Turn Old Wine Bottles into Picture Frames

old-bottles-picture-frame

Have I mentioned how much I love Pinterest? That’s where I found this cool little tutorial that doesn’t require a kiln or a torch… which means anyone can do it. It’s on the DIY Network’s web site and they are going to tell you how to make picture frames from old bottles. Recycling and repurposing are always good things.

Updated to add: This article doesn’t seem to exist, but I have made these since writing this post, so I will give you some basic instructions on how to make a picture frame using a recycled wine bottle.

There are a few different styles to making a wine bottle picture. You can stick the photo to the glass bottle or you can have it sitting in the bottle with shells or sand around it, this style is best suited to a recycled bottle that is large such as a whiskey bottle or rounded gin bottle.

Your recycled wine or gin bottle doesn’t have to be round to make a keepsake, any shape can be worked with. You may need some patience to position your photo, but everything is possible.

I would highly recommend using printed photos from a printer and not originals, especially if you are using old photos, you can scan the original photo and print out a copy to work with.

The glue I use is Polymer vinyl acetate or PVA Whie wood glue which dries clear. Mod Podge is also

You can fill these with Shells and Sea glass, consider collecting from your holiday to create a keepsake beach gift.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?