Upcycle Final Report – Ibrahim Alhajji

For this project I decided to decorate glass bottles and use them as flower vases.

based on my first post, my design process started by brain storming and looking for appealing ideas. The first challenge I face was to find the materials for the ideas I liked. After a lot of thinking and brainstorming, I decided to utilize bottles since I usually keep them for recycling.

After that, I started to search of decoration ideas over the internet. I stumbled along a website which had so many decorated bottles pictures. I liked the one below and started to immolate it and inserting some of my ideas and thought into it.

Source: https://www.delish.com/entertaining/g3815/upcycle-beer-bottles-diy-projects/?slide=1

This picture was my inspiration to design my project. I liked how the it looked with the twine string. Fortunately, I had twine string at home which I used to wrap gifts. The only thing that I had to buy was the glue which had to glue glass to glass as I was planning to glue the bottles together.

At the begging, I had three bottles which looked like the picture below.

As you can see, I had to take off the labels which was the hardest part of the project. I searched and tried so many tactics to remove but nothing worked out. After a while, I found a guy who recommended using laundry detergent. So, I took his advice and soaked the bottle for two hours and it worked. After soaking, the labels came out easily. Then I started to glue the twine string around the bottles staring from down and upward in a spiral way. I had to wait for the glue to dry every time I glued a section. I did that for each bottle. Finally, I glued the bottles together. I had no difficultly working on this project (beside taking the labels off). It was fun.

Above is my final result. I really liked how it turned out. I am definitely keeping it. However, after presenting it to my group and receiving their critique, I would like to add more decorations such as glitter. The design is currently located in my living room.

Presentation link: https://youtu.be/ZfNsTchUQPE

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11 Comments. Leave new

  • Ibrahim unfortunately I didn’t see your presentation in person however I enjoy the aesthetic you created with the glass bottles. I also like the string pattern you created which overall adds to the upcycling aesthetic. Getting soil in the bottles may be a little tricky but this project has nice functionality to it.

    Reply
  • Joseph Coulombe
    February 18, 2019 8:34 am

    I like the aesthetic that the glass gives this looking like a vase. I wonder if you had more time if you could cut the bottles to create a bigger volume vase.

    Reply
  • Ibrahim, good explanation on how you peeled of the beer can bottles regardless of not documenting the work with pictures, I highly suggest adding pictures for any project you do in the future. I like that you will keep your work. Nice complementary color matching of the bottle and the string.

    Reply
  • Ibrahim, I like your idea of using the beer bottles as planters. I was wondering if you explored using more bottles to create some other shape or maybe modifying them to bring some variance to your project.

    Reply
  • Ibrahim,
    I really liked the outcome of your project and I think it worked perfectly with those beer bottles because the color of the beer bottles matched perfectly with the twine. I could see your project as decorations in a cafe! If you wanted to go further you could even put real flowers into the bottles.

    Reply
  • Very simple and aesthetic. I find your project very aesthetic because no one can deny that the flower is beautiful. And the wire around the bottle was great.

    Reply
  • Brittany Callin
    February 11, 2019 1:36 pm

    Ibrahim, I thought your project was very pretty. I love flowers and especially pink ones. I do think your project would have benefited with more detail. For example you could have added a base to the bottles, added more wire/string, etc..

    Reply
  • Like you mentioned at the beginning of your presentation, I think it and your report would’ve benefited from progress pictures, as you were making your artifact. Without, it feels like we couldn’t get a good sense of the work you were doing. Although, I think your final product looks quite good, and it definitely projects an aesthetic.

    Reply
  • Ambrogino Depolo
    February 11, 2019 1:22 pm

    Very cool final product given the supplies at hand. I really liked the way that the wire ran up the side and twisted around the bottle. I thought this was very aesthetically pleasing. I also thought the contrast in colors from the dark bottles to the much lighter flowers was interesting. It would have been cool to see some more of your process even though it was somewhat of a simple project for you to complete. Good job!

    Reply
  • Taylor Whittemore
    February 11, 2019 1:20 pm

    Ibrahim,

    I really liked your project. I also used the idea of repurposing an old alcohol bottle because those were the ones that I had on hand at the time. In addition, I spent about 20 minutes peeling those damn labels off. I ended up using nail polish remover which worked great ( although I would guess it is unlikely that you have alot of that on hand).

    Reply
  • Ibrahim, nice work keeping things simple. I think you really did a nice job of picking a material and sticking with it.

    Have you considered cutting the neck of the bottles off to create a bit more effect?

    Reply

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