Repurposed Vintage Bottles - Hanging Vases

Oh, how I love this time of year – Yard Sale and Auction Season! It’s all about the find and how the find can be repurposed! I was at an amazing barn sale this weekend full of wonderful old things – old galvanized buckets, garden tools, feed sacks, enamelware, furniture . . . I could go on and on! I’m always tempted at sales like this to buy with abandon, but I don’t have a warehouse to store all this stuff (and, it’s really just stuff). So, I have put limits on myself for what I buy. I want the items I purchase to be useful, work in my decor, and be versatile (useful in different situations – like decorating at home or for a party).

Vintage Soda “Torpedo” Bottles

At this barn sale, there was an enamelware basin with several of these green glass bottles. At first, I thought they were just your typical old glass bottle- like an apothecary bottle. But then I picked one up and was like – “whoa, the bottom of this bottle is round!” I asked the owner what the bottles had been used for and she said they were soda bottles used in the early 1900’s.

The glass is super thick and full of imperfections that, to me, make it more valuable than a brand new crystal decanter! Oh, I do like shiny and new, but a repurposed vintage bottle has a story. So, I brought home three of these green glass bottles with an idea in mind.

My idea was to hang these old bottles with some twine and wire and use them as hanging vases to hold flower cuttings all summer! You could do the same thing with a vintage mason jar or any old bottle. Just wrap some 20 gauge wire to fit tightly around the neck of the jar or bottle. Make two round loops with the wire to attach a twine hanger (see the photo above). I tacked small nails into the top of my kitchen window trim to hold each twine hanger, but you could also tie the twine to a curtain rod. I decided to stagger them a bit in height to add more interest.

Repurposed Vintage Bottles – Hanging Vases

So, what do you think of my repurposed vintage soda bottles? I think they meet all my buying criteria – they are useful, work in my decor, and they can be repurposed to use in other ways! So, have you ever seen this kind of bottle? And, do you like to go to yard sales, barn sales, and auctions too? Let me know if you’d like to see more of my finds!