Raise your hand if you, too, could easily go broke buying pretty things to use for food styling or as photography props for your blog?

Don’t be shy.

It’s an expense that can easily get out of control… and probably land me in divorce court pretty quickly. We mostly take the second-hand route, but when you have a specific item that you’re looking for, you might get stuck looking for a long time. You’ve got a couple of choices: shell out the cash, make your own [fill-in-the-blank], or keep waiting.

Take these cute little milk bottles, for instance.

I’ve been hoping to get lucky and just stumble on a couple at my favorite Goodwill (my teenage self just died) but no one seems to have, or be parting with, cute little milk bottles. I know I could purchase them online, but shipping costs for just a couple of bottles or having to buy them in large volume has kept them planted them firmly in the “I’ll just wait” category.

I got tired of waiting.

A while back, I pinned a cute idea from a baby shower to convert Frappuccino bottles into milk bottles.

And for quite a bit less than the cost of a single bottle purchased online, I made 4 milk bottles. Besides the frap bottles, I already had everything else on-hand. The total cost of my project?

Less than $6!

Materials Needed
Empty 9.5 oz Starbuck’s Frappuccino bottle, rinsed and dried (I picked up a 4 pack)
Alcohol
Cotton balls
Goo-Gone (or your favorite sticky gunk remover)
Paper Towel

I used the alcohol and cotton balls to remove the screen printed date/lot number from the bottles. You’ll need to put some pressure behind it and scrub pretty hard for ~10-15 seconds or so.

And then maybe 5 seconds more.

Remove the labels and spray Goo Gone onto the sticky gunk left behind (or dab it on with a paper towel if your bottle isn’t the spray bottle variety… we, um, go through a lot of Goo Gone). Scrub the adhesive off and wash the bottles with soap and warm water to remove the Goo Gone.

Fill with milk and a cute paper straw (Amazon!) and then shoot!