Egg shell Mosaic art on Wine bottle

GreenCraft Magazine is accepting submissions for their Semi annual April issue. They say "The GreenCraft Magazine will provide ideas for repurposing trash to treasure by showcasing projects where waste is repurposed into ecologically chic creations". I got this message from Maya*Made Blog. Her article and inspiring words gave me a bump and I gave it a try! Here I go with my wine bottle mosaic art:-)

Obsessed by the recycle banners and Go-green statements I glance into my recycling bin before going to the recycle center. Sort out the things and hold some of the items to quench my creative thirst. Wine bottles are one of them. Decorated wine bottles can serve as a decoration, show piece, Flower vase, Peacock feathers holder or a special gift to someone who adores it. Some of the wine bottles may be special given by someone that meant a lot to you and you want to treasure them and here is a special way! Additional plus it's a great way to recycle the wine bottle.

Materials used:

Empty Wine Bottle
Glue or Decoupage medium like Mod Podge
Egg shells cleaned and dried
Acrylic Paint(less expensive)
Rice grains
Pearl Tapioca or any decorative beads
Fennel seeds or Evergreen leaves
Permanent markers
Thin paper or construction paper

Steps overview:
Wine Bottle Base

Remove the wine bottle label without damaging/creating scratches in the bottle. The wine bottle I used had plastic-like sticker that would come-off easily. So I soaked the bottle in warm water with few drops of dish wash soap for 30 minutes and removed the label. It came off clean.
Allow the bottle to dry

Mosaic Pattern

Outline the picture elements of your interest with markers. Recently I got smitten by the beauty of peacocks. So I drew the outline of the Peacock design on the wine bottle in vertical position
Collect some eggshells. Rinse them with soap water, water and if possible try to remove inner membrane. To do this just break off a little shell from the edge and peel the inner white membrane at the same time. Let dry.
Paint some of your eggshells using acrylic craft paint. I painted the egg shells with some shiny blue, green, brown acrylic craft paints..Let them dry.
Starting from an outside edge of the pattern begin your mosaic. I started from the peacock neck. Brush on some white glue or Mod podge in the area you want to fill in. Break off a piece of shell that is approx the same size that you want to fill.
Place over the glue. With your finger tip press the egg shell flat. It will break up and form mosaic pattern. Continue working until the entire form is covered. I covered the neck portion and body of the peacock. Created the mosaic pattern for the Tree branch and leaves.

Now came the most difficult part. For the feathers It was very difficult to fill the small portions. So I followed the below method. Sorry I missed to take pictures of the method. Will try to do the below step again and post the pictures
Take some Non-colored egg shells. Take a sheet of white paper. Brush some glue/podge on the paper. Take pieces of shell, place on top of the glue and then using your finger press down flat. Complete the full sheet of paper as per requirement. Allow the full sheet to dry for a night.
Draw the Feather patterns on the Egg shell Mosaic paper sheet. Paint the feathers as desired and Cut out the feathers. Stick the feathers of the peacock in desired pattern.
Now coming to the lines of the feathers, I wanted to use evergreen thin leaves. But because of rain I was unable to get them. So I used Fennel seeds. Draw glue lines and glue the fennel seeds in desired pattern. I painted the fennel strings with Metallic golden acrylic paint
For the peacock head feathers, I used some pearl tapioca. Alternative can be decorative beads.
I have decorated the flower and leaves patterns with Pearl Tapioca and Rice grains. Painted them with permanent markers.
I was going to end the design pattern with this and took a picture of the wine bottle.

The neck of the bottle and left hand side top area was looking empty. So created a Grape wine pattern in the left hand side top area. For the grapes punch, glued pearl tapioca in grapes pattern on a piece of paper. Allowed it to dry and cut the pattern. Glued the pattern on the Wine bottle.
For the wine bottle neck I arranged some pearl tapioca as a ring, colored it and Glued a ribbon bow.
To give a rich look for the pattern I have outlined the whole design pattern with Metallic golden color acrylic paint.
And That's it a beautiful decorated wine bottle ready to be gifted or to treasure for yourself. I love the Egg shell Mosaic technique. They dont look like egg shell, they give a tile mosaic look.