Quick Prop: Apothecary Bottles

As i was gathering up some background props to prepare the setting for my current Traveler Journals project I decided to dig out these bottles that i had stored in the shed some time ago and finally use them. Since this will be just a background prop, whatever i end up putting inside would just be a temporary thing and will be cleaned out once the final pictures of my travelers journals are done.

 Found these guys at a thrift store and one of them had some kind of herb inside so i decided to leave it in there...One of the bottles was missing but how could i resist picking up these handsome guys for a dollar-fifty?

 I started off by dirtying up the holder by covering it with black acrylic, letting it dry for a little and then wiping some of it off with a cloth...

 For the top of the bottles i went with cutting squares of a white cloth and staining it with some coffee. then ripped off the edges a bit to give it some wear...Then this cloth was held in place using stained string along with beads made with paper clay...

 Then using some stained paper i cut out small pieces to use as labels ...Made up some quick names...Glued the labels on...For the bottle below i just threw in some string, water, red food coloring, and a bit of coffee...who cares, its just for a temporary background!

 For the bottle below i made some irregular balls out of air drying clay...Painted some with black acrylic...

 And for the last bottle I threw in some pinto beans, water, coffee, along with a few drops of brown acrylic...Let it sit overnight and found out that the beans had puffed out and the majority of the water mix had moved to the top...Not planned at all, but the end result came out looking pretty good!

 And finally went on to add the cloth top, string, and beads...I decided to leave one of the bottles without the cloth (the one with the pebbles) so that this one can be left open and laying down next to the journals...some pebbles spilled out...yeah

It was a fun quick prop to make! Not sure when i'll actually get to fill these bottles with their final contents but i'll keep thinking about them in the meantime!