Chic on a Shoestring Decorating: Anthropologie inspired Bottled Garden Stakes, Guest Post by A Swell Place to Dwell

Hi! I'm Kelly from A Swell Place to Dwell and I am over the moon about guest posting today on Chic on a Shoestring Decorating.

I recently completed this little spring project that is super easy and will update your front steps instantly.

I saw these Bottled Garden Stakes on the Anthropologie website and fell in love at first sight.

Anthropologie

How simple, cute and quirky, right? They are awesome, but they are also $68. If you work with a shoestring budget like I do, $68 is way, way too far out of reach for 4 stakes. I set about DIYing my own and it turned out to be one of my favorite quick little projects (and a good excuse to spend some time outside).

Here's how you can knock this off too:

Set about on an adventure to gather your twigs (or skinny branches). They need to be thick enough that they will stand up to the weight of the bottles without bending or snap. You'll want to make sure they are from dead-fall so that you aren't cutting any live trees and that they aren't going to snap with the weight of the bottles. My husband was nice enough to wade through the mud to find some branches for me.

Now you need to gather your bottles. My husband was very excited that this meant drinking beer so I could have empty bottles, and was disappointed when I decided to use these antique pop bottles instead. The antique pop bottles seemed a little more quirky than some Corona bottles on my front step. If you don't have antique bottles though it's no biggie - just use what you've got and you can turn the labels to the back if you want or peel them off.

The next step is to wrap the bottles onto the twigs using twine. This is a two person job as you need one person to hold the bottle tight and the other person to wrap. We found it helpful to first cut out a notch in the twig so that the bottle doesn't slide down the branch.

Then wrap once, tie a double knot and then wrap around the bottle a few more times as tight as you can. Once you have it wrapped, slip the end of the twine underneath the wraps, bring it up and around and pass the end back through the loop, creating a knot.

Fill your planter pot up with dirt or rocks or gravel or whatever you have that will support the twigs. We had some potting soil left over from last season so that is what we used. Then insert your bottle stakes into the pot and arrange how you'd like.

My dog is a camera hog...he makes his way into any post that he can!

I didn't like seeing the dirt so I used some left over river rocks I had and piled them on top. The rocks also served to add some support to the branches.

Since I live in Alberta, Canada and it's only April, mother nature decided to dump snow on us again last night, which means I can't use live flowers...yet. I have some silk flowers in there for now, but can't wait to be able to put fresh cut flowers in for the summer.