bottle cap ornaments–simple, blingy, and sparkle-rific

[Warning:  Grandparents, aunts, and uncles--spoiler alert!]

Maddy fell hard for bottle cap jewelry at her school’s Craft Night this year (and who wouldn’t?), so when we brainstormed what kinds of ornaments we could make for our family for Christmas, bottle caps were on the brain.

My plan was to save our own bottle caps for a few weeks and then decorate the insides of the caps with teeny photos of Maddy, Owen, and Cora, some holiday images, and a ton of sparkle.  Then I thought I’d add a little string, and we’d have our ornies.

But after trying–unsuccessfully–to save some of our own caps, I just bit the bullet and bought a bunch online.  And after the caps arrived, I breathed a bit easier.

Here’s how we made the most simple, but the absolutely most blingy, sparkley, gorgeous, incredibly stunning bottle cap ornaments ever, even if it is cutting it close for this year. We always scramble the week of the 25th, and I’m betting we’re not alone.

• Bottle Cap Ornaments:  They’re really so beautiful.  And Maddy, Owen, and Cora had a blast making them, probably because they’re finally at the age where they are able to decorate something as tiny as a bottle cap, but also because they really love glitter glue. And that’s what we used a bunch of to make these.

Plus, their little mugs are all over these, and it’s so cool if you’re a kid to see your face on your Christmas tree and your family’s trees as well.

I took a minute to print out a page of Maddy, Owen, Cora, and Brady’s faces–yes, Brady’s a part of our family even if he steals our socks and eats our things. I added some holiday images–trees, holly leaves, bells, and stars–and I created a text box with ‘Happy Holidays’ and ‘Maddy, Owen, and Cora 2010′.

Our Bottle Cap Cut Outs

The Bottle Cap Ornaments Sheet of cut-outs is here to download as a pdf, or you can download Bottle Cap Ornaments as a Word doc and make whatever changes you need.  I printed them out on cardstock so that they wouldn’t bleed like photos on photo paper does.

I put newspaper down on the table, and gathered our glitter glue, some stick-on jewels, some buttons, and all the shine I could find. I grabbed some pretty ribbon, some tacky glue and super glue, and some Mod Podge; I knew I’d want to seal the photos when we were finished.

And then they got rockin’ and rollin’.

And the ornaments came out beautifully.

Some were made without photos. . .

. . . and some were made with photos.

For the ones that included Maddy, Owen, and Cora’s funny faces, I cut a piece of thick ribbon and superglued the bottle caps on it.  And on some I added Brady.

On other bottle caps, I superglued a craft magnet to the backs to make blinged-out bottle cap magnets!

The fun continued!

On the backs of the ribbon, I glued the ‘Happy Holidays’ note.  On the backs of the ornaments, I glued the ribbon and added some sort of bling to keep it in place–a snowflake Foamie, a button, or a shiny something.

Cora makes a nice pile of snowflakes on her bag. . .

Maddy, Owen, and Cora decided they wanted to hand-decorate the gift bags–no stamps or paint–for these gifts.  The gift bags are the teeniest ones you can find at a craft store, and the kids added trees, Santa, snowflakes, and whatever they chose.

We chose an ornament with all three kids’ faces, two smaller ones, and a magnet or two for each of our family members, and we wrapped a few smaller ornaments and magnets for our neighbors.

The final gifts turned out beautifully!

It was fun–granted, it was messy, but so is the rest of our house right now, so it didn’t bother me much. I know that Maddy, Owen, and Cora feel good about making gifts for the people we love, and the people we love will still love us even if our house is still a total mess by the end of the week (I’m hoping it’s not).

If you drink enough bottled beverages, then start saving your bottle caps, especially if you’re entertaining over the holidays, and perhaps your kiddos’ faces can don your tree before you take it down.   Really, this is a simple and easy craft, and the decorating of a teeny-tiny space is great for fine motor development, not to mention that the prep and clean-up is worth teaching a little lesson in giving to our tinies. . .

Happy holidays, my friends, and a happy and blessed 2011!