As a blogger you have to be prepared and aware of upcoming holidays/seasons. We usually start Halloween crafts in July and Christmas in August, but sometimes inspiration strikes you at the last minute. These pin-up ornaments are exactly that! I’ve seen so many fun ideas and crafts out of the labels, so I wanted to come up with a quick and easy holiday-themed idea. If you’ve tried to remove a Sailor Jerry label before and were unsuccessful, don’t be discouraged! I ruined 2 labels while trying to make this project, but hopefully you’ve been stockpiling your empty bottles so you have a few to work with. If you don’t have more than one empty bottle, are you really going to be all that upset that you have to buy more rum? Right! Didn’t think so! Pour yourself a drink and get crafting!
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Supplies:
3-4 empty Sailor Jerry Rum bottles
Hot water
Scissors
Recycled cardboard (cereal or beer boxes work best)
Mod Podge
Foam brush or paint brush
Nail or tack
Twine or ornament hooks (essentially a paperclip)
(1.) Fill your bottles with hot water and let them sit for about 5 minutes. The heat will loosen up the adhesive on the bottle so the label peels back easier. (2.) Pick at a corner and slowly start to pull back. Like I said, sometimes you hit the jackpot and they peel off with no problem, but if you get a few tears, don’t sweat it too much. It will give it a kind of weathered or aged look anyway, so just tell everyone it was intentional!
(3.) Once your label is off, cut around the edges of the pin-up, leaving just a small space at the very top for you to put a small hole into later. (4.) Brush a coat of Mod Podge onto the cardboard and place your pin-up on top (image facing you). Run your finger over the top and edges to smooth out wrinkles or air bubbles. Repeat with remaining labels. Let them dry for 10-15 minutes. (5.) Cut out of the cardboard, around the edges of the pin-up. If it starts to curl up, just place the pin-ups between two heavy books for 30 minutes or so. This usually happens from the way you have to bend them when cutting around the edges. (6.) Take a nail or tack and push into the top of the ornament, creating a small hole for the twine or ornament hooks to go through.
Feed twine through or place a hook in and hang it up or tie it around a present to use as a gift tag!
Have a very Jerry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Lauren Vee says
These are amazing. I used to have about 50 labels collaging my fridge but after a recent move they all went missing !:( I was already bummed about it but now even more so after seeing this awesome project you created. Guess I’ll have to start hitting the bottle a little more and start working on it for next year. Hopefully I can find a Christmas edition bottle too for one of these. Thanks for the post!
Mariah Elmore says
I love all the art ideas you have with Sailor labels. It’s definitely sparked an interest, but I have a couple questions as well. Do different sized bottles have different label art or can the same label be found on all bottle sizes? Also, does the size of the bottle change the size of the art piece? Thanks, Sasha!
Sasha says
Thanks Mariah! And nope! Whether it’s the big handle bottles, 750ml bottles, or 1/5th, the pin-up on the label stays the same. The hulu pin-up on the front is slightly smaller than the one on the back of the label, but other than that, no difference. Usually I see the same pin-up on multiple stocked bottles, but you can always peek through and see which one it is so you can hopefully grab a few bottles with different pin-ups.