One green bottle

I have a pretty simple taste in alcohol.....gin, lager, martini, Pimms, and champagne, yes rather an eclectic mix isn't it. The challenge over at PaperArtsy for this fortnight is bottles, so I needed a bottle to decorate. After singing 10 green bottle countless time I finally got round to creating a piece for the challenge which also fitted in with some lovely new June challenges out in blogland. The themes everywhere are summer sunshine which suits me fine. The first thing I associate with bottles and summer sunshine is sipping lager on our wonderful annual holidays in Rhodes. Lots of you will have seen these photos but for those who haven't ...............this  really is a drink with a view.

This photo was taken last September and it really made me think of the beach. Now I don't have any Mythos bottles but I opened my fridge and took out one of these......

a small bottle of french lager or "Golden beer" as the label states. I had no empty ones so I made the brave decision to open this and pour away the lager as I wanted the bottle to decorate...well I could not really be drinking lager at 1pm at home, now could I?

I went down to my studio and decided to recreate my Rhodes sunshine memories on my bottle.

I spend hours walking along the beach looking for shells when we go the beach on holiday and I always bring a few home to add to the jar I keep in my studio. I had one of my light bulb moments...why not add some to the bottle? I would make a treasures of the sea bottle. I can remember as a child decorating flower pots with shells by pushing shells into plaster. I thought about what I could use as I don't have any plaster. I decided that grunge paste might work.

 I chose some beach like Fresco finish paints (I won this set in a challenge)

 I painted 2 coats of Caribbean blue, added some crackle paint and then a coat of Banana

 and watched the crackles appear

 I love the way the blue sea colour shines through

I found some sea themed charms and coloured them with alcohol inks and I filled a tiny corked bottle with glitter which could be "Mermaid scales" (I still believe in mermaids just like I do fairies and Father Christmas :0) I also tied in an interesting shell which had a convenient hole. I added strings and some remnant rubs to the tiny bottle

I then started attaching some shells to the base using grunge paste and added some stamping. 

I bet you are wondering if this all worked out..................................................................................................................................................................................................................yes I am delighted to say it did and here is my finished beach treasure bottle.

 I went over the Grunge paste with yellow and brown acrylic paint to look like sand. I just love the way the crackle paint worked.

 Here are some of the charms. The beach themed stamps are made by Crafty Individuals.

 I could not resist adding one of my lampwork glass beads from my stash.

 You can see that I added "bubbles"with white acrylic paint dabbed on using bottle tops. I even added some of my doodling with a thin paint brush to add to the effect.

I would like to enter my one green bottle into the following challenges;

Paper Artsy #10 Bottles

Love 2 Create anything goes mixed media

Allsorts vintage

Mixed Media World Vintage

That Craft Place shabby chic

The artistic stamper summer is on its way

Vintage stamping hot sunny colours

Our creative corner what makes you smile just looking at my bottle makes me smile and remember sunny days on the beach. Roll on the summer!

Rhedd's creative spirit anything goes

Craft my life anything goes but cards

Creative Inspirations for a friend

Noor! UK Here comes summer

Crafting Muskateers Shades of summer

If the forecasters have got it right we may be heading into a really flaming June here in the UK...I hope so.....I adore the feel of the sunshine on a balmy summer's day.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x