By popular demand (sorry it's taken a while by the way guys I know a few of you have asked but life has a tendency to get between me and the interenet these days) I've knocked up a quick guide to how to make your own pretty funky decorations using little more than a cheap light string and a few miniatures. I've used Jack Daniels bottles because they're what I had to hand but this should work with any miniature liquor bottle, glass or plastic, metal capped or otherwise.

Things you'll need -

Miniature Bottles
An LED light string or old Christmas lights
Rubber grommets
Tweezers
8mm/10mm drill bit
Needle nose pliers

Step 1:

First off you're going to want to clean and dry out your bottles. I rinsed mine with a mixture of soapy water and left them upside down in an airing cupboard over night.

Step 2:

Once that's done you're going to need to size up the hole you're going to have to drill in the cap. My LED lights are just over 6mm in diameter at their widest point so allowing for a grommet as well that means I need an 8mm hole to ensure a tight fit.

I work to a 2mm rule of thumb usually but if you're unsure always measure everything thoroughly. If all else fails most hardware/electrical stores carry quite a wide variety of grommets and usually you can just go out and grab a dozen the next size up or down or so for next to nothing if it comes to that but it's always nice to get it right first time.

The caps are usually quite small and fiddly so if you're uncomfortable drilling them use the pliers to hold them gentley in place while you drill rather than your fingers.

Step 3:

As you can see the grommet won't fit through the hole I've drilled of its own accord, that's where the tweezers come in, gentley poke it through until the edges of the hole you just drilled occupy the groove in the grommet, it can be slightly loose but should not be able to fall out. I've tried to get a picture of the inside of the cap as best I can to show the kind of fit required.

Step 4:

Now you need to carefully push your LED through the grommet and cap assembley until it fits tightly against the widest point on the LED or the widest point passes through completely as shown, I find this easiest with the grommet already in place.

Step 5:

Final stage, simply screw the whole thing back onto your bottle. If everything's nice and tight then the seal you've created should hold the weight of even glass miniatures fairly easily, I can suspend my bunch of ten quite easily off just one or two without a light popping back out of the cap!

Step 6:

Lather, rinse, repeat. Once you've completed your first one simply do exactly the same thing for as many lights on the string or bottles as you have and voila! You have Christmas or bar decorations that look like they're worth a pretty penny but cost next to nothing :)

Hopefully I've covered the technique I used to make these well enough but as always my inbox is always there for questions or if anyone feels I need to update anything!