Bottle Cap Projects

Hey there! So, new fun things I'm working on, painted and embellished bottle caps!!  I've always loved the idea of recycling and reusing trash or discarded objects to make fun new projects.  So, bottle caps seemed a perfect project.  I made some fun ones over a year ago that I've wanted to try to recreate, but, haven't gotten back into clay yet.  They bake well, though, so I'm hoping I'll find some fun new things to make.  I might re-do the existing ones to make them nicer.  (Possibly sell-able??)  Anyway, here are some new things I came up with.

A few tips, first.  So, I bought a silicon mat/pot holder thing to help me after the first round of terrible pounded out caps, but, no go on that, either.  So I gave up on hammering.  I have a regular hammer, not a rubber mallet.  I feel like one of those would work best, but, this method I use works perfect for me, and is more controlled, and you can customize it much better, in my opinion.  I just use round and regular? jewelry pliers.  These ones.  I used both.  Anyway, I just used the tip of the non-round ones and lifted up one of the edges of the side and alternated around the entire cap until the edge fanned out a bit.  Then, I took my round pliers and pulled it out more, to even it out, and to curve it back just a little.  Then I took my Xacto blade and lifted the plastic seal out of it.  It doesn't matter if you scratch the cap if you're just painting over it or putting an image in there, but for some of them, I had to be really careful to not scratch it.  It isn't that difficult, just took a more careful hand.

I used regular dish soap and a scrubby pad with bristles to clean them up and make them shiny.  I found that PBR caps and Heineken caps work best for my purposes, but feel free to experiment!!  If you're using acrylic paints, I used several coats of paint to get a nice opaque cover.  The image is the most difficult part, really, to size it down and still have it clear and sharp, but that depends entirely on your skills with images.  I've seen fun stickers and things that fit into bottle caps as well at craft stores, or you can draw your own!  I've used a combination of printed images and hand drawn applications to clear mine up.  Here's some fun photos!

Here's the back of the PBR cap, a custom order.  Clear gloss and made extra shiny!

Here's the "front" of the cap, I filled in the heart, and painted it to make it fancy :)  Filled with epoxy for durability.

So this picture is really blurry, but, I really like how it turned out.  My photographer is out of reach at the moment, so I'm stuck with cell phone pics,  Woo. 

Another custom order, a Vault Symbol from the game, Borderlands 2.  Simple, hand painted, but really cool.  I am going to make one in the red/yellow next for myself! 

Sizing the image before settling.  I painted the whole thing BEFORE gluing the image down, because the colors matched, and I wanted the epoxy to set in correctly and not leak under.

Happy St.Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day isn't a big holiday for me, as most of them aren't, despite the overwhelming possibilities for cute overload... :D  I've really found myself enjoying the kawaii and over-cute genre lately.  I'm enjoying being happy, I guess.  Still lovin' on the 8 bit though!  Here are some new projects I've completed this month!  I've spent more time this month on collecting materials (which means over spending woo) and thinking of ideas I'll be working out and fine tuning, hopefully in time for some sweet summer shopping and getting some awesome things up soon!  I'm going to work on keeping updated with shop stuff, moving products around, and hopefully moving more inventory!!  I'm really enjoying playing with clay and other mixed media lately.  I've become more ambitious and more motivated to start just... just tearing things apart. I feel like I've finally got some solid tools going, and I'd like to expand my craft area, but, I really can't justify that right now, haha.  I still need to clean some of it out, and get rid of some things, but, it's a work in progress!!

Anyway, here are some sweet photos!  First up, I'm gifting a sweet little pencil case, along with some earrings and things, to a 10 year old that's spunky and sweet.

 I discovered the little baggie of magical things for the sewing machine, including a zipper foot!  That made this zipper installation a snap!  It was SO much easier than it was with the other cases I made, and it looks SO much cleaner.  Very happy I found that, and was able to put it on without any issues.  I only have this sewing machine a few more months, so I'm trying to use it as much as possible, since with tuition and things coming up, I am not entirely certain on when I'll have a few hundred EXTRA bucks to pick up my own.  Oh well, enjoy it while I can!!

The earrings are polymer clay, hand sculpted and detailed by yours truly, and simply glued onto surgical steel earring posts.  I think I'll need to Dremel the ends down, as they have a bit of an overhang which makes putting the earrings on a little uncomfortable.  Since they're already glued on there and not going anywhere... I hope they turn out alright, and not too sharp.  Totally practicing on a few first.  I didn't notice the overhang before it was too late =\  But, they're real cute, and really easy to make again, if I mess it up.  The sculpture below was inspired by the tiny littles that I'd made a few weeks ago, and I just made him smaller.  I think I'm going to include a little card with it, explaining proper care and an adoption certificate for validation.

Coming Up!

Some fun things are coming soon, and already in the works.  Excited for new shop inventory and learning new techniques for the sake of learning :)  Happy St.. Patrick's Day to you all!  Stay safe, and don't have TOO much green beer, tomorrow is Monday, after all ;)