

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Now it is time to paint!! We start by spray painting the entire bottle with a matte black spray paint. I stuck a piece of paper towel inside the neck of the bottle to give me a way to move it around without touching it, and to keep paint from getting inside the bottle.

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Once it dried I wrapped it with hemp rope around the neck, and then painted the melting gold decorations.

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

I finished up the bottle with red gems on the ends of the melted gold, and painted the veins a deep red with blue accents. Finally, I added the label on with Elmer's glue brushed on the back. Seal with acrylic sealer and enjoy! I filled mine with black salt I made, but then I decided that Hot Foot Powder might be more fitting!

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Ghost Skin Potion Bottle

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Next we have the Ghost Skin Bottle. When I decide I wanted to make more than one bottle for this tutorial I knew I wanted something that sounded almost impossible to get. Ghost Skin!! Even the label says “difficult to collect”! The bottle was easy to make as all you need to do is add the label with a little Elmer's glue brushed onto the back of it. The longer more involved part is the contents for this one. Now if you wanted to you could scratch up the glass to give it an old look, or add rope or ribbon to the neck. I chose to leave the glass clear so you could see the skin pieces better. I think I saw a potion bottle once labeled ghost skin, but I couldn't find any labels or tutorials on the web so I made my own label. You are welcome to save the label and use it for your potion bottles too!

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

For the skin on the inside I took tissue paper that I normally use to package gifts and tore it into strips. Then I rubbed the strips with clear oil to make them transparent. Last I sprinkled them with glitter to give them an ethereal kind of feel. Gently place the strips into the jar so that they are not over packed and can be seen nicely.

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Swamp Fog Potion Bottle

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

The Swamp Fog bottle was fairly simple to put together. I stuffed it with old teddy bear stuffing (the swamp fog) and then “painted” the jar with white Elmer’s glue. The glue holds the label on AND created a cloudy glass appearance that one would expect to see on a bottle containing swamp fog.

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

I found the label on Pinterest! There are a ton of free printable labels there you can use in your projects.

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Life Renewal Potion
This one was by far the easiest of them all. For this one I just spray painted the glass bottle silver, and then glued the label onto the front when it dried! I want to find something that shines very brightly to place inside. I thought if it were a life renewal potion that it may have been created from divine light and should shine brightly! I may try a small LED light or something for it. I wonder how many glow sticks I’d have to empty to get glowing liquid?!?!

Photo Credit - Sandi Crawford

Have fun!!
Sandi

Thanks so much to Sandi for that wonderful craft. Be sure to check tune into the Sunday Stew over at Imramma tomorrow and back here for more festivities and the giveaway results!