Creating a Chihuly-inspired Chandlier from Plastic Bottles

All we needed for this project was some plastic bottles,  (We used about 500 bottles to create our large chandlier) acrylic paint (Ours was donated leftovers.) scissors, string, and a frame to tie the bottles onto.

Collecting the bottles and preparing then took the longest.  All bottles needed to be clean and free of their labels.  Once we had this done, the students went to town painting them.  There was no certain way they had to be painted, so each bottle was unique. We did use the color scheme of blue and green, because those were the colors we had the most of in our stash.  Once the bottles were dry after painting, the bottom was cut off and the rest of the bottle was spiral cut up to the mouth of the bottle.  String was tied onto each bottle through the mouth area and then tied onto our frame.  (A tomato cage covered in chicken wire).  I started off doing everything for the students except the painting.  After a while it became very overwhelming when I couldn't keep up with the students and their finished bottles.  Eventually, I cut a slit at the base of the bottle and the students did the rest.  I was really impressed with how they took on the responsibility and how quickly it got finished.

Here is our finished chandelier!  We are just waiting for the lift, so that we can hang it in the commons.  It was a great project and really got the kids interested in Chihuly and working together.