Functional Art Using Recycled Materials

With a wood pallet, glass bottles and little creativity you can help recycling efforts and create an elegant and functional piece of artwork. This project is going to use a wood pallet for the backing, glass bottles for the cups and a personalised message to create a unique piece of wall art that can also hold your pens or other items.

I created the cups by recycling glass bottles. Please refer to my Cutting Glass Bottles Instructable for a sure-fire way to create clean cut glassware from a bottle.

You will need:

• A pallet
• Pipe clamps
• Brad nailer
• Glass cups (Good Instructable here)
• Blue paint
• Silver paint
• Thick rubber bands
• Sandpaper
• Projector (optional)

Find a pallet that is not too damaged and take it apart. Once you have the boards taken off use a hammer to take out the nails.

Cut the boards to the desired length. Mine is about 35'' long. Use the extra pieces as the back supports. You will need one to go across the top and one for the bottom.

Use a brad nailer to nail the back supports to the front panels.

Once the boards are nailed together sand down the edges and any other parts that need to be sanded.

Start with one or two coats of primer. I only used one and the final colour turned out fantastic. Once the primer is completely dry paint on the blue. The shade of blue that I used is called Night Tides.

I used a projector to project this image onto the backing board. I then traced the words lightly with a pencil. Once I had traced the whole thing I painted it with silver paint.

First you will need to drill holes in the pipe clamps. The best tool for this step is the drill press. Next, mark your sign where you want the pipe clamps to be. Then screw the pipe clamps into place.

The jars I used for this were recycled bottles that I cut myself. If you would like to learn how to cut the jars please check out my Cutting Glass Bottles Instructable on how to cut the jars.

Place thick rubber bands around each of the jars where they will sit in the pipe clamps. This will prevent the jar from slipping as well as protect the jars from scratches that may occur from the pipe clamps.

Place the jars in the pipe clamps and tighten with the screw.

Now you have a beautiful and functional piece of art made from recycled materials.