Bottle it up

We've all been there before, you have a house party with a bunch of good friends, drinks are had and everyone has a good old time (hopefully).  The next morning when you wake up you're amazed at all the places that bottle caps can end up.  In rooms people weren't even in, on shelves, counters, chairs, sinks, you name it, they're there.  Now most people would probably throw these out, but there are actually a lot of really cool things you can do with bottle caps considering it seems so wasteful to throw away all of those pieces of metal.

Here are some cool ideas:

You can make a bottle cap picture frame or a frame for a mirror.  I think it would be neat to use caps from one type of beer and making something with that.  It would make a great gift for someone who drinks only one kind or for a bachelor pad or something

If you paint some bottle caps or glue really cool beads or buttons you can make jewelry out of them

You can do the same thing with the jewelry but make fridge magnets.  I really like this idea for stocking stuffers or cute little gifts for fun

Or you can just do this if you have all the time in the world and a seemingly endless supply of bottle caps

Cork dork

So as I mentioned in my post Corky projects I was going to do a project using old wine corks.

Well I kept my promise and I completed my very own cork board.  This is another one of those too-easy-to-be-real projects, but here's proof that crafts really can be super cheap, super easy and really cute.

There it is sitting proudly on my wall.  The cool thing about this piece is that it can be functional or just decorative

Here it is being a functional cork board

So how do you make it?

Here's what you need:

-A picture frame

-A bunch of corks

-Hot glue gun (not pictured)

The frame that I chose was only $3 dollars at the Goodwill bins.  I saw some really giant ones that were only like $10 dollars but I wanted to make sure I worked out the kinks in a smaller frame before moving up in size.  This is I'd say the only purchase you'd have to make for this project, unless you already have a frame that you'd like to use

So here's what I did first:

I sorted out all the same size corks and got an idea of how many I would need to fill the frame (I ended up needing a few more than this since this isn't the final pattern).  I also kept the glass in the frame because it created a stable base

Next I arranged the corks in the final pattern and hot glued them by vertical rows so I could make sure it would all fit.  I suppose you could glue it horizontally but I don't recommend gluing random corks because you could end up with empty spaces or not enough room.  

As you can see at the top of the picture there wasn't enough room for whole corks so I cut them in half and it worked out really nicely

And there it is!  I want to make a lot more of these in all different sizes since they were so easy and fast and if you buy the frames at the bins then you will spend hardly any money on them.  

Can't let it go

As I mentioned in my post Nothing you can wine about , I had originally planned to make candle votives out of my wine bottles by using a method I kept hearing about online.  The method is where you take a piece of string soaked in nail polish and wrap it around the part of your bottle you want to remove, then you light it on fire and dunk it into cold water really fast.  This apparently makes a really clean cut and you only have to sand the glass slightly to smooth it out.
Well, the string for some reason would not stay lit.  So I tried it with lighter fluid (maybe not the best idea) and that lit for a brief second.  Then I saw something about scoring the bottle first with a fancy glass cutter and then using boiling water and cold water to get the bottle to break cleanly.  I only had a hack saw and I barely scratched the surface.
So I got some suggestions from friends, did a little research and am now making this blog post in the hopes that the poor soul out there who tries to do what I did won't.
Here's the video that I saw talking about the different methods of glass cutting:

Also this:

Cut Glass

Unfortunately both methods involve stuff you probably don't have lying around but there are a lot of different types out there that cost different amounts so you might get lucky and find a cheap one.

Anyways, now that I know how to properly cut glass, I may get my tail out from between my legs and try it again soon.