Challenge #4 - last addition 03/20/08

Happy Friday, everyone! Just a quick note to be sure to go back and browse the earlier challenges - we've had some new additions to inspire you!

For this week, we're going to work with those bottlecaps! Several companies came out with decorated bottle caps back in "the day" - Li'l Davis Designs, EK Success, and let's not forget all the cute colored ones that Design Originals did! For those of you who have purged them from your scrapbooking stash...hey, it's a great excuse to go have a beer, right? I even found a tutorial here for making them digitally! And of course, they ARE still available!

Fair warning - if you dump them out like this, feline household members WILL be excited...I think mine took off with one or two.

I really had forgotten just how versatile these are until I was browsing around looking for info to link for inspiration. For the basics (in case you've forgotten), here are instructions for flattening them. Here is a great page on stamping on them. I love that they mention using a hammer to texturize them - anyone have a Tim Holtz hammer to test an update to that technique? Speaking of Tim, don't forget alcohol inks do spectacular things with bottle caps! Here is another page with ideas for using them - love the closure idea!

All right - let's see what you can all do!! Link me in the comments or in an email and I'll add them to the post for everyone's inspiration! Check back often to see what everyone else is doing to bring back bottle caps!

Pauline was the first to finish this challenge (welcome!) this week and look! Bonus points for using a zipper too! Very cute!

Here's an altered wood frame from me. I seem to have forgotten any technique I used to have for flattening these buggers but I think I should have probably been doing it on the floor instead of my table (I had a mat to protect the table but the bounce was too much, I think).

Aimeslee has some more ATC's for us this week! If you check her blog she also has pics of the process of squashing bottlecaps with the original Sizzix machine (with the sandwich "recipe" too!). I especially just LOVE the sunflower one with the sun stamped into the bottlecap!

Aimeslee also tested the Crop-A-Dile on her bottlecaps and not only did it work, but she found a USE for the bottlecaps in attaching ribbons to her card box to make a handle! How cute is that (not to mention inspiring since I'm playing with making Easter baskets at the moment, lol!)