Recycled Soda Bottles Are Great For Giving Treats!

When I figured out this earth friendly packaging trick a few years ago, I was so excited! The shiny bottle makes the hand printed paper inside look amazing, and as you may already know, I just love projects that involve recycling. I’ve used this idea several times for giving treats on Purim, but you can certainly pull this one out of your hat any time you need a packaging idea for home baked goods or even a small present!

I would recommend printing or stamping your own paper for a completely unique presentation, but if you just don’t have the time or the inclination, so you could certainly use some gorgeous scrap-booking paper. For some ideas on how to go about creating your own patterned paper, I’ve described stamping with large foam stamps (bottom photo) here, printing with objects from the kitchen (top photo) here, making your own stamps here, and  making prints with styro-foam trays here. And of course you could also pull out the potatoes and do some potato prints as well. So get a head start on this project and print your paper now!

You’ll Need:

• Clear soda or other drink bottles
• Patterned Paper (that you’ve hopefully printed yourself)
• Ribbon
• Cellophane
• A strong hole punch, my old fashioned metal one works great

How To:

1. Using a sharp knife, cut off the top curved portion of your bottle, and even it out with scissors. The height of your bottle is up to you, I’ve always used the maximum height that I could, but you could certainly make them short and cute to hold something small.
2. Cut your paper to the exact height of the straight portion of the bottle. Depending on the shape of the bottom of your bottle, you will probably not want the paper to extend to the bottom of the bottle as it won’t lie flat in that portion.
3. Insert paper into bottle and secure paper to itself with a piece of tape.
4. You may want to use a few clothespins or bulldog clips to hold paper in place so that top edge of paper lines up exactly with top edge of bottle.
5. Punch evenly spaced holes through both the paper and the bottle at the same time
6. Lace ribbon through the holes moccasin style — the nicest finish I came up with given the rough edge of the soda bottle.
7. Place cellophane in bottle and then the present or treat, tie with ribbon and trim cellophane to desired  height.
8. Give to friends and family and get showered with a ton of compliments! Take credit if you like, but do tell them about my blog, would you?

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