diy vintage milk bottles (another Ikea hack!)

When I was browsing at Ikea, I came across the Ensidig Vase collection in the marketplace and they reminded me of vintage milk bottles. I picked up a few and decided to try a little DIY project - inspired by the ones I saw here. First I started by designing two milk / dairy logos. Sites I like for fonts are Veer (paid fonts) and DaFont (free fonts). You can see what your text will look like before committing to buy or, downloading.

With my two logos designed I started to try to figure out how to apply the image to the glass. I first tried the approach of putting the design in the bottle and tracing it (like this) but I had disastrous results - it wasn't as crisp and accurate as I wanted. So, I called up my printer guy I usually work with on special projects and asked if they did decals. We worked together to get the sizing right and... well. Below is how it all turned out!



Step one is to obviously apply the adhesive stencil onto the glass

Peel back the protective layer once the stencil is on the glass

Using the adhesive sheet you just pulled off, get out all of the air bubbles to make sure it's a really solid adhesion. A tip is to look at the back of the glass and you can see if any bubbles are appearing on the reverse. If you've ever used painters tape before, you know the worst case scenario is bleeding, so really take your time to make sure it's tight on the glass

I first tried to use acrylic paint on the stencil, and it didn't work at all. Major fail. The paint ended up peeling up with the stencil, so I tried it a second time using a spray paint. Tape up the rest of the bottle using painters tape and do a light spray over the stencil. Although you can use any spray potentially, I love the Krylon brand that you can pick up at Canadian Tire. The red colour above seemed to be the closest to the vintage milk bottle colours I had researched. After the first coat has dried, you'll do a second coat for a more solid finish.

You can turn the bottle over again and just make sure it's not bleeding through. Although it's likely too late at this point if it IS bleeding, you can just make sure it's ok.

Once the second coat is try - really carefully peel off the stencil. I found that you didn't actually have to be that careful, as the adhesion to the glass was amazing. But still, be careful especially if you have small details. Smaller areas I had to be slow at doing. You'll need an exacto knife to carefully remove the smaller pieces in letters like "R", D, and O.

And then I obviously had to do one for Oscar...

There you have it! Although for this particular project I utilized a local print shop, armed with the right knowledge of terminology you can most certainly be able to hire your local print shop to do the same thing. If you don't want to go to all that work sourcing a printer, then I had some extra "Milk" decals made, for you to grab in my shop. All you need to do is grab a glass jar, and a can of spray paint.

You can't put these in the dishwasher, however you can wash them by hand. (I did the dishwasher test and it washes away the paint)  I hope you like! I had SO much fun making these. And go grab some of the Ensidig Vases from Ikea - they make pretty awesome drink holders and I have a few more projects coming up with them.

Bottles: Ensidig Vase from Ikea
Artwork: Create your own art using graphic design software or, if you like mine you can grab a template here