A Message in a Bottle

Hello everyone!! I have a post up over on The Twinery's blog today and wanted to share it with you as well!

For today's project I wanted to share with you something I put together for my son's birthday.  This was based on one of the most creative pieces of mail I have ever received!! I think I gasped when I received it and then immediately thought about how I could use that same idea some day...and I did!

So, what did I receive?  It was a plastic bottle with a message inside!  How fun!!  I took that same concept and created a gift for my son.   Mason loves to get money so that he can buy the toys he's been eyeing.  I didn't want to just give him the cash for his birthday, I wanted a fun way to package it too, so this was the perfect way to do that!

This is what the gift looked like when I finished with it.  I"ll tell you a little bit about what is inside the bottle first and then I'll show you some more detailed photos.

I created a little note to put inside the bottle.  I used the same quote that was on the message that I had received in the mail because it was so cute.  I created this in Microsoft Publisher and put it way at the top of the page so that when I rolled it, it would be on the outside of the scroll.

Here is a closeup of the top.

Subway art is so popular right now and the look is so fun that I decided to create a print on the back of the scrolled note with a birthday message for my son, Mason (it was about time to change some of my ink cartridges so there are some lines in it).  Rolled up along with this note was the birthday money so when he unrolled the scroll, not only did he get the birthday message, he also found the money!

On this picture you can see the message on the scroll that is rolled up.  I had to roll it up really, really tight so that it would fit inside the opening in the bottle. 

To allow the scroll to be pulled out of the bottle without spilling the sand and seashells out, I first rolled the scroll tight and attached rubber bands on the ends to hold it in place while I tied the new Denim twine & Maraschino Twinery twine tightly around the center.  I left the ends of the twine really long.  On the part of the twine that would be in the bottom of the bottle, I cut it so that it would fall right to the bottom of the sand.  I then inserted the scroll into the bottle keeping the other end of the twine outside the bottle and then pushed the cork in to hold the twine in place.  I tied a key charm to the twine (which can be purchased at a craft store) that would allow Mason to pull on to get the message out of the bottle and then I cut the twine to the length I wanted.  

This is what the bottom of the bottle looks like.  It has a little bit of sand and seashells in it. I unraveled the twine slightly to make it look more roughed up. So much fun!

I also wanted to continue the "earthy" theme on the outside of the bottle too but not overdo it since it was suppose to look like it had washed up on shore.  So, I wrapped a little bit of the new Buttercream twine around the outside and tied it in a knot.  No pretty bow either.  Just a plain knot.  Remember, it washed up on shore, lol!!

If you are looking for some bottles to try this yourself, I did some searching for you and found a few options to share (there are a lot more out there, but this gives you a place to start:

Tropical Sand Art Bottles $8 per dozen

Plastic Sand Art Bottles $20 for 24

Plastic Message Bottles 99 cents each  (price goes down even more after purchasing 10)

I also found that places like Hobby Lobby sell plastic bottles in various shapes for sand art.  Most of these seem to come with a plastic cap but you can buy cork toppers separately.

Sand Art Bottles 99 cents each

Corks (various prices, various sizes)

Of course if you aren't planning to mail this, glass would work great too and you can find those at many of your large craft stores as well!

I hope that you enjoyed this project and that it inspired you!

Did you enjoy The Twinery's Anniversary Celebration last week!! It was a lot of fun for me to hop around and see all of the cool projects made using The Twinery's fabulous twine! If you didn't get a chance to hop, you can still see all of the projects made by visiting the links on The Twinery's blog (just scroll down a bit to find the Echo Park Paper & Scorpal blog hop threads)! The prizes have already been given out, but there is plenty of inspiration waiting to be seen!

Thank you for stopping by today!! I'd love to hear if you make one of these projects!  Have a wonderful day!