Wine Bottle Cactus (or Jewelry Hanger)

This Instructable is for a wine bottle cactus! Once finished with the Instructable, you can use the cactus as a plant or as a jewelry hanger for small pieces of jewelry such as bracelets.

The best part of this project is that it uses materials that might already be laying around your house!

Another great part of this project is that the final cactus makes the coolest shadow EVER!

haha

Enjoy!

Elana

Necessary Materials:

-terracotta pot (sold at craft stores and maybe home depot too if you don't have any around your house) or another kind of pot to put the wine bottle cactus in

-metal hooks (for the "thorns". sold at Home Depot)

-hot glue gun and sticks (Can use E6000 or another glue but I used hot glue because it dries quickly so its easy to use for gluing on the hooks)

-pebbles (enough to fill up your pot OR you can fill the bottom of the pot with cardboard and top it off with pebbles. that is what I did)

-modge podge

-disposable cup or bowl (I used a solo cup. It is needed for mixing the pebbles and modge podge)

-disposable spoon

Optional (but recommended) materials:

-artificial flowers (on smaller side)

-epoxy (great for adhering the wine bottle to the bottom of the pot. I was shaking it after the epoxy dried and it wasn't wiggling at all. You can also use hot glue just make sure to secure the bottom by packing rocks or cardboard around the base of the wine bottle when its glued in the terracotta pot)

-spray acrylic coating (for protecting the paint on the pot)

Optional materials:

-paint and paint brush to paint your terracotta pot

-paint pens or paint and small paint brush to draw details on the pot

-sharpie to mark thorn placement

Paint a base coat of paint onto your pot. I needed to paint 2 coats of paint onto my pot (letting first coat dry completely before starting second coat).

Be sure to paint the edge of the pot and the inside rim. This way when there are pebbles in the pot, you dont have to fill them all the way up past the edge to hide the unpainted part.

(not pictured because I sprayed my pot on the side alley of my grandparents house at night!)

I sprayed my pot with a clear coat of acrylic spray because I thought it would make it easier to paint details onto it later.

Let dry completely.

Use wire cutters or gardening cutters to cut the flowers off the stems. Cut as close to the flower as possible because that will make them the most flat to the cactus when they are glued onto the bottle.

If your pot is dry from the base coat, use your paint pens to draw on your painted pot.

I noticed that towards the end of my doodling, the paint pen started getting weird where I had to pump some paint out then drag it. So if you have a steady hand, you could use a small paint brush and contrasting color paint instead.

I did this step and it helped somewhat but if you put a mark in a bad place you can't really get rid of it.

-Use sharpie to mark where you want your thorns to go.

-Be sure to make the arrangement somewhat natural looking while giving space to have jewelry hang on it if you want to use it as a jewelry hanger.

Use hot glue or alternative glue to glue your largest flower onto the top of your wine bottle cactus base (so actually the bottom of the wine bottle)

Use hot glue or your alternative glue to adhere the hooks onto the wine bottle. Make sure you space them out so you can hang jewelry on them if you wish later when it is done. If you put marks on your bottle, cover the marks on the bottle with hooks.

Use hot glue or alternative glue to adhere more flowers onto your bottle. Try to spread them out in a natural pattern as if it was a real cactus without letting the flowers get in the way of hanging jewelry on the hooks if you want to do that later.

This step is for people who did not have enough pebbles to fill up the terracotta pot once the wine bottle is glued in it.

-Hot glue small pieces of cardboard into the base of the pot. At the very bottom of the pot, I glued the edges of cardboard pieces perpendicular to the bottom of the terracotta pot. Next, I glued small pieces of cardboard to the top of the cardboard I just glued down but this time I glued them parallel to the bottom of the pot. This will create a platform for the pebbles to sit on!

Mix a small amount of modge podge with some pebbles. If the pebbles are really white, add more pebbles to your cup/bowl.

Next, spoon the rocks onto the cardboard in the pot. Fill in all the space around the wine bottle. Be sure to fill in all the space from wine bottle to terracotta pot edge.

Use spoon to gently press the pebbles down. This will make sure that when the pebbles dry, they will stick together and to the base (cardboard or bottom of the pot).

I have found that the modge podge dries very quickly when it is outside in the sun as compared to inside under artificial light.

If you make this project on a non sunny day, it will just take longer to dry.

Either use it as an artificial plant or as a jewelry hanger! Your pick!

I am entering this Instructable into a few contests. If you liked this project feel free to vote!