Instructions to Make a Bottle Cap Necklace

Everybody to your right and left is obsessed with going green and you wonder how you can do your bit? Well, how about starting small? Save the bottle caps, and use them to make and sport cool, pretty, beautiful and funky necklaces. We'll see how to make bottle cap necklaces in a detailed step by step process. Let's get right down to some fun work.

• Bottle caps, as many as you think you will need, depending the type of necklace you are planning to make.
• Jumpers
• Acrylic paints
• Glue/ Adhesive
• Resin/ Diamond glaze
• Pliers and a hole punch

• Glitter/ Collage sheets for bottle caps/ Personal pictures to paste inside the cap/ Charms, etc.
• Chain/ Thread for the necklace
• Rubber sheet
• Candle/ Heating gun
• Gloves, Newspapers
• Hammer (to flatten the teeth of the caps)

There is a chance that the caps you buy have glue seal on them, so before you attempt to start decorating these caps, make sure to remove this glue seal. This can be done by using the candle or the heating gun.

With the help of pliers, hold the cap on the candle flame for a few seconds till the glue seal comes loose, and then pull it off. Now the caps are ready to be used.

This is the best part. You can just let your creativity flow and decorate the caps as you wish. We'll just give you a few ideas to get you started, and you can take it from there.

● You can fill up the cap till the edge with clay, cover the surface with glitter, and press your charm into the clay before it hardens.

● On a piece of paper cut into a circle to fit inside the cap, you can write your name, a quote, or whatever else you please, in your favorite font and stick the paper inside the cap with the glue or adhesive.

You can either print out the stuff, or write it yourself if you enjoy calligraphy. Also, if you want to, you can add designs around the quote/ name, to make it look pretty.

● If you want to personalize the necklace without words, pictures are the perfect way to do so. Take small printouts of your favorite photos - with your friends, family, alone, or your partner/spouse. Follow the same procedure as mentioned earlier and you have your own personalized necklace.

● Use the acrylic paints, and make pretty designs on either side of the cap. Let the paint dry properly. You can paint whatever you wish - people, symbols, cartoons, flowers, animals, motifs...
● Simply paint the caps in a bright color and leave them to dry. Stringing the caps of alternate colors together will give you a really simple and pretty necklace.

This is the easy part. Just place a rubber sheet over the teeth of the cap, and beat gently with the hammer till the teeth have flattened out. Don't put too much pressure or you'll end up flattening the entire cap. Once you have put in your picture, quote, design, etc., hold it the right side up, and punch a hole at the top of the cap to put in the jumper.

This is if you are planning to hang a single cap in your necklace. If you are planning to string the caps together, then punch a hole on either side for stringing them horizontally, and at the top and bottom for stringing them vertically - and then put in the jumpers.

The jumpers should be carefully rounded and squeezed closed properly with the help of the pliers, so that the thread, or chain of the necklace doesn't slip out.

The resin/ glaze will be required for applying a coat over the paper, so that it stays and doesn't get ruined. Apply a light coat of the resin/ glaze, and make sure that the application doesn't look lumpy. You will have to read the instructions carefully for this step.

If you mix the wrong quantities while preparing the resin/ glaze, the coating will not be clear, and it may block or ruin your picture/ words. After preparing the mixture, pour it into the cap till the cap is almost full.

Since the thickness of the cap is not much, the layer won't be thick either. Make sure it doesn't overflow, else your cap will stick in that same place and will be difficult to get off. Use sticks to mix the resin/ glaze, and work on a spread out newspaper, in case of spills. Wear gloves to protect your hands.

The resin/ glaze will take a good amount of time to dry out. This is the most frustrating part, but if you want to dry out the caps properly, best leave them in the sun for a day. Seems like a lot of time, but try to muster all your patience.

If you touch it to check if it has dried, then there is a good chance that you will get your fingerprints all over the resin/ glaze. Which in turn means you will have to start over, because the process of scraping off the resin is not going to be successful.

You will end up ripping away the paper/ photo/ glitter and clay as well. So, let it dry out and harden for a day.

This is where you can be really innovative and depending on the look you want, you can string the chain(s)/ thread(s) accordingly. Here are a few things you can try:

● Fold the caps in half to make semicircles, make sure the open ends are closed properly, and string the chain/ thread through them. Make a few strings in the same way, and then tie up the ends of the strings together so that you have a many layered necklace, like a halter necklace!

● Arrange three caps in a triangle, and weave the chains through them in such a way that the triangle stays in place. Weave two or more chains between each of the caps loosely so that the perfect curve of the chain is seen.

● String a couple of caps vertically, and then split up the thread, stringing the individual strands as well, so that you have a 'Y' shaped necklace.

● Similarly, you can also make two simple 'U' shapes and tie the ends together so that you have a two string cap necklace.
● Try macrame knots for single layered thread necklaces, as they look really pretty!

Try out various arrangements and experiment with the caps to get unique and funky necklaces. You can even make bottle cap necklaces with magnets. The whole process remains the same, the only difference being that once you string the thread/ chain through the magnet, you just have to fix the bottle cap over it and it'll stay.

No need to punch holes in the cap. And if you are stumped wondering how to make these necklaces for kids, worry not. Pretty flowers, their names, their favorite cartoon characters, etc., will surely make them a hit with kids. Ask them what kind of design they want and involve them too, so that all of you can have fun and pool in your creative ideas.

Next time you get bored, just give this a try, and you will end up utilizing your time efficiently and adding to your jewelry collection. Now that you know how to make bottle cap necklaces, have fun, and be as creative as you can! You'll love the looks you get when you sport it!