Starry Sky in a Bottle {For a Nativity Scene}

When I think of Christmas some of the things I think of are starry skies and sparkly lights. Often times that’s what you see in nice nativity scenes and pictures. Without the stars and the lights, Christmas might seem a little less magical. Yah, I know they are not the point of Christmas, but they do seem to help make the season feel more special. My 9 year old daughter, Elizabeth, helped me to create this starry sky in a bottle to add to our Christmas décor. It’s just perfect for sitting behind a small nativity!

Elizabeth did most of the painting in this project. She not only had fun doing it, she did a great job!

You need:

Bottle (We used a large wine bottle)
Set of battery powered lights -10 to 20 sized set (I bought ours at Walmart for $2)
Mod Podge
Blue food coloring drops
Disposable bowl
Paint brush
wood skewers (optional)
twine/ribbon (optional) (Walmart has well priced twine)
Wax paper (optional)

Pour about a half cup of Mod Podge into a disposable bowl. Add about 10 drops of food coloring.

If you are using a large bottle, you may need to make 2 or 3 times that much.

Using your paint brush mix the color into the Mod Podge until it’s one even color. You want the color to look like a medium blue. It will dry darker.

Stand your clean bottle onto the wax paper. Paint the bottle with the blue Mod Podge. It looks best when brushing from top to bottom. Be sure the bottle is totally covered, except the bottom. If the blue Mod Podge runs onto the wax paper it should be easy to peal off the wax paper when it’s dry, but you may wish to wipe away large amounts.

Let the bottle dry. Then, you may want to give the bottle another layer of blue Mod Podge to make it a darker blue. If you want to store your blue Mod Podge till later place it into a zip-loc bag and store in a safe spot.

After you have painted the bottle with several layers of blue Mod Podge, it’s time to add the lights.

I added two wooden skewers (criss-crossed) into the bottle so the lights didn’t just fall to the bottom of the bottle. Then I added the lights.

Once the last light was in the bottle’s neck I ran the light’s line down the outside of the bottles neck and tied it down with some twine. I made a bow with the twine on the front. The light’s line was run down the back so you can’t see it. The battery box was hidden behind the bottle and sitting on the table.