Introduction: House in a Bottle
Hi All,
This is one of these impossible bottle crafts, "Ship in a bottle" is a common example. The bottle was not cut and re-glued. The house inside is larger than the bottle's mouth and made of wood not paper or elastic material
I wanted to achieve impossible bottle of my own
Why House in a bottle ?
- Unlike few "ship in the bottle" tutorials, one cannot just slide the house inside the bottle
- One has to build the House outside, like a jigsaw and then rebuild it inside the bottle
- I wanted to do something different
In this instructables, I will share How i put the house in a bottle and hopefully you would be able to do it too...
Step 1: What Do We Need?
- Popsicle sticks
- Wooden Skewer
- Toothpicks
- Brown Acrylic paint
- Mini Saw
- Clamps
- Old clothes hanger
- Fevicol
I made 3 basic tools for assembling the house inside the bottle
Step 2: Bricks
- You need 8 to 10mm square sticks, Since I did not have it, I made them using Popsicle sticks
- I checked few bottles and it is easy to pass 6 popsicle sticks, so will not make anything thicker than 6 sticks together
- First glue 3 sticks together and hold them together with masking tape
- Leave it to dry for 2 hrs, then remove the masking tape
- Cut the popsicle sticks into 12 pieces of each 50 mm and 40 mm
- Glue the pieces in a zig-zag or tetris like form, this will be used to interlock during assembly
- After gluing you will have 6 long piece and 6 short pieces
- Stick 2 sets of 6 popsicle sticks together for the roof
Step 3: Walls
- Overlay the the long and short pieces to make 3 layers as shown
- Initially I drilled holes on each piece and used a tooth pick to inter lock with each other
- But this is very difficult to interlock with un-professional, self made tools
- So ignore the holes I made at the end of each piece
- I have names each piece as A, B, C or D with layer number s from 1 to 3 for wal
Step 4: Roof 1/2
- To make the roof, we need 2 triangle blocks
- Cut / Saw two triangles from a stack of 2 sets of 6 popsicle sticks
- To interlock two layers, I drilled holes of 2 mm and use tooth picks to hold them in position
Step 5: Roof 2/2
- To make the roof, cut 12 pieces of 55 mm popsicle sticks
- Use paper tape to hold them together like a mat
- Do not glue them, any kind of gluing will happen only inside the bottle
Step 6: Paint It
- Lightly Sand the surface with sandpaper, clean it with damp cloth
- Using Acrylic colors, paint the house brown to give the wooden look
- Using Black color to make Doors and windows
- One can go further on decoration and detailing
- I kept it simple
Step 7: The Base
- Like any glass bottle the bottom in not flat
- I tried few things
- PVA glue and Sand
- Dilute PVA glue with 2:1 water and pour into the bottle
- Add sand and leave it to dry
- In my case over a week and still not dry
- Resin
- I did not have any stock of resin, if you have I would recommend using it
- Superglue
- I discovered this by accident
- Pour super glue in the bottle using a straw, so that there are no splatter
- Leave the bottle to dry overnight
- Next day I found the bottle's bottom was flattened enough for me to work
- Note : Super glue fumes got stuck on the inside of the bottle, using IPA or alcohol to clean it
- One should be very careful to use superglue, follow all precautions mentioned on the super glue packing
Step 8: The First Brick
- Since the bottles are oddly curved inside and outside, It is difficult to judge correct position
- Draw the outline of the bricks or bottom layer on a piece of paper
- Place the paper directly below the bottle and adjust it with all corners, visible
- Using a skewer, apply pva glue or fevicol and place the first brick
- Because this is the first brick, let is dry for 2 to 3 hrs before you continue
- Initially I had drilled holes and was using Toothpicks to interlock each piece, but I was not able to assemble the first layer, itself
- So I had to remove the tooth picks and assemble each brick at a time and glue it in place
- Once I finished the first layer, i poured few drops of PVA glue, just to hold everything in place
- Let t dry for a 12 hours
Step 9: Building It Up
- Assemble 2nd layer by placing it on top of the first layer
- I used long metal piece (Old thin hanger) to apply glue one each piece and the used a hard wire tongs to place the brick in it's desired position
- It became more difficult as the layers increased, so patience is the key
- Continue till the top
- Leave it to dry for 2 hrs and you need break
Step 10: Installing Roof
- The popsicle sticks for the roof are held together using a paper tape
- and Hence we can just roll it and drop it in the bottle
- I stuck a string (using paper tape) at the of the roof to pull the roof in position
- To adjust the roof in position I used a hard metal wire, as I could bend it in any shape, it made it a very versatile tool
- Once the glue was dried, I could just pull the string out
Step 11: Finishing
- While assembling various parts, there was glue art many places
- I cleaned it using attaching tissue paper on a metal wire
- As mentioned earlier the metal wire can be bent in shape to reach any possible place, this helps in cleaning
- Because I used a lot of glue and superglue on the bottom of the bottle, it was un-neat
- I fix it, I poured some PVA glue on the floor using a straw and then added some sand
- The glue will take few days to dry, so donot seal the bottle
- Wait for few days, add moisture absorbing bags or silica gel to the bottle to speed up the dying
- Seal the bottle or add lights
- Place it on a shelf and ;light it up
- Feel proud of what you have accomplished "An Impossible Bottle"
Hope you liked the instructions, if you need any further details or have a suggestion, please leave message