How to Make a DIY Bottle Table Plan for £25

This is surely one of the simplest but most effective table plan ideas: using beer bottles as both vases and as a seating chart. (Useful and beautiful. Marie Kondo would be so proud). Plus, it’s FUN! You get to drink ALLTHEBEER. Or wine, or cider, or whichever nicely bottled drinks you can get your hands on. (But always drink responsibly, kids!). Here's how to do it.

As you can see from the lettering on the glass bottles, you don’t need to be amazing at calligraphy for this DIY to be effective. Before I gave it a go, I was worried that the bottles might look a bit rubbish, as my calligraphy skills leave a lot to be desired. However, I found that just my normal handwriting worked pretty well.

• Pebeo pen, £2.75
• Flowers (I used a mix of real peonies, tulips and roses, plus these faux peonies from Hobbycraft)
• 20 Glass bottles
• Table (You or your venue may have one similar, or if not, try scouring your local charity shops. Adam bought this one from Homesense a while back, but Cox and Cox do similar).
• Rustic crates and boxes (The ones I used are a mix of boxes from H&M and Hobbycraft).

• 1. Once you’ve glugged your way through enough bottles of beer (one bottle per table, obvs), peel the labels off and scrub away any glue/paper residue that may be left on the glass. I used Singha beer bottles and found that if you leave the bottles to soak for a couple of minutes, the labels scrubbed off pretty easily with a sponge.
   

• 2. Arrange your assortment of boxes and crates on the table. Use a range of shapes and sizes of boxes to make it more visually interesting.

• 3. Use your Pebeo pen to write the table numbers and guests’ names on the bottles. (These pens are absolutely genius and can also write on wood: I used mine to create this DIY Pallet Wedding Sign). If you make a mistake, scrub it off with a sponge. Or you could just drink an extra bottle of beer and use that bottle instead...

• 4. Pop flowers into the bottles, and if you’re using real flowers, fill the bottles with water.

• 5. Arrange the bottles on top of the boxes, crates and tabletop. You could also pull out a drawer and pop one or two bottles inside it (or do the same with peonies, as I did).

Another idea would be to recreate this table plan on a rustic wooden ladder or steps: basically anywhere that you can rest bottles at varying heights. Have fun drinking and DIY-ing! But please do both responsibly.