Upcycle: Book Page Luminaries (Paper Bottles)

Last week I posted a tutorial that involved a simple upcycle of a bottle. Today's tutorial involves a little more work. But really very little. Please note: I created this "paper bottle" for my own use and I'm sharing the steps I took. Complete instructions after the jump.

Tutorial - Book Page / Paper Bottle

I was going to use pages from an old encyclopedia, but then I found old typed notes from a long time ago; mostly quotations about time. So that's what I used to make this. Here's your short list of  stuff:

1. Three sheets of paper / book pages etc - size of your choice
2. Scissors and tape
3. Jewelry wire and a scrap of fabric - for the flower
4. An appropriately sized bottle (beer / wine / whiskey) to set the size of your "paper bottle".

Start by making the flower and getting the wire ready. As you can see, I used a randomly sized scrap of fabric. Pinch it in the middle and shake / shape it into a flower.

Then wrap wire tightly around the base to create the flower. Give yourself a generous length of wire beyond the wrap and cut it.  The wire is all that holds the top of the bottle together, so don't scrimp!

Cut strips into the three sheets of paper. Make sure you cut from what will be the "top" to about 2.5 inches from the "bottom". Then join the three sheets at the base with pieces of tape.

You may need a little help for this part - it's unwieldy. Carefully wrap your sheets of paper around the base of the bottle. You're only doing this to establish size. Tape off the paper then carefully remove the bottle. Then, gently grip all the fringed pieces, turn the whole thing over and secure the lose inside join with another piece of tape.

Now you play with the top until you have the shape you want. This requires some patience ... think of putting hair in a pony tail with gravity working against you just a bit.

Once you have the shape you want, wrap the top with wire. If some of the strips slip while you're doing this, it's ok. You can push them back up under the wire later. Now you have a simple centerpiece. Or, because it's hollow inside, pop it over a tea light (or one of those little fake LED versions) and you have a really pretty, glowing luminary!