Have an excessive bottle cap collection? Put them to use with these five projects!

When I was in college, I started this odd obsession with collecting bottle caps. I was a novice in the beer world, but for some reason I loved the artwork and unique styling surrounding each brewery’s bottle cap. Even though I was a cheap beer drinker at the time, my roommate was deep into the craft beer game (His brother turned out to be the Head Brewmaster at Cultivate Brewing Company in Berrien Springs, Michigan). He helped me in my craze to collect bottle caps. I’m sure I’m not the only one who collects bottle caps and if you’re like me, most of the bottle caps you own are probably collecting dust somewhere. If you’re thinking of ways to maybe make use of those old bottle caps, I have come up with 5 different ideas to change your bottle caps into eye candy.

• TABLE TOP – This is the most cliché, yet most creative and fun way of turning your caps into something that will last a lifetime. In order to make a table top, you need a few things; a lot of bottle caps, a lot of ideas, and an old wooden coffee/end table. My first bottle cap table turned out to have over 1400 bottle caps, but every time someone came to visit me, they would always comment on my table. Of course you don’t need that many caps to create something small, like an end table or nightstand. However, I think this is the most fun you can have with creating something from nothing and being extremely proud of what you’ve accomplished. It’s also extremely easy to lay out considering a bottle cap measures 1 inch by 1 inch. This is usually a three-day process which involves your table, caps, and some liquid acrylic. To start, lay out your caps on the table to get an idea of what the table top will look like then remove the caps, pour the liquid acrylic over the table so that the acrylic goes up half way to you bottle cap, set the bottle caps in place, and then finish pouring the acrylic completely over the caps. In 72 hours the acrylic will harden and you will have a brand new kick-ass bottle cap table talk worth bragging about!
• WALL ART – If you don’t want to give up your favorite coffee table for caps or maybe want something more distinctive that will catch the eye from a vertical standpoint, you should try wall art. Wall art comes in many forms, but since we all love Indiana craft beer, you should try filling out an Indiana state cut-out that you can fill with bottle caps! The fine folks at Beer Cap Maps (I found my plywood cut-out on Amazon) has a great Indiana cut-out bottle cap map that you can fill in your favorite caps with for around 40 dollars. This idea cuts down on the time-lapsing process of using liquid acrylic because all you need to do with this cut-out is simply snap in your caps and you’re ready to go! Some people nail in their map to a wall, others like to frame their map (I personally just nail mine to a wall since I like to switch out my caps on a regular basis). Either way it’s sure to to be an attention grabber in your room.