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Bottle Indian

Bottle Indian by Pun Hui Falkenhainer

This tutorial will show you how to make lovely little Indian figures from throwaway plastic bottles.

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  • Date addedAdded: May 26, 2006
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  • Document pagesPage: 1 of 2

You Will Need...

- Travel or sample bottles
- 1 to 1-1/2" diameter styrofoam balls
- Elmer's or crafter's glue
- Newspaper
- Copy or typing paper
- Cut out coloured magazine sections
- 24 guage wire
- Awl

Making the body




Remove caps and clean the bottles. Let them dry, then replace the caps. Bottle "B" has a nice shape for the neck.

Use the styrofoam balls for the head. Push the bottle neck onto the styrofoam, whilst twisting inwards (A and B).

Make the head shape by pressing the styrofoam between thumb and forefinger until you achieve a nice head shape (C).



Hand tear strips of newspaper 1/2" wide or less, paper towel, typing, copy paper or washi paper. Dip a strip at a time in a 50/50 glue/water mix and wipe off excess glue with thumb and forefinger.







Smaller pieces of paper will be easier to paste down on the neck and head.

In order to avoid pieces sticking on your hands, use a damp cloth or towel.



Now that the Basic body is completed, let it dry.



Decorating the body

Tear coloured sections from magazines. Separate them into colour groups.

Crumble the pieces up.

Then flatten them out.

Hand tear into pieces slightly larger than your thumbnail and paste onto the body.

This finished stage can be the final one, if you like very simple figurines. If so, varnish them with Krylon spray varnish or Mod Podge.