DIY: Recycled bottle torches

Hello hello. Still no baby. Will you call her and tell her it's not so bad out here? I know I'm feeding her all sorts of delicious foods and it's probably pretty warm and snuggly in utero, but c'mon! It's been ten days, little lady. What're you waiting for?

As you can imagine, I cleared my schedule to make room for our stubborn little nugget's birth, so it's been pretty quiet around the Bargalow. Had I not been making projects to distract myself from the fact that the most monumentous event of my life to date is about to happen, I'd have gone insane long ago.

One of said projects is the recycled bottle torches I mentioned in last weekend's post, and all in all, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out:



We had a little trouble finding some of the hardware listed in the original tutorial ... namely, the split ring hanger and the copper top plate connector. But thankfully, with the help of some very nice sales associates at the Home Depot (thanks, Charlie and friends :) ), we were able to concoct an alternative hardware setup, including ground wire clamps (for around the bottle necks), a smaller diameter threaded rod (1/4", to fit in the ground clamps) and insert nuts (for mounting into our wood posts). We also added some nuts and washers for decoration and added stability, but you could just as easily (and safely) leave those out. Here's what our hardware looks like up close:



Pretty sweet, eh? I can't wait to fire these babies up and enjoy a little twilight patio time. Preferably with a baby to snuggle ...