Custom Arsenic Bottle

Remember the grubby little bottle that I picked up while out junking with my friend Susan last Wednesday?

I had PLANS for that bottle, my friends! The first thing I had to do was figure out how to clean it. None of my bottle brushes worked in that opening. I finally ended up putting a little bit of uncooked rice in there along with a squirt of dish soap and then shaking the heck out of it. It got the dirt out but there were still a lot of hard water deposits or something in there. I filled it with straight white vinegar, then set it inside a glass filled with more vinegar to cover and left it to soak overnight. In the morning I shoved a couple of cotton rounds in there and used a bamboo skewer to move them around and clean out the last of the yuck from in there. A good rinse and dry and my bottle was ready for some crafting!

I posted a peek of it on my cheese dome cloche post yesterday:

Here's a close up:

I searched Google for "vintage poison label" until I found one that I liked. Unfortunately, it was blue and red, so I messed with it in Photoshop until it was more to my liking. Since I was in Photoshop anyway, I changed the name of the drug store to our name and also the city to where we live. I think it was originally somewhere in Alabama.

The label was printed out on plain printer paper. I used a stipple brush to add some Distress Inks to it, starting with the lightest color and finishing with a darker one so that it would have more depth of color and look like it was genuinely old. I ended up using four different colors - Old Paper, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, and Vintage Photo, in that order. I cut it out after I was done inking it and ran it through my Xyron with repositionable adhesive. This way if I get tired of this it will be easy to peel off and put something else in it's place.

I bought a little bag of corks for $2 at Michael's. What a racket! That's what I paid for the bottle! I suppose I still have some corks leftover for other things, but still... it's the principle of the matter, you know? The cork was too new looking, so I hit it with the stipple brush and more of the Vintage Photo distress ink.

I didn't want the bottle to be empty, so I dumped in a 99 cent tube of silver glitter that I also grabbed at Michael's when I was there for the corks. That means this custom designed, personalized bit of decor, complete with vintage bottle, only cost me five bucks. Kick butt!

Remember, if you see anything you like here that I've made that you want for yourself, just drop me an email. I only charge a few bucks for services like altering labels to personalize them, then you can print as many as you like.