DIY: Upcycled Bottlecap Flowers

A Bird in the Hand's blog has given us an idea on how to upcycle our bottle caps into something wonderful.  We have been looking for a way to upcycle our bottle caps and this may be just the thing.

Be sure to check out their blog for more fun DIY!

Now, here's a step-by-step tutorial.  First I collected my materials.  I used bottle caps (I used 20 in mine), a tin can lid, a chopstick, and glue (I started with super glue but switched to epoxy b/c some weren't holding).

From there, I started bending my bottle caps into the shape of flower petals.  The basic idea was inspired by a previous Iron Craft project where I had created a felt flower.  I used my pliers and just started bending until I got the shape I wanted. 

For me, the easiest way to do it was to grab the rim of the bottle cap and pull it down to flatten it.  Then I would bend in the two sides.  Finally, I would bend down the top.  My first few petals looked like blobs of metal so it takes a little trial-and-error.

As I went, I laid my petals out on the tin can lid to determine how many I would need.  I did two layers of petals, but you can switch it up and do more if you like.

Next I glued on the petals.  I did the entire outside row first and then switched to the second layer.  Like I mentioned above, I tried using super glue but found that some of my petals weren't holding so I switched to epoxy.

Finally, I added one more bottle cap in the center.  Now you have a finished flower!

From there, I attached a chopstick by gluing it onto the can lid in between two of the petals.  This allowed me to turn it into a garden stake.  But there are lots of other possibilities.  You could paint it, add leaves (maybe cut from soda cans?), turn it into a pin, etc.