Halloween- Potion Bottles

No witches kitchen is complete without an array of weird and wonderful (or hideous and terrifying) potions.

Things you will need-

• Empty glass bottles of any size
• Water and milk
• Food colouring or coloured ink
• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue or sticky labels
• Brown, yellow and black paint
• Wax candle and/or cork stoppers

Before you start make sure your bottles are clean and undamaged, you don't want food residue making mould in your potions or a small crack leaking your potion all over the floor. If you don't have a stash of glass bottles try asking around your friends and family for some of their recycling. You can also use plastic bottles for this if you don't have glass available but glass will look more authentic. 

The bottles above from left to right contain- water and blue food colouring, water and coffee grounds, and milk. Adding coffee grounds to your potions will not only change the colour of the liquid but will also add a floating scum to the surface of the potion. Adding a bit of milk to your potions will make them cloudy or opaque rather than transparent. You can mix and match your food colours (or inks if you are using inks instead) with the various colours of your bottles to create either dramatic eye catching shades or muted sinister looking sludges. 

To create labels for your bottles draw out one half of the shape you want your label to be, these can be as unusual or as simple as you like. Fold the design in half along the vertical axis and cut it out to create a symmetrical shape. I suggest drawing your designs on scrap paper first and then tracing around the edges onto either a sticky label or plain paper so that your final label doesn't have a fold line down the centre. 

Once you have cut out your labels apply a small amount of watered down brown or yellow paint to age the paper. For the label below I used a yellow ochre all over and a burnt umber around the edges. After the paint has dried use a black paint (or black ink if you prefer) to write out the name of the potion and even add an illustration if you are so inclined.  

To finish off the potion bottles you can either use a cork stopper or create a wax seal. To make the seal first scrunch a piece of paper over the top of the bottle and cut out a circle along the line made by the edge of the bottle. Place the cut circle of paper on the top of the bottle. 

For the next part you need to use a lit candle so please use extreme caution not to burn yourself or set fire to anything. If you are young please either do this next step with adult supervision or better still ask an adult to do it for you. If you don't have a crafting desk I also strongly advise putting down a sheet or two of newspaper so you don't drip wax on anything you shouldn't. Take your lit candle and very carefully drip wax onto the circle of paper. Go slowly and once you have dripped wax all around the seal to hold it in place you can add more drops of wax down the side of the bottle for visual interest.