This Genius Upcycling Hack Will Make You Rethink Tossing Your Empty Medicine Bottles

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The cleverest of DIY crafters know that the best upcycling hacks usually come from the most unexpected places, including the medicine cabinet. There are creative ways to repurpose prescription bottles, so those empty containers don't need to be tossed into the trash. In facts, there's a perfectly good seasonal centerpiece just waiting to be born, with med bottles at the heart of it. Pulling such a feat off requires a bit of mental alchemy and a few key supplies from your favorite crafting store.

First up are the medicine bottles. Ideally, you have three of the same height and width. And the width should be enough to fit the base of a taper candle. If all of them are not the same height, it's okay if at least one is taller — it can go in the middle of the centerpiece. A pack of pool noodles and an oval platter give you the raw materials you need to make a base for the tabletop centerpiece. The oval platter can be something you found at a yard sale, second-hand store, or on clearance somewhere.

A roll of half-inch ribbon (like the Ribbli Double Faced Satin Ribbon), paint (such as Rust-Oleum Bright Copper Metallic Spray Paint), some seasonally-themed flora, and three LED taper candles are the final materials you need to give the piece its decorative oomph. Aside from those, you'll need to gather some tools — utility knife, a hot glue gun, some wire cutters, and scissors — which will help you turn the raw materials for the craft into a finished product.

You'll start your dining table centerpiece by prepping the basic raw materials. If there are any labels left on the medicine bottles, remove them. A pool noodle needs to be trimmed down until it's about one-third the size of the platter. Once it's trimmed, slice it in half down the long side. If you do this correctly, the hole in the middle of the noodle will look like a half moon. Use a utility knife, or if that's too awkward, a long serrated-edged knife from the kitchen, to do this. Spray paint all of the pieces. Next, glue a strip of the ribbon around the lips of each of the bottles, covering the groove marks on the bottle where the lids would screw on.

Following that, mount the medicine bottles onto the halved pool noodle. To keep them secure, carve out three equally-spaced bottle-shaped indentations across the top of the noodle with the utility knife. Put some glue on the base of the bottles and then press them into the indentations in the pool noodle. Next, glue the pool noodle right in the center of the oval platter.

Now, it's time to dress the pool noodle up. Insert decorative items into the holes at both ends of the noodle. Don't just stick with flowers here. Try items like foam pumpkins in the fall, or colored eggs and hearts during Easter and Valentine's Day to add visual interest to the centerpiece. Continue working your way around the pool noodle until you fill in all the empty spots. Finally, insert the taper candles into the medicine bottles.

Until now, you've relied on colors, like orange and brown, to indicate fall, and items such as flowers, leaves, and dried grasses to create a sense of the season. However, you may want to take a cue from professional florists and introduce messages and signage to this pool noodle fall foliage centerpiece DIY to evoke seasonal feelings. In other words, decorative signs of the season can play a role in your arrangement.

The easiest way to attach a sign is to not decorate one of the long sides of the pool noodles with flowers and leaves. Instead, glue the sign to the side of the pool noodle. Once the glue dries, fill in any spots on either side of it so that there are no visible holes. The candles will be tall enough to rise above the decal, thanks to their medicine bottle nests. You can add a sign on one or both sides of the pool noodle, depending on your preferences. 

Hand-painted seasonal ornaments offer you another option. Since they have strings to hang them on a Christmas tree, they can be hung elsewhere, including around the necks of the medicine bottles. Or you can stick the ornaments deep inside the noodle between the bottles. You may need to create a slit on the top of the noodle with the utility knife and glue the ornaments into the grooves to get them to stand up.