unique ideas for collected bottle caps?

June 16, 2011 8:52 PM

anyone have unique ideas for using collected bottle caps??

i have a TON of bottle caps from beer bottles that i've been collecting for some unknown reason (packrat, i guess).... many of them are from local beers or just interesting by design. anyone know of really cool bottle cap crafts that one can actually use and will not cover up the bottlecap logos? (no necklaces or magnets that require hiding the original logo and painting on the inner part of the bottle cap, please....

posted by peykron to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

You could cover a small table with them and top with a sheet of plexiglass or something. Here's a page with several examples.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:56 PM on June 16, 2011

Interesting bottle caps make nice covers for those plain round fridge magnets, and because they are held on by magnetism, you can change them whenever you want for variety.
posted by Brian B. at 9:05 PM on June 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

The traditional thing to do (where I live, anyway) is to construct a lagerphone.
posted by pompomtom at 9:12 PM on June 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

I've been collecting bottlecaps myself recently, for use as game tokens. Checkers, poker chips, stands by which to modify pawns into queens, or as creativity allows. Colorful, cheap, standardized, nestable, versatile little buggers.
posted by foursentences at 9:25 PM on June 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

You can hang them to make a beaded curtain
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:03 PM on June 16, 2011

yeah, most Australians would make a largerphone. Not saying you're Australian. just saying
posted by the noob at 10:32 PM on June 16, 2011

Beer-view mirror for your bike rides. My friend found that a dentist's mirror is just the right size.
posted by aniola at 10:52 PM on June 16, 2011

Scale armor for a Warrior Dash?
posted by codswallop at 11:11 PM on June 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bottle cap tray - the caps in this example are painted, but it could look just as neat with all the logos still visible.
posted by illenion at 11:11 PM on June 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Transparent concrete with bottle caps as the amalgamate? Use as a wall or a bar-top or whatever.

Or cast a lucite block with the bottle caps suspended in it; screw in legs to get a cool coffee table.

Dorkily, rivet caps onto a leather jerkin to get a faux ringmail look.
posted by porpoise at 12:03 AM on June 17, 2011

Whoops - sorry codswallop - I didn't read the thread, I was referring to flattened caps riveted onto a vest; actual ring/scale mail has been historically effective and some of those concepts could make modern anti-firearm armors more effective.
posted by porpoise at 12:09 AM on June 17, 2011

Glue little magnets inside them, then use the different beer brands/cap colors to make designs and patterns all over your car?
posted by easily confused at 2:53 AM on June 17, 2011

You could do an etsy search for bottle caps and see what comes up. There are probably some interesting ideas there.
posted by MexicanYenta at 4:54 AM on June 17, 2011

I swear to God if I had a bottle cap collection I would replicate this.
posted by bq at 5:22 AM on June 17, 2011

There was an earlier Ask Metafilter thread on what to do with a ton of bottle caps.
posted by radiomayonnaise at 6:10 AM on June 17, 2011

I have done lots of mosaics with bottle caps as components, ranging from tabletop size to huge garden beds - and my friend has done entire walls in his house that are nothing but bottle caps. They look amazing. Of course, with those you don't see the inside of the cap ever again, so if that's important to you I guess it's out. The process is simple and time consuming: adhere your caps however you like (sticking them in concrete is good or you could use tile adhesive) and then grout the whole thing. Handy hint! I tint grout with a couple drops of acrylic paint.

I also am partial to bottle cap snakes but they do involve putting holes in the caps. Anyway, if you want to make one, you will need about 100 bottle caps, 2 wine corks and wire. Take the caps and pound a hole through the center of each. You can do this with a nail and a hammer or, best solution, hand caps, nail and hammer to a 10 year old and have them do it. Then string wire through the holes so that the caps are fairly tightly together. Carve a snake head from one wine cork and a tail from the other and affix them to each end and voila, you have a bottlecap snake that you can hold out horizontally, making it move eerily like those fancy wooden snakes you see in upscale craft galleries.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:54 AM on June 17, 2011

Murals.
posted by y2karl at 12:04 PM on June 17, 2011

Not unique, but my Dad shadowboxed his collection and mounted it on the wall as art- Actually looks pretty nice.
posted by Canageek at 7:44 PM on June 17, 2011