PVC Wine Bottle Holder

You know that saying- "Necessity is the Mother Of Invention"? Well that is totally the case here. Some might think that a wine bottle holder isn't a necessity but I beg to differ. I'm sort of a hoarder of wine- if I see it on clearance at the grocery store I'll grab a few bottles. It's a great way to try new wine and have some on hand for when company comes over.


In our old house we had a huge pantry and my wine hoarding wasn't an issue. In our new house we don't have a pantry, so my wine has been collecting underneath one of the cabinets. 

Hard to reach and difficult to find what I'm looking for.


So, enter this:

I saw this uber modern wine holder online at Umbra for $150 + shipping. Ouch. It's made of metal and pretty awesome, so I guess I understand the high price. Since buying is not an option I thought about how I could DIY this baby instead.

Hmmm, PVC pipe as a substitute? Yes!

And since I've been raving about my Dremel Tool lately this is a good tie in. I bought lengths at the hardware store. It was a little over $1 a foot. You can have them cut it down to the length you need so you won't have to buy a big giant long pipe. I used 4" and 1.5" pipe.

I used the plastic cutting bit of my Dremel to cut the pipe down further to 6" lengths, 6 of each size. You can use a mitre saw or hack saw to cut the pipe if you don't have a Dremel. Be sure to wear eye glasses and a mask- pipe dust gets everywhere!

Once I had all my pieces cut I used a sander so smooth out the edges. If you use a different kind of saw you might be able to skip this step, my edges were not completely even. Then clean all your pipes to get any dust or residue off.

After that I arranged my pipes in the pattern I wanted, looking at the original picture as a guide.

My main issue next was how to attach the pipes. There's plenty of ideas of how to attach them end to end, but side to side was a different story. I decided to use a mixture of screws and epoxy glue made for plastic. (*Note: I have recently learned that Pluming Adhesive would be best for this!) I used #8- 32 x 3/4" machine screws. We don't have a real hardware store in our town so this is the best Walmart had. They are long enough to fit through the 4" tubes where they connected and not to long on the ends where the 4" and 2" tubes connect. 

I marked the edges that needed screws then drilled 2 holes on either end 1" in from the ends. 

This was the hardest and most time consuming part. Marking each edge then drilling took some time but was successful in the end. After is was all together I used Locktite Epoxy Glue made for plastic (again all Walmart had- E6000 or another brand would work fine) and poured it into the crevices. Because the screws are attaching hard edge to hard edge, the joints were a little wobbly. The glue helped keep them in place. Next time I might try rubber washers and see how that does instead.

I let the glue cure for 24 hours, then it was time to paint! I used a white Rustoleum spray paint to cover any of the original markings on the PVC pipe and to disguise the screws.

Finito! Fini!

Now I can display our wine and not have to dig around for it in a cabinet. I'm like, a real wine connoisseur now.

For the pipe, screws, glue, and paint this whole project cost me around $20. Not bad for a modern wine rack!

How about you? Are most of you projects based on need?

Bake'n Up Some Christmas Cheer

Every year for Christmas I usually bake up a bunch of goodies to give to friends and neighbors. This year I still baked up some goods but with a different spin. 


I saw this cute project on Prudent Baby and wanted to try it out. She used Salt Dough to make ornaments, garland, and gift tags for their home. 

I thought I would try it out for small gifts this year. I have some of the highlights but for complete instructions check out Prudent Baby.

Start with your ingredients: 1/4 cup of salt

                                                1/4 cup of water

                                                1 cup of flour

Just mix, knead, roll, and use a cookie cutter to cut out your shapes.

Then bake for 5 hours (I know so long!) at 200 degrees. You want to dry out and harden the dough but not brown it. And just a side note- Be sure to warn your husband that these particular cookies are not for eating. Otherwise he'll be sure to take a bite and then ask you how you could even think of giving these to people. (True story)

Then it's time to decorate! I painted some parts then used Elmers glue and glitter to decorate the rest.

I had fun with this project, it's been a long time since I used glitter and glue. And I thought it was nice to give something to my friends that would last a long time, since the stuff I usually bake doesn't!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!

T-Shirt Headbands

If you've been following my blog for a while you may have figured out I'm passionate about a few things- finding stuff on the side of the road and redoing it, and my son Connor and making stuff for him. But what you may not know is that I'm also passionate about something else- running. I was trying to think of how I could combine my passions- making "stuff" and running.

Most gear for running is specialized, but I got to thinking about the hair bands that I wear. They are pretty plain, but get the job done. How could I jazz them up a bit?

This made me think about all the T-shirts we have in our closet. We have tons! I should give them to Goodwill but if you've been to a Goodwill lately they already have tons of T-shirts of their own. So I decided to recycle some of my old shirts to "fancy" up my running headbands.

I began by cutting strips out of the shirts.

Then folded the seams under and wrapped the strip around the headband. I left some of the band open at the bottom so it would still stretch enough to fit over my head.

I proceeded to sew it closed.

I sewed the ends closed so the fabric will not slide around.

I made some fancified ones as well:

I created one of those cute fabric flowers I've been seeing around. It was easy to make. I just twisted the fabric around on itself.

Then hot glued it on.

For this one I didn't use a T-shirt but used some of the scraps leftover from the pillow I made last week. (Apologies for the pictures- the hubs is out for the month on duty, so unless Con-Man learns how to use a camera this is the best I can do!)

Now I have cute headbands for every occassion all for the cost of elastic headbands; only $3.

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