my witch ingredient bottles

[otherworldly]

I'm so happy with how these turned out! Thrift store bottles, tea-stained paper for labels and ingredients from the house and yard. They are SO staying in my kitchen year-round! I know a couple of you were doing this too, please post your pics too!

http://www.soletluna.com/otherimages/witchbottles.jpg

[SpectreTTM]

Wow,

Nice Job otherworldly:D

[grim reaper]

wow excellent bottles

[ScareFX]

Excellent work otherworldly.

[Frighteners Entertainment]

Nice job, those are keepers!

[Johnny Thunder]

Really cool!

[grapegrl]

Beautiful! I keep mine in my kitchen windowsill all year. They make for fun conversation pieces. Great job!

[Lilly]

like them alot ... nice variety of bottles!!

[Gothikim]

Those are just too cute! If I ever do a witch's kitchen type thing, I'll so be making some.

[Vlad]

I'm not sure whether I like the font of the wording, the wording itself, or the bottles the most. Either way I like the end results.

[Frighteners Entertainment]

Would you like to do a trade?

[Fangs]

Sveet Job otherworldly! Those turned out really cool! :>

[Lilly]

I just found these cicadas exoskeletons on the tree outside..
perfect for one of my bottles
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j136/imdiamondlilly/cicadas/cicaoexoskeletons6.jpg
shells attached to tree ^

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j136/imdiamondlilly/cicadas/livingcicada1.jpg
living cicada on tree ^

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j136/imdiamondlilly/cicadas/5cicadaexoskels.jpg
closeups exoskels

other things i can use
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j136/imdiamondlilly/cicadas/wasphouse.jpg
my mud dawbers wasp house skull ^

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j136/imdiamondlilly/cicadas/closeupcrayfishskel.jpg
skeleton of crayfish from river ^

I had a black and white dragonfly but it looks like it's missing from where I stored it, darn. maybe i can find another.

[Beepem]

woah cool exoskeltons and shell

[Spooklights]

I bet those bottles are great conversation starters....especially in the kitchen!

[HibLaGrande]

nice bottles. I have a few sitting around here, just havent started them yet.

[slightlymad]

very nice work

[jdubbya]

Those look great! I had purchased two of the ones from Michael's for $3.00 a pop, but they pale in comparison. I may have to return mine and come up with those. I'm assuming the graphics for the labels were done on the computer and just a good craft adhesive to apply them? Can you breifly describe the tea staining process?

[grapegrl]

Brew up a strong batch of tea (coffee also works well). Take a paper towel and dip it in the tea. Dab, wipe, or otherwise smear the tea on regular white paper. Depending on your technique, you can achieve varying shades of colour or "texture". Let the paper dry completely. Once I have my labels printed, I cut them out and carefully singe the edges with a flame to create a sort of irregular edge.

[otherworldly]

Thanks guys! :D

Lilly, those are wonderfully creepy looking ingredients! My best ones are some horrible-looking dried up, growth-covered garlic cloves that went 'bad' inside the bulb - aka 'Shrivelfigs'! ;)

Spooklights, I must confess, I'm extremely tempted to use a drop or two of 'crustation bile' (olive oil) while cooking diner when my mother-in-law is over!

jdubbya, my process was similar to grapegrl's - I made a strong brew in the kitchen sink, easier to dip. Placed a sheet of paper in the tea for a few seconds, pulled it out, crumpled it up, and dipped it again. I found this gave nice darker lines in the creases. I dried them on towels...then randomly threw drops of the tea on them, let them splatter where they will (find your inner Pollock ;) )...it's a great effect. I ironed them (really!) just to be sure they would go through the printer without jamming.
I found my fonts here: http://www.halloweenfonts.com/
And the names are all from the HP books...found here: http://www.mugglenet.com/infosection/potions/list.shtml

I also used that great mugglenet link to find the names for my potions books - which I used the same tea-stained paper to transform out of cool-looking old books, and are now sitting on my mantle - I'll post some photos of those too! :jol:

[otherworldly]

Oh! And yes, I used a glue stick to adhere them! Corks I whittled (in some cases) from wine corks.

[jdubbya]

Thanks! Great info. Sounds like a fun project. I'm off to find some old bottles.
Appreciate the informative replies!:)

[jdubbya]

I couldn't NOT start this project after reading the thread. Went to the Salvation Army Thrift store and found 7 great bottles of various shapes. Two have cork tops and one has a worn wooden stopper top. Got them all for $5.80
We have several old maple trees lining our street so went out with my youngest son and picked up about 30 of the locust exoskeletons which look great in one of the bottles. Had a couple live ones buzz us in the process:eek:
Going to make the labels tomorrow and scrounge up some more ingredients. Thought of ashes from our fireplace for "bone dust". Son is having a blast thinking of stuff and names.
What a cool and simple idea! THanks again.:)

[Sweeney Family Horror]

This is a great idea and it's well executed. Very nice work. Remember that tonic glows under black light if you need an extra special potion!

[Lilly]

Sweeney>>>tonic? like the soda tonic or something else?

[jdubbya]

Couple of q's; After soaking the paper in the tea, do you allow it to fully dry before ironing it? Do you air dry it? press it between paper towels?
Is there a place to purchase corks of varying sizes. Thinking a craft outlet might carry them. Some of my bottles are w/o tops and have large openings.
Thanks.

[otherworldly]

I did allow it to dry fully, and my iron is broken and has no steam option, so it was a fairly dry process! :) it was fine though, just be quick, it's like ironing a sewing pattern. I had towels lying all over the kitchen floor and let them dry fully there.
A craft outlet would be good probably, or if worse came to worse, glue together circles cut from a cork tile from a home improvement store - I think the seams would disapear? Brew supply might have real cork bungs too.
I can't tell you how happy I am that you and your son are having fun with this project! This is such a great place. Thanks again guys for all your kind words. :jol:

[otherworldly]

Lilly, here's a cool article about tonic water and black light. Very cool effect!
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2002/jeffrey/interesting.htm

[turtle2778]

Hey OtherWorldly. WOW. You really gave me some awesome ideas. I already bought the MIchaels set, but i needed more. Im betting the ones i meake myself will be better. Thanks for the links.

[nicole]

also something that glows under a blacklight is the inside of a highlighter...just cut the sponge and soak it in the water for a while and presto. I am not sure if any other color other than yellow works though. I have not tried them yet

[Lilly]

otherworldly Thanks ok . i thought it was that stuff. think i'll use some.

[IshWitch]

Now I wish I was doing witches again!
So many good ideas beyond what I'd already used that my mind is boggling!
:)
I can't think of how to make the food area piratey. So I'm going to think about the voodoo priestess from POTC and incorporate some of these ideas if I can work it out!

[otherworldly]

IshWitch, Thank you very much! Maybe next year, witches can never be overdone! :) Just for fun, look at this: http://www.gone-ta-pott.com/Pirate_Recipes.html
and this:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,pirate_food,FF.html
and lastly this:
http://entertaining.about.com/cs/appetizerrecipes/a/pirateparty_2.htm

I don't know if any of that is appealing - pirates ate pretty badly! ;) Lots of quality rum though!

[IshWitch]

Thanks!
We're having a Pirate BBQ (to the hubby, nyuk nyuk! Halloween Party to me! ;)) but I see some great ideas here to flesh it out.
I can always use all the help I can get!
LOL
:D

[DeadSpider]

This is a great idea and it's well executed. Very nice work. Remember that tonic glows under black light if you need an extra special potion!

You can use most laundry detergents too. I have a bottle full of tide in my jar collection, it glows very well. http://tinyurl.com/hf4ap
I don't have a pic of it glowing though.

[Ghostess]

Those are great witch's bottles. I'm glad someone posted the link to the HP potion names... I was running out of names off the top of my head for the new additions to my witch's pantry this year!

[Ghostess]

You can use most laundry detergents too. I have a bottle full of tide in my jar collection, it glows very well. http://tinyurl.com/hf4ap
I don't have a pic of it glowing though.
LOL... I still have a bottle full of watered down Tide in my kitchen cabinet with all the canned goods. It's "essence of death". People look at me funny when they see it. ;-)

[IshWitch]

also something that glows under a blacklight is the inside of a highlighter...just cut the sponge and soak it in the water for a while and presto. I am not sure if any other color other than yellow works though. I have not tried them yet

The orange and green glow best after the yellow. The pink sometimes does and I've occasionally gotten some responce from the blue, depends on the maker. And that holds true for all the colors, actually. Make sure the package is of NEON highlighters not just highlighters.

I take neon highlighters and mark on things as well. Can't really see it until it is under a blacklight. So consider that when filling bottles. An assortment of ordinary dried leaves with marker details or the entire thing colored should look awesome I haven't tried it, I think of so many things and forget to! LOL I'd like to see the results of anyone who bottles some marked items! :jol:

(as an aside, I had taken a typical yellow highlighter and drew the image of a skull on the plain untouched wighead that I had in my graveyard. She is covered with RIT whitener soaked window sheers and floats over her grave. She glowed the lovely ghostly blue-white of RIT but there was that faint skull outline shining thru' that really made it rock!)

[NickG]

wow.. great ideas here. So far I have 9 containers and only 2 things in them...

batwings: take the black oak-leaf garland michaels sells in the halloween section, pull some leaves off, cut them down the spine and crease them in thirds.. sometimes you need to use a ligheter to melt the spine so it will remember the crease.

essence of lizard - I put a plastic iguana in one of the jars, plan to fill it up with some sort of liquid.

I also found a really neat blown glass bottle with a pear blown within it, the stem is hollow so you can fill the pear up with whatever you like. atm it has water w/ green food coloring in it. got all the glass at goodwill...

I've got go get busy on the labels and other ingredients... so far most of my bottles are more liquid type than soilds, so I plan on doing the yellow / green / blue / orange glowing stuff...


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/vw_nick/halloween06/bottles2.jpg

[otherworldly]

Great photo of some super looking bottles! Don't overlook things in your kitchen; harmless oils, spices, beans and things look much more menacing when labeled 'gnome warts' or 'crustation bile'! :) One of my favorites is the 'Shrivelfigs' - in our case, gnarley, moldy cloves of dried up garlic salvaged from the cellar. (Not one to be reopened!) ;)

[IshWitch]

Great photo of some super looking bottles! Don't overlook things in your kitchen; harmless oils, spices, beans and things look much more menacing when labeled 'gnome warts' or 'crustation bile'! :) One of my favorites is the 'Shrivelfigs' - in our case, gnarley, moldy cloves of dried up garlic salvaged from the cellar. (Not one to be reopened!) ;)

I can't wait to do the hunks of dried peanut butter, that sounds like it will look wonderfully gross!

[gypsichic]

you can use tea/coffee to stain your paper...........however alot of time you can find scrapbook paper that will look like that already..........one of the tricks i've used is to crumple paper........then use either use distressing inks or walnut ink in the spray bottle to help paper look aged

i have one of those woodburning tools that has a flat tip i can use to scorch or burn the paper.........looks very cool on the the edges.......esp if the paper is torn

[killer13]

You can buy calligraphy parchment from most art stores. Or Michaels as well. Looks really good with torn edges. It's what I used for these:

http://www.gongey.com/photos/halloween06/ingredients2.jpg