Re-purpose Water Bottles & Storage Bags As Painting Supplies
It's always cool to find ways to get your money's worth out of items that you would otherwise no longer have a use for. Here are a few tips and uses for water bottles and storage bags that are often used only once and discarded. If you find yourself a first time artist or even a seasoned painter and don't want to shell out dollars upon dollars for fancy supplies that go along with it, try these to get you started.
Water Bottle Tops
It is the way of a painter to have their array of color set before them while they paint. Some may have a tray called a palette. They could also paint directly from the bottle but that could be a problem when wanting to mix colors. However, if you use water bottles on a daily basis and your trash can or recycling bin is bubbling over with plastic bottles then why not use their tops and caps to help you create your next masterpiece? Their size and material allow it to be the perfect item to put your paints in. It's also a cheaper route than using fancy palettes. This also goes for beer bottle tops too!
Water Bottle Bottoms
If you have a sharp knife or box cutter handy, the bottoms of the water bottle can be used for holding larger quantities of paint. Just make sure you are careful when wielding your sharp objects while cutting as to not cut yourself. Also, be careful with the newly made edge of your plastic bottle. It can make an irritating or deep cut on your hands.
Cut Tops of Water Bottle
Lets face it, no one wants to use their nice cups to clean their dirty paint brushes before moving on to their next brush strokes. If you're able to find old cups you don't need anymore to use for painting, great. But if you find yourself buying disposable cups to do the deed and are a bottle water drinker, cut your costs and make your water bottles work for you instead. When using non-disposable cups or bowls to hold your paintbrush water, paint can end up drying onto them and be a chore to remove. Using your newly-purposed water bottles are an easy solution to avoid the extra work. Also, the height of these revamped bottles can be used for holding your paintbrushes as well.
Re-sealable Storage Bags
There are lots of opportunities for wasting paint. If you mix too much paint what do you do with the excess? Exhausted after slaving over a painting but don't want to throw away the paint you didn't finish using? Storage bags can be the solution. Storing your paints in bottle caps or their bottoms can easily be stored in storage bags to keep them from drying out. As long as the bag is sealed, the air-tight nature of a storage bag keeps the air from drying that perfect color you're trying to protect. It also saves you from throwing away unnecessary paint that can be used for later projects.
**Side note: When cutting up water bottles, also cut up the center of the body of the water bottle to allow it to be open in order to prevent animals from getting caught in them.
