Donna, Wooden dowels. I would take post hole diggers, dig a hole, take one bag of concrete. Pour the concrete around a 4" x 4" post in the hole you dug. The next day- Take a drill bit the size of the wooden dowel thickness and drill holes for your dowel branches. You can use screws with closed hoop ends (eye screws). Rope, shoe string leather, or wire your bottles to the eye screws on the branches. I also would polyurethan the entire wooden structure before hanging the bottles. I believe the open mouth up was the original way that a bottle tree was meant to be hung. They were meant to ward off evil spirits. The scary sound of the wind over the mouth of a bottle would certainly do that. The different depths of rain in the bottles will make the notes vary and it will become what is called a wind organ. My concern would be that the bottles would become mosquito breeding beds and the bottles may get water stains and other bugs on the inside. (??????) I'm speculating. I have considered this for my own garden, so I've thought about it a lot. Hope something here helps. I cant wait to see your bottle collection!!!!! Susie

My bottle tree is made like yours but is taller. I used rebar for bottle holders. And like you I have just started putting it together. Have been saving donated vodka bottles for several years, And other odd bottles that I found. Now that they have the blue beer bottles, I bought four 12 packs (and I don't drink beer) been giving it to a friend who will drink it. My tree will hold 83 bottles, And the post is painted a medium blue. I need to cut 23 more pieces of rebar before I can finish it.

They sure do seem to be a really nice way to store lots of bottles of paint if you have the counter space for them. My crafting area is pretty small, so I ended up using some small boxes turned on their sides and stacked after seeing a similar idea from another poster on this forum. It doesn't take much space, fits fine in my space, and so far is working out really well. The Americana paints have the color swatch and name already on the lids, and Folkart paints have the color swatch. I'd love to see pics of your crafting areas if anyone would like to share. Luvs

Good Morning Bright! and thanks for the wonderful compliments! I'm sorry, I haven't been reading my mail, and my mail box is full, so I didn't get it. But, I print images out on cardstock, or plain old white paper, sometimes tracing paper, it looks so unique like that, wings especially. Yes, the ink will smear, I don't know how to make better quality prints. Oh, sometimes I print on photo paper,too,and vellum because I bought a stack at a yard sale for a dime. but I try to get the mod podge on it quickly with as few strokes as possible. Once you get the first coat on it's not bad. I set my printer to plain paper. If I cover it in mod podge I add glitter last otherwise it dulls it...