Mobile holder with chocolate syrup bottle:DIY

Ever wondered what to do with those ugly shampoo and chocolate syrup bottles around home? We come up with a ton of ideas with newspaper and magazine recycle crafts. Seldom do most of us venture into experimenting with plastics around home that glare at us in insidious ways and often oblivious to the eye.

Shampoo bottles, plastic jugs, syrup bottles, choco-drink bottles, they all come in handy in ways we do not predict. I have come across a bunch of online pictures about using a shampoo bottle to hold a smartphone while it charges. And decided to give it a try.

The result did not exactly meet my expectations - of it working as a smartphone holding station. But it works fine as a table top mobile holder. This project is meant for adults or college goers. Kids a strict no no.

You can limit a child's participation in decorating the piece after all the cutting.

Here is how I went about it.


What you need for the project:

-- a plastic bottle that can fit in your smartphone or cordless phone

-- craft knife

-- marker pens - thick and fine tip

-- paint pens of two colours

-- the plug or adaptor of your mobile charger for dimensions

-- optional - a pair of scissors

-- optional - embellishments that stick well on curved plastic (multi surface glue otherwise)


Start by thoroughly washing the bottle and drying it.

Next step, look for any available contours and mark out with your marker pens. My bottle was in the dark chocolate shade, which is why I picked up a gold colour and a bright red paint pen. But use the fine tip marker pen or a ball point pen to mark out for cutting.

Make sure to give it an arch-cut on the rear side and a straight horizontal cut to join the arch from its front side.

To ease your cutting process with the knife, mark out on the sides along the curved contours.

I am not a pro at cutting with craft knives. And you can see it in the way it got cut. Be careful with the blade of the knife. A destroyed bottle is any day better than a cut finger.

I flipped while cutting along the marked contours. And made use of the red border on the bottle sticker instead.

Here it is - the cut bottle. If you are a pro at it, the arch behind can become a smooth one, easing into the bottle's front portion.

The cut is not accurate, but who said you must get it right the first time?

I added a slit on the arch, with the hope of letting it hang on the plug while the smartphone sat in its pouch. And that is where it did not work out. The smartphone with the plastic pouch got too heavy to hang from an adaptor or charging plug.

So I let that be, and proceeded to colour away using the paint pens. This bottle did not have a removable sticker. The product label looked as if it was printed on the bottle. I did not want to mess with the embellishing part further, and simply chose to colour it.

Here it is after about two coats.

Using paint pens on this plastic needed several coats. When you colour with the pens, it is likely the print beneath smudges or mixed with the paint colour. Make sure to blot the pen into a tissue paper each time it happens.

Let the paint dry enough after each coat. At some point you realize the coating must stop. My bottle finally shone.

Paint the rear side of the container.

You can use sticker embellishments, but make sure to add in some multi-surface adhesive. Run the paint pen along the 1 mm thickness of the container in gold or red. Let dry for a while. And your smartphone holder is ready. My cordless phone fit i perfect in the piece.

When you do not use it for mobiles on your desktop, the container can double up to hold pens and pencils, and tools such as the craft knife.

If your bottle has a sticker, soak it in soapy warm water overnight, clean out the sticker label, scrub and rinse it well for use later.

Use this on your desktop or as a stash.


Pictures courtesy: Radhika M B


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