Looking forward to spending more time outside as summer gets closer? So am I. But nothing can spoil a friendly outdoor get-together like the arrival of bugs, especially at night. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to keep them at bay with this cool DIY from Household Hacker. Just grab any empty wine bottles you may have and you can create awesome tiki torches that look great and work hard to keep your outdoor area pest free.

To get started, you’ll need empty wine bottles. Obviously, you know how many you’ll need to span your outdoor area, so you’ll just have to drink up until you have the proper amount! Something we’re sure we don’t have to twist your arm to do.

When every last drop of vino is gone, clean out all the bottles and fill them halfway with sand. You can also use something like marbles to act as an anchor, but sand is easy to pour and looks great in the bottles.

Then take a container of bug-repellent Tiki and pour the liquid into each bottle up to the neck. This will give you enough fuel to burn your torches for several hours.

Next, you’ll be making your “wick.” There are two ways to do this, one of which is taking a drill and putting a hole straight through a wine cork — it doesn’t have to be the matching cork, but make sure it will fit snugly into the opening of the wine bottle.

Once the cork has a nice, wide hole from end to end, loop a length of rope right through it. Then pop the cork into the bottle and allow the rope to soak up as much Tiki as possible. Give this an hour or so to really make sure the rope is ready to burn.

All that’s left to do is take your homemade tiki torches outside and put them in place! Light the protruding rope and watch it go up in flames with a great sense of accomplishment — you just made an extremely cool looking outdoor torch, one that will keep pesky bugs away from your guests and assure an amazing outdoor shindig.

There is another way to make your improvised “wick,” and the Household Hacker himself claims that it’s his preferred method for this project. To find out the alternative, possibly simpler way, make sure to watch the video below!

What do you think of these DIY bug repellent tiki torches? Share your thoughts on this summertime essential in the comments section below.