Up-cycled Mineral Decanters

With the impending holidays, my mind immediately turns to party, which then inevitably leads to bar. Funny how that works. I had been wanting to update our house bar with some fancy new crystal decanters for quite some time. But frankly that expenditure falls well behind in terms of priority - particularly now right smack in the middle of the season of giving. So last weekend, I found a creative way to scratch that long nagging itch and came up with a project that would up-cycle some materials I already had on hand. In the end, it was really what I was hoping for all along.

We've been saving up our old clear wine and liquor bottles for the past couple of years - actually having friends and family save theirs for our hoard. Some are just too pretty to toss and I knew we'd find a way to recycle them into a project at some point in time. When inspiration struck for my makeshift decanters, I turned to our stockpile and picked out a few in varying shapes and sizes. Cleaning and removing the labels was the most time intensive part of this project - nothing a dishwasher and a little 'goo be gone' could not tackle. 

I knew I had a few rocks, minerals and cabinet knobs lying around that I decided could work to fancy up the caps. A dab of E6000 was all I needed to bind them strongly to the existing bottle tops and corks. 

Originally I considered purchasing some traditional chain metal tags to complete the look. But I caught a glimpse of Christine's Instagram and decided to give my decanters a little more edge with a string of bulky chain right off the hardware shelf. 

I think these decanters are ready to rock it and just in time for our big New Year's Eve bash.