Bottle 977 - Pirate's Booty

"My very first bottle" by Rebekah Nares Johnson. Made from March 4,2012 to March 8, 2012. "My inspiration for this bottle came from .lol a game that I currently play on Facebook called Battle Pirates. Though more of a modern pirate theme in the game, I was inspired to do an old-fashioned treasure chest. I am calling this bottle "Pirate's Booty". The bottle itself is not really old, but has been sitting in our basement stairwell for a few years. It is a Captain Morgan Spiced Rum bottle, 1 liter, and had the ship and swords already blown into the bottle. Though not pictured, my signature/date is located in the bottom of the bottle, on paper I made a couple years ago from junk mail. Inside the bottle, nestles a treasure chest, in the sand, overflowing with 'booty'. Some old pearl seed beads, and random jewels from old jewelry fill the chest. For 'gold' and 'silver', I used recycled aluminum 'nuggets', which my husband had gotten for me while driving truck and delivering to wire mills. A small seashell and some pieces of coral, as well as a flag and a small fish tank plant round out the contents in the bottom. To make the top of bottle more attractive, I used some driftwood for inspiration. I found a small piece and began carving it to fit in the bottle. What I ended up with was what looked to me like a snake's head, so I went with it. A small hole in each end of the snake head, allowed me to thread a gold chain through it. The chain was rather long and I had a small fishhook I wanted to use in the bottle, as well as a 'diamond', so I attached both to the chain along with the snake head. These were then attached to bottom of the cork. To seal the top, I wanted to see if I could come up with something to use for the rest of the snakes body. Another piece of driftwood provided the answer, as it had a huge knot on it. Cutting the knot off, I then hand-carved the coils for the snake. To attach the 'coils' to the top, I was able to use a screw through the top into the cork. To finish this off and seal it, I filled the remaining open areas with wax. The ship and swords, which I mentioned were already blown into the glass, well, I simply used some model paint to highlight the details. My only concern in building this bottle, was in wondering if the material I used for the sand would hold up. With that said, my 'sand' was a homemade mixture of flour, salt, water, and yes, sand. This is basically a recipe I used to make to use for dough art (minus the sand lol), which dries very hard. It dried nicely, and seems to be holding together just fine."