Bottle Cap Jewelry

Bottle Cap jewelry is a fun thing to make, and also a green project. You only need a few simple things to get started, but I warn you - proceed at your own discretion and consider yourself forewarned - it is highly addictive. Another thing to keep in mind, kids LOVE this kind of thing, both to make and to wear.

The basic items you will need are:

• 3 bottle caps (you can recycle or use new ones)
• Small stamp(s) of your choice
• Pigment inks of your choice
• Large jump rings
• Hammer
• Nail
• Cording
• Ear wires (fish hook style)
• Sandpaper or emery board
• Paint, either spray or acrylic any color or sheen

The above items will get you through a basic bottle cap necklace and matching earrings.

1. The first thing you need to do is to hammer a hole through the side of all three clean bottle caps, not through the top of the cap. Then lightly sand the entire outside of the bottle cap, making sure any rough edges of the nail hole are sanded down. These do not have to be completely flat, but make sure there is nothing sharp enough to cut someone.

2. Paint the entire outside of the bottle cap and allow them to dry. Paint on a second coat if it is needed.

3. Ink up your stamp and carefully stamp image on the top of the bottle cap. Allow to dry. You can use your heat gun to speed up this process if you desire.

4. When bottle cap is dry you need to seal it. You can use either a spray or brush on type of sealer. I prefer to use the spray sealer as it is thinner and does not leave brush marks, or a very thick sealer such as Krylon Triple Thick, which leaves a thicker, glassy coating. You can also use resin, which we will go into in another lesson. Again, allow this to dry completely.

5. After the sealer is dry, gently push nail through holes again if they have been sealed shut. Then take your jumps ring and twist, don’t pull them open. Run them through the hole in the bottle caps and twist one of the jump rings closed.

6. Now take your cording and decide just exactly how long you want it to be. After cutting it to size run it through the closed jump ring on one of the bottle caps. Tie off the cord in the back. You now have your necklace completed.

7. Take remaining two bottle caps with the jump rings already through them. Run one of the jump rings through one of the hoops on the bottom of the ear wire and twist closed. Repeat with the other ear wire.

Your set of bottle cap jewelry is now completed. Have fun wearing them and remember, don’t throw out those bottle caps!