Recycled Bottle Tiki Torches

I've been saving up every glass bottle for the last three years, or maybe even longer. From cheapy wine bottles to fancy tequila bottles to cool colored/shaped bottles. I've asked to keep bottles from parties I went to and even my mom knows to save bottles that are cool for me. The only thing I really haven't saved are beer bottles, but just because those are so much easier to come by and I don't currently have thoughts for a project that involves them.

More recently, most of them went into my garden as a little fence, and I also bought terracotta pot waterers for my tomatoes and used some recycled bottles there too. But I made sure to save about eight bottles purely for this project, recycled glass bottle tiki torches.

I'd seen this on pinterest ages ago and thought to myself, well shoot. I can do that! Looks so easy! And so I set out to save some cool bottles. Many of these bottles have even traveled with me from move to move and I'm so glad I saved them!

Here are my liquor bottles

I also saved blue and green wine bottles, these are at various stages of the tiki torch process

I filled them with glass beads that I picked up from the dollar store. Although, I would caution that some of the beads were too large to fit in some of the bottles. The most accommodating bottle was the Absolute bottle and the least accommodating was the Jim Beam bottle. Buy small beads! The process won't be as frustrating in the long run.

I also picked up replacement tiki-torch wicks from both the dollar store and actual tiki torch replacements through walmart. The real wicks were wider and set in the copper fitting better. They were also longer, which was helpful for some of the taller bottles I had. 

These are all dollar store tiki torch replacement wicks

The hardest part of this whole project was finding the copper fittings I needed at the hardware store. I was confident in my abilities, but it took me quite some time to find the following: 

1/2" x 3/8" copper coupling

1/2" copper cap

Teflon tape/nylon thread seal tape

The tiki wick goes into the 1/2" x 3/8" coupling. Around the outside of the coupling, you use the thread seal tape until the coupling fits snugly. The 1/2" copper cap covers the wick when it isn't in use.

Now the only thing left to do is fill the tiki torches with citronella fluid and enjoy! :)

These were given away for Father's Day to my partner's dad.
He has a really cool outdoor space and these fit perfectly!

I am in love with this super simple project! Time to go enjoy my outdoor space with my new torches!