Soda Bottle Organizers With Hand Printed Cherry Blossom Paper

Cherry blossom crafts or in our case actually Almond blossom crafts are so much fun and a perfect way to add some color to a dreary winter! With the Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shevat (the New Year for the trees) coming up in another three or so weeks, now is the time to get crafting for the holiday, right?  And since I can always use more little containers to hold brushes and pens and other supplies while I'm in the middle of a project, I figured that these soda bottle organizers would be a perfect way to enjoy the cherry blossom paper that I stamped! Not to mention that these recycled soda bottle organizers are a great way to showcase children's art or a piece of your favorite paper, as the shinyness of the plastic bottle makes everything look great.

In the past I have made recycled soda bottle gift containers for Purim and actually affixed the paper to the bottle by punching holes and lacing with ribbon. This time I tried something new and created a similar effect using washi tape, though I love this idea either way. And of course one can easily make storage containers that hang by simply punching either one hole (to use with one of those s-shaped hooks) or two to hang with string from a towel bar or hook or a even door handle.

You'll Need:

• recycled plastic soda bottles
• decorative paper, or handstamped cherry blossom paper
• washi tape

To Make Handstamped Cherry Blossom Paper:

• colored card stock
• a tracing of a cherry blossom in several sizes
• a carbon pencil
• a carving block
• a carving tool
• an ink stamp pad or actuall ink and the necessary supplies for printing

Step 1: I love using my computer as a light box, so I found some cherry blossom clip art and then after resizing for my needs, I traced the images right off of my screen, whaddyaknow!

Step 2: I transferred the line drawings to my carving block by simply going over the back of the images with my carbon pencil, and then I placed the paper on top of the carving block and traced over the lines which as you certainly know, leaves a copy of the artwork on the surface. (yes not so crisp, but it worked…..)

Step 3: I carefully carved the cherry blossom images to make stamps. Yes, I'll try to take a photo of them and place them here soon.

Step 4: I used a black stamp pad to apply ink to my carvings and stamped them onto pink paper.

Step 5: I cut open plastic bottles and after deciding on the desired height, but them nicely.

Step 6: I placed my sheets of cherry blossom paper folded to size (I like ot fold over the edges for extra durability) into the bottles and then affixed them to the bottle with washi tape. By running a strip of washi tape around the outside, with only half the height on the bottle, such that the other half gets folded down onto the paper. Add another piece of washi tape to the inside for neatness and then add more washi tape to the outside of the bottle if desired for decoration. 

Enjoy!