Salt and Pepper Grinders from Baby Bottles

As promised, here is the rest of the project to make Salt and Pepper Grinders.  Last blog gave instructions for how to remove the paint.

Supplies:
plastic baby bottles (shower favors – Hobby Lobby)
“salt” – Wilton Cookie Sticks (looks better) or white acrylic paint (less work)
“pepper” – black acrylic paint
silver flat sequins (party confetti)
tiny silver beads, I used cylindrical 15/0 beads (“delica”)
larger silver seed bead – these need to be a little bigger than the delicas
upholstery type staples – I used 5/16” light duty so they would fit inside the small beads
black seed beads for grinder knob
GS Hypo Cement (doesn’t frost glass beads)
Clear nail polish or Pledge Floor Care “finish”

Tools:
Tiny pliers (helps to bend and hold staples while glue dries)
Flush cut wire cutters (to cut off nipples)
Regular wire cutters (to cut staples)
Sandpaper (220 grit)
Pin Vise and wire drill bit sized for the staple

1. Remove the paint and clip off the nipple with flush cut wire cutters.  Sand the top flat or you won’t be able to glue on the silver disk.  After sanding flat, drill a hole in the top (center) using a wire drill bit big enough to hold the size of your staple.
2. If the sanding leaves areas that are frosted you can coat the areas with clear nail polish or the Pledge floor finish.
 


3. For salt, I used cut lengths of cookie sticks.  (You could also just paint the inside with white paint.)  Cookie sticks are actually very tightly rolled paper but you can peel off some if they are too thick for your bottles.  To do this, just soak a stick in water for JUST A MINUTE or so.  Scrape along the seam with your fingernail to loosen the paper and start un-peeling it.  I cut these on my mini table saw (since I needed 100) but you can use a razor saw and miter box.  Glue these inside the bottles and let dry before you try to glue in the tops.



4. For pepper I ended up just painting the inside with black paint (took 2 coats).
5. Use GS Hypo Cement (or other non-fogging bead glue) for all gluing of grinder tops.
6. Pepper Grinder – Bend the staple in the center using small needle-nose pliers to a stair step shape.  Cut the staple just off center as shown in the photo (notice one side is a little longer – the longer piece is used for the pepper grinder). 
   
7. Glue on the beads as shown in the photo below.  The black bead is used as the grinder knob.  Cut off extra staple extending past the black bead. 
   
8. Salt Grinder top – Glue silver beads on the smaller piece of the cut staple, smaller one below the larger as in the photo above.  Cut off the extra bend in the wire above the silver bead.
9. Poke a hole in the silver disk.  Glue the silver disk on the top of the bottle. Glue the grinder tops into the hole. 
10. Paint the inside of the pepper shaker with 2 coats of black paint.  You can't tell from these photos but the bottom of the bottles are open so this can be done after gluing the grinders on, if desired.
11. That's it!  Hope you like this mini-project.  Next time I will start on the rest of the kitchen.