Upcycled Cement Vase Using a Plastic Bottle

Cement DIYs have been super on trend for a while, but somehow I haven't got to make anything with this material before. I actually found it surprisingly easy and inexpensive, making the mold out of cardboard is free and the pack of cement, for me was less than 3€.The only bummer is the drying time, this piece took me a whole week to dry, but I think that might be different depending on the mixture of concrete you get.

Materials: Cement | Water | Mixing Bowl | Plastic Bottle | Iron | Cardboard box | Acrylic Paints | Paintbrush | Painters Tape | Scissors | Sanding Paper

Start by cutting your bottle just a little before the center.

Melt the edge of the plastic using an iron, this will give the edge a better finish. Protect the iron with a piece of wax paper and tape to hold it. Press the plastic to the iron until the edge starts to melt and curve inwards.

As a mold I’m using this coffee capsule box, that is a perfect size.I don’t want the bottle to peak-trough the base of the vase, so I’m going to start by preparing a smaller batch of cement to fill just the bottom. Pour that into the box, spread and tap it to release any air bubbles. Let it sit until it has slightly hardened, in my case it was about 15 minutes.

After that, I placed the bottle inside and filled the rest of the box with cement.2 hours later, I was able to remove the cardboard box, to help the cement dry a bit faster.This took me about a week to fully dry, but it may depend on the type of cement you are using and the size of the piece.

Once it was dry I sanded the top and sides. If you feel like the cement is starting to crumble a bit, it may not be fully dry, if this happens, leave it to dry a bit more and check on it again later.

As for the paint, I used painters tape to create the diagonal lines and painted it in two layers, green first and orange on top.