Wine sock bling

This post is for the business-minded holiday shopper. Wine gift baskets are traditional gifts given during this Christmas/Hanukkah season, but they can be expensive. If you’re on this site, it’s probably because you’re running a tight budget and need to find high-ends gifts for your friends or clients without spending too much money.
Here is a low-cost way to give a high-end wine gift: wrap a single bottle of fine wine in an upcycled cozy. That way you can splurge on the wine and dispense with the rest of the basket but still have a nice presentation. You can keep to your budget and impress your customers with this simple gift idea.

How to make a wine cozy:

1. Use a nice quality boot-length sock. Pull the sock onto an empty wine bottle, right-side-out.

2. Tuck the heel of the sock in to form a pocket. Baste the top of the pocket closed using large stitches. These stitches will come out later. They are only for keeping the shape of the pocket when you turn the sock inside out.

3. Turn the sock inside out and pull it back onto the wine bottle. Stitch around the bottom semi-circle of the pocket with dainty stitches.

4. Turn the sock right-side-out again and remove the basting.

Bling for wine cozies

5. Add any kind of bling to the neck of the bottle. In the main image on this post, I used an earring glued to a piece of painted PVC (in the same way I made my beaded cuff bracelet) to dress up the neck of the bottle. In the image below, I used the heel of a sock to form lips, sewed buttons on for eyes, and added a piece of black feather boa for hair on one of the cozies (it was the first cozy to sell in my holiday bazaar. Hee hee).

6. Use the pocket created by the heel to hold a “from/to” card or business card.

If you’re wondering where to shop for reasonably priced fine wines, the favorite stores in my area are Trader Joe’s, COSTCO (aka Sam’s Club) and (believe it or not) the Grocery Outlet. Price is nothing. Taste is everything, and you can buy a marvelous wine for under $10 (don’t let the connoisseurs fool you).