When Life Hands You Bottles - You Drink the Beer Inside and Make Bottle Cap Magnets

So, all of my classes got cancelled last Wednesday and I started feeling crafty. I sat down with my Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts: An A-to-Z Guide with Detailed Instructions and Endless Inspiration book that Birdy so generously bought for me, and chose a few fun projects. I decided to make bottlecap magnets and put them inside hand made boxes I folded out of scrapbook paper and also teacup candles (those will be my next entry!). I had great success with all the projects and they are all pretty easy to do. Check it out:

Bottle Cap Magnets

Supplies:

Printer and Paper or photos (I have a ton of vintage photo's from the 1930's that I'm using for my next batch!)

1" circular paper punch

Craft glue

bottlecaps

clear casting resin

bonding cement

magnet buttons

How to:

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  I made a 1" circle template on my computer (I used Microsoft Publisher) and then uploaded my friends photos, my own photo's that I have taken, and other maps, letters and pictures I found online and sized them down to fit in the circle and printed them out.
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  Next I took the 1" craft punch and punch out all the images I wanted to use and used the craft glue to fix them inside the bottle caps.
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  Then I lined a cookie sheet with tinfoil to use as a workspace
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  Once the glue dries I mixed the casting resin according to the instructions on the box and spooned it into each bottlecap, filling to the rim. Tip: if you find any bubbles forming on the surface, run a blowdryer, on low heat, over top and the bubbles should disappear.
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  I left those to harden up for a few hours and then took the bonding cement and glued the magnets to the backs of the bottle caps and then let them sit overnight to harden completely. Tip: you can swap out magnets for flat head thumbtacks and use them on a cork board.

So now I had a bunch of magnets that i wanted to give out to my friends, so I needed something to put them in. Luckily Martha had an answer. I used pretty printed scrapbook paper to fold into little origami nesting boxes! The boxes I folded ended up being 4x4x1.5. This is super hard to describe without a diagram so I found the instructions online and you can find them here.

To asemble my little presents I folded newsprint and wrapped the magnets in that, and tied the boxes with fun, mismatched ribbon. I also made some for myself and they are dotted all over my fridge. If you want me to make you any, let me know!

Let me know what you think!
Teacup Candles are next - they came out awesome.

And tomorrow I'm taking a "make your own body scrub" class at Purple Shutter Herbs in Winooski. I'll let you know how that turns out!
And remember - you're fabulous.