>> An all-around bottle cap appreciator, Susan Brackney is an avid crafter, beekeeper, and the author of The Lost Soul Companion: Comfort and Constructive Advice for Black Sheep, Square Pegs, Struggling Artists, and Other Free Spirits.
Somewhere in the world, there are drunken revelers crooning about 100 bottles of beer on the wall. Meanwhile, I fret about the scores of precious bottle caps that will go to waste. The Red Stripes. The Heinekens. The occasional Labatt. They’re all so varied and colorful — not to mention sturdy enough to be the stuff of real crafting.
Relatively unadulterated, individual bottle caps become miniature, scallop-edged frames. And a bottle cap’s exterior has its own allure. Caps with interesting typography, the odd anchor or crown, or, say, highly stylized birds, dragons, or other creatures are particularly beguiling.
Best of all, bottle caps are often free for the taking, they’re easy to collect and store, and you don’t need fancy tools to work with them. A hammer, a nail punch, and some wire, perhaps, or strong glue, resin, and a magnet or two are all you need to get started.
You shouldn’t have to drink yourself into a stupor to get loads of good bottle caps. If you ask nicely, restaurants and bars are usually happy to part with them. Just be sure to rinse them well and allow them to dry completely.
If it’s vintage bottle caps you’re after, things get a little trickier. Valuable both to collectors and to crafters, vintage caps can be costly and scarce. Laura and Benjamin Beamer, of Oakridge, Ore., have created high-end jewelry with vintage caps since 2000. The couple has collected nearly 4,000 unique bottle caps and well over 100,000 in all, which they’ve meticulously sorted by kind and condition and placed in hardware store-type drawers.
Set aside your favorite bottle cap designs, and sort the rest by color, so you’ll be ready when inspiration hits.
1. Copy or draw an image onto heavy paper or cardstock, then carefully cut out a small circle with the image in its center.
2. Glue the image into the inside of your bottle cap.
Photography by Beamer Arts Desigh (above and B); Kerry Casey (A); Susan Brackney (C); Beck Underwood (D)
3. After the glue has dried, paint on clear nail polish or mix a small amount of clear resin and pour it onto the image seated inside the bottle cap. Kerry Casey of Cornwall, N. Y., sells her wares on Etsy and says that when it comes to pouring resin, less is more. “I’ve found that if you’re looking for a crisp, clean image, less resin is better.”
4. You may notice some bubbles forming as you pour the resin into your cap. To de-gas a resin product such as Envirotex Lite, lightly blow on its surface, or save your breath and use a hair dryer. “When I’m doing a whole bunch of [magnets] at a time, I get the bubbles out with a blowtorch,” Casey says.
5. Once the interior of your bottle cap has dried and cured, you can glue a small magnet to its exterior, allow it to dry completely, and voilà!
1. To make a simple pendant, use a 5" metal punch to make a small hole along the top edge of your bottle cap.
2. Follow the Bottle Cap Magnet steps 1– 4, taking care not to cover the hole you just made with resin.
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