Beer Bottle Cap Tray

We've been collecting beer bottle caps for about 4 years now. We had a bucket and just tossed them in when we grabbed a beer. We've been trying to figure out a way to use them, and I stumbled upon this blog from Inspirations & Decorations. I had two different designs, and this was my first attempt with Modge Podge & Resin. I did one tray with both. After several hours - Modge Podge is the way to go. It's cheaper, dries clear, and is much easier to put on.

Where I got the Idea: Inspirations & Decorations

Time: 4 hours (plus overnight to dry)

Shopping List:
2 Trays
A whole lot of beer caps
1 Bottle of Ice Resin
1 Bottle of Modge Podge
Cheap Foam Brush
Black Spray Paint

Instructions:

1. Prep
I decided to start finding all of the Sweetwater & Terrapin caps first to make a Georgia tray. I've learned we drink a lot of Sweetwater & Terrapin caps bend way to easily. I was hoping to do a cool design, but because most of the Terrapin caps were too bent, I stuck with a Terrapin boarder.

I started putting them on the tray to figure out how many I needed. I did the same thing with all of the other craft beers. It's fun to see how our tastes have changed between the "Old Faithful" - Sweetwater; "Cheap" - Bud Lime or Miller Lite; or "Trying something new" - Red Hook IPA. We also drank a lot of Stone IPA, which has a lot of cool caps.

2. Paint - We painted both of the trays black and let them dry. Seeing how amazingly hot it was this weekend, this took no time at all!

3. Arrange  - So now is time to put all of those bottle caps back on the tray. There is clearly a better way to do this, rather than doing it twice (i.e. wait until AFTER you paint it to do this), but I didn't want to do that for whatever reason. Anxious maybe? So here are the two different trays.

 

4A. Glue Part One 

 Okay so we had  bought Ice Resin, at Hobby Lobby. I'm not convinced this is the greatest thing ever. I also bought a bottle of Modge Podge. I decided to use the Modge Podge on the Hodge Podge of caps! Okay so the Modge Podge, I poured out over the tray and pushed it around with the foam brush. I was a little nervous about the white, because well I had never used Modge Podge before! Turns out...it does eventually dry clear. This morning we had about 1/2 of the glue had dried up. I'm very pleased with this attempt!

 4B. Glue Part Two

So we decided to use the Ice Resin on the Sweetwater/Terrapin trey. That one didn't turn out quite as good...meaning it didn't work. So I guess we need some more Modge Podge. I may change the design too...I'm not loving it.



****UPDATE: The Modge Podge eventually dried (I do think I used wayyyyy too much, but for my first experience with it, it was a breeze!). The Ice Resin never really worked. I rearranged the design making stripes (two diagonal rows of Sweetwater followed by a row of Terrapin). Next time I go to the store, I'm getting more Modge Podge to finish the tray. All in all easy peasy!