Weddingbee Blog

Early on in our planning, I fell in love with these centerpieces:

From Mrs. Lemon

But I needed to make them my own. I spent months researching glassware and candles. I was never satisfied. Vases were bloody expensive. And, I wasn’t particularly fond of clear glass. I wanted my version to be a little softer.

One evening, I was visiting with my mom and we had a brilliant idea. We, like, Miss D’orsay, were going to be recycling wine bottles for the centerpieces. However, we are using brown and green bottles (for a more vintage feel) and we’re also using beer bottles.

Remember the picture of my crinny with the beer bottles in the bathtub?

That was the beginning of this project. And, in true Crab Cake fashion, it has taken on a mind of its own. I currently have over 150 wine and beer bottles hiding out in boxes under my daughter’s bunk beds. Some have been cut, some haven’t.

Our method is a little different that the D’orsay’s. Instead of using the candle and ice method, I have a pendulum that taps the inside of the glass to split the bottle from the inside. It sounds more complicated than it is.

So, last weekend I was working on our bottles. I’m pretty confident about the method of cutting the beer bottles. They break easily (sometimes too easily) and really don’t give me much trouble at all. I pulled a case of wine bottles out and decided it was probably time to see if it was going to work with the wine bottles.

The bottle looked like this:

I scored a bottle about here:

Mistake numero uno! Because I scored the bottle so close to the neck, my pendulum didn’t have a lot of swinging space to get a good tap on the score line. I am inherently impatient, and when 10 minutes later, I still hadn’t gotten the top of this bottle off, I started getting mad. When I get mad, I do stupid things. I foolishly tried to force the top away from the bottle, and this is what I ended up with.

Yes, that is a large hunk of my finger on the end of that bottle top. Ew. That sucker bled for what seemed like eternity. Thankfully, I did this while my mom, the Physician’s Assistant, was around, and she said there was nothing to do for it, so I didn’t run off to the emergency room or anything like that. But it’s been the bane of my existence this week. It hits everything. Even the manicurist was smashing her fingers against my wound the other day. And, I’m constantly worried it’s going to get infected. I mean, hello, I work in a hospital. There are germs lurking everywhere! But, I’m also a bit OCD about washing my hands and stuff, so I think it’s pretty safe.

A week later:

Please ignore my wrinkly, hairy fingers. Ew.

This is what it looks like. It still hurts like hell sometimes, especially if I hit it on something. But I can tell it’s heeling. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be left with a decent scar on that poor finger.

Did anyone else sustain battle wounds while working on their DIY projects?