Rainbow Bottle, Pot-O-Gold luminary

Do you have a cupboard filled with empty glass jars to be recycled? You can convert them into a vibrant array of rainbow bottle luminary. For St. Patrick's Day, we gifted the rainbow bottles to CJ teachers with Shamrock stem planted in it. So here we go with the array!



We created four different pattern of rainbow bottles - Pot-o-Gold,Tissue paper strips wrapped,Horizontal,Vertical decoupaged rainbow bottles

We used masking technique for painting the rainbow colors on the bottles and so it's a Kid friendly, Fun Rainbow project

Materials Used:

Recycled Glass Jar
Gift tissue Paper
Gloss-Lustre Mod Podge
Thick Paint Brush
Recycled Styrofoam container to mix up mod podge
Permanent markers/Dry Erase marker
Lace/Ribbon
Clothespin
Tea light Or LED light

Flashlight(optional)

Steps Overview:

Horizontal decoupaged rainbow bottle

Cut white gift tissue paper into strips(1.5 or 2 inches wide and 3 or 4 inches long).

Thin mod podge my mixing a small portion of it with water in a Styrofoam container.

Paint mod podge onto outside of the glass jar in small section and lay down a strip of tissue paper and smooth it down as shown below



Complete the whole jar in the same way. Let it dry

Painting the rainbow colors

1. Mask/Wrap the tissue paper glass jar with masking tape strips in horizontal direction. Don't overlap the masking tape
2. Start painting from the top/bottom of the bottle. Since I had left a space at the top of the bottle, I started painting from the top.
3. Mask the painted red strip and Remove the adjacent masking strip. Paint the space orange
4. Remove the masking tape from red and place it on the painted orange strip. Remove the adjacent masking tape. Paint/Color yellow.
5. Repeat the above step for all the other colors and complete the Rainbow bottle.

Let the paint dry and finally apply a coat of gloss-lustre mod-podge (optional)

Finally spruce up by wrapping/gluing a coordinating ribbon to the neck of the bottle. Until the ribbon dried, I used a clothespin to hold the ribbon in place.

CJ working on her Rainbow bottle

Pot-O-Gold

For the Pot-o-Gold, create the base bottle just as in the horizontal rainbow bottle. But since we are going to create the sky background. You can use strips of blue tissue paper.

Outline the Pot-O-Gold and the Rainbow with a marker

Start taping the Masking tape as slanting stripes as shown below and mask the Pot-o-gold. Here I have overlapped the masking tape because I needed thinner strips.


Create the Rainbow painting as per the steps in the horizontal rainbow bottle





When the rainbow painting is completed. Remove all the other masking tape and mask the surface around the pot-o-gold alone. Now color the pot-o-gold black.


On top of the pot, add gold glitter for the Gold.

Let the paint dry and finally apply a coat of gloss-lustre mod-podge (optional)

Finally spruce up by wrapping/gluing a coordinating ribbon to the neck of the bottle.

Vertical decoupaged rainbow Bottle

We created the rainbow bottle same as the horizontal rainbow bottle by masking the bottle in vertical strips of masking tape.

Tissue paper strips wrapped

We created these bottles just like Rainbow frilled pencil.

Measure the length of the bottle. Based on the length, cut rainbow color tissue paper strips. Apply glue to the length of the papers. Adhere smoothly to the bottle and wrap around in the order of rainbow. If using Mod podge apply the Mod podge to the bottle and gently wrap the tissue paper strips to the bottle.

Let the tissue paper dry and finally apply a coat of gloss-lustre mod-podge (optional)

Finally spruce up by wrapping/gluing a coordinating ribbon to the neck of the bottle.

As I had mentioned in the Rainbow frilled pencil post, we can also use - Rainbow crepe paper strips

The rainbow bottle can hold candy coins(Pot-o-Gold) or candy treats! Can be used as pencil holders or a pretty flower Vase. Also as decor for Rainbow themed party. Rainbows brighten my day, Ray of hope!


We enjoyed the illuminated view by adding tea lights inside the bottle.


CJ also had fun flashing flashlight into the bottles.

Flashlight View