DIY mid century clock magnets | How About Orange

May 26, 2010

DIY mid century clock magnets

I finally did something with the used bottle caps accumulating in a cup in our kitchen: DIY mid century modern clock magnets.

To make them:
Wash and dry the caps, then spray paint them white. Let dry.

Download the clock graphics I made, print, and cut them out. Brush the surfaces of the bottle caps with a bit of Mod Podge or other glue, stick on the clock faces, and brush another coat of Podge over the top. Let dry.

Glue magnets to the back. I used E6000 glue for this, and the magnets are 1-inch disc magnets from a local hobby store. They weren't quite thick enough to fill the bottle cap, so I added a small piece of cardboard as "filler" to make the magnetic surface level with the edge of the cap. Done!

105 comments:

Unknown said...

I love your graphics! Now I need to find bottle caps. Oh yeah beer caps. That I can do. :o)

Anonymous said...

That;s a great idea!

Jana said...

These are soooo fun. I've got to get drinking!
Jana

Robin Humphrey said...

cute! I want to make these this weekend! I need to drink a crap load of beers before then to get the caps

Nathalie said...

How fun are those?!! Very cool! Thanks for sharing your graphics with us! I knew I should have been saving bottle caps all this time!

SparklePaw said...

These are so fun and clever! Great job!

Anonymous said...

You are so cool. Now to break the news to my hubby that I'm going to collect more "junk" for crafts. lol

Nadine said...

Oh, I love you! lol! We've been collecting bottle caps to make 'music sticks' for the girls and after we made them we still had plenty left over & out of habit we still collect them. :)

Plain Chicken said...

I wish I had saved all our beer caps now! I guess we just have to drink a lot this weekend!

Susan said...

So adorable. Wondering how else to use them!

Laura said...

Love those graphics, thank you for sharing!

Grandma G said...

I'm gonna have a big beer party this weekend to collect some caps!!

Mum(yeahthat'dbetheday)

P.S. They're very cute!

HoneyB said...

I'm laughing that the majority's solution to their lack of supplies is: GOTTA DRINK MORE BEER! Ha ha ha ha haaa! Thanks for sharing!

Stella said...

I love this! I'm so glad I have many beer drinking friends. It's the only time I've ever wanted to be a beer drinker!

Nicole Underwood Gonzalez said...

these are delightful!!!

Jeni Baker said...

Those are so cute! I'll have to make some soon!

CitricSugar said...

Love these! Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

These are awesome! Oh, and I'm coming to Grandma G's beer party.

Greta said...

These are so, so, so SO stinking cute! i am totally making these to give away at the next blog event I go to. I hope you don't mind. And I'll be sure to mention the idea came from you!
Thanks, I just love your blog and all your ideas.
Love from,
Greta

iheartsunnydays said...

Oh these are adorable. Thanks for the graphics - I love these!

Nutsy Coco said...

Great idea!!

Shelly said...

Wow! I love the graphics, too. I've got to remember to start saving caps around here...

Grace | Fashion Plants said...

Awesome! Can I have them in full size format (say 8x10 ish) so I can have a real clock in my vintage trailer???

I love the 'rainbow' clock one best because it goes with my Blue/Green Calliope Amusement Park curtains.

Keep the ideas coming!

hoopty doopty said...

These are great. Now I need to start buying drinks with caps so I can build up a stash. Cheers for another great craft.

Manu said...

Fantastic!!! I love these bottle caps!!!
Hugs from Italy! =^__^=

Care said...

~~LOVE!!~~

I *have* the clock in your second picture; it makes me endlessly happy! Now I need a magnet to match! :o)

Andrea W. said...

Ooh, the best thing to a Nelson clock!

Anonymous said...

oh, i have been thinking about doing this with the hundreds of caps collecting in a basket atop the microwavebut had not sorted out exactly how, yay! thank you for the post!

Rachel said...

Very cool. I have a small collection of bottle caps that I've been keeping because because I knew there had to be a cool way to reuse them. Thanks for the idea.

Sarah said...

you are so talented! i will share on my blog tomorrow:

http://simplyfunstuff.blogspot.com/

jeanette from everton terrace said...

How did you ever think of this? Inspiring and so darn cute.

Kim said...

Ooh! So cute!

concretenprimroses said...

Very nice. I love your graphics.
Kathy

Jodz said...

OMG! I love them. I must make some. Now to get some lids ;)

Kristen Rettig said...

Adorable! Thank you.

Chiara said...

Wonderful idea!!

elena said...

Wowza~! Love these.

Multiductus said...

Your clock graphics are fantastic ;)

Shanee said...

Great idea. I love it. ^^

Lisse said...

thanks for sharing your graphics with us. I like it very much.
I think I'm going to make these bottle caps to use them as embellishments in my scrapbooking pages.

Annalisa from Italy

OLIWKA said...

fantastic work :) thank you

Elisa said...

Beautiful, thank you!!!

Erin said...

Very cute!

lmm_lisa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
home based businesses said...

I have a lot of caps at home my younger sister used to play with them. Now I will have something to do with them. Thanks for the inspiration.

kimberj said...

Jessica, love this idea! Our whole home is mid cent modern and these will be a great add to the kitchen. My daughter and I may make these on vacation this coming week in FL. I'm sure the guys will provide the beer caps :)

mb_in_dc said...

So cute! I loved the graphics... ans a project that requires bottle caps? Perfect for Memorial Day weekend!

carolyn said...

These are great!

Ellen said...

Loved reading about these yesterday on your blog, and now they've just popped into my Facebook homepage, courtesy of CRAFT magazine! You're getting some good press. Nice to see; you do such beautiful work.

Anonymous said...

sheer genius!

Noblekatt said...

making rootbeer floats tonight for the fam, plenty of bottle caps to use for this craft! awesome, RB floats and crafting!!!!

Jessica Jones said...

Ah ha! Somebody who's not planning to drink gallons of beer to get bottle caps. I found the first several commenters to be very hilarious. Mom, I want you to have a beer party. I would like to see that. And if MP Amy is coming, I'm coming too.

Amy's Stocking Stuffers said...

What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing your graphics!

Heather - Dollarstorecrafts.com said...

Oh my gosh, these are brilliant. So adorable!!! Thanks for thinking of these. I'm gonna sit here and look at them for a few minutes. :)

Stephanie Fazio (aka lealou) said...

so cute! what a great idea!

Grandma G said...

Y'never know what I might do in my old age, Jess!!

I did think it was pretty cool that I got an RSVP before I even sent out invitations! lol

MPAmy, glad you're coming!

Becky said...

I have a couple of bowls full of bottle caps. What a nifty project. Thanks Jess!

GG - I'll be there too ;)

Jennie Bee said...

Yes! I've been collecting bottle caps for years this finally gives me some inspiration to do something with them!

desiree said...

Love these! I'm gonna make these for a friend--she will FLIP! Thanks!

PS. Saw this over at Whorange--just book marked you too! I love blogland!

Anonymous said...

These are really cool! What photoshop program do you use?

Rachel@oneprettything.com said...

Aww, no way! These are fabulous! Thanks so much for the great idea. I'll be linking.

construction_julie said...

You couldn't have posted these at a better time (time! ha, didn't intend that) because my 8-yr old daughter is practicing telling time on a "REAL" clock. She's having a little trouble with anything after the 30 minute mark. Darn tricky hour hand! ;) She and her friends love bottle caps, so this might be a fun project to do with them!

Stephanie said...

Great timing! I've got the caps and the magnets and have been looking for something cool to do with them... thanks for the awesome graphics too!

Catherine Peart said...

Wow, these are fantastic! Thanks so much for the graphics. What sort of printer do you use? I find that mod podge smears anything I try to print and use.

Jessica Jones said...

I printed these on a color laser printer at a copy shop. The graphics were made in Adobe Illustrator.

starryeyedkel said...

Instead of cutting all of your graphics by hand, try a 1" circle punch.

Mary Stanley said...

Love these!!! what a great idea!
cool graphics!

Anonymous said...

This is very COOOL- I already save bottlecaps so I am ready to go- just wondering and would like to hear if anyone used some type of spray to finish & protect-

because the magnets are so awesome I would like them to stay around awhile...
Thanks for sharing.

E said...

Hey all - here's an idea. My father-in-law is member at country club, so he just asked the bartender lady to save beer caps for me. She saved a TON in a short amount of time. I just picked through and recycled the ones that were too bent to use, but I got many different caps this way. You could ask a local bar - they'd probably save them for you.

Since I'm mentioning it, we collected gallon jug milk caps for my sister-in-law's preschool...we asked Starbucks and other local coffee shops and they saved the caps for us. In case any of you have brilliant ideas for turning milk jug caps into a fun project??? ; )

isatrujillo said...

Muchas gracias! They are so beautiful!!!

Lynn said...

You are so darn talented! Thanks for sharing. Time to make some clocks. :)

patricia zapata said...

So simple—great idea!

Jenny said...

I'm loving these. What program did you use to generate the graphics?

Claire Mercado-Obias said...

This is genius!

Jessica Jones said...

Jenny, I used Adobe Illustrator.

clearlytangled said...

super cute idea. great graphics.

Decor Girl said...

These are awesome! What a fantastic and simple idea. Love it!!!

tinajo said...

Really cute!

stephanie said...

those are SO rad :) my fiance will be happy when i tell him he needs to drink more beer so i can have the bottle caps...

Doreen said...

I am constantly amazed at the wonderful creativity that people come up with! Thanks for sharing this one. The last time I up-cycled bottle caps was 10 years ago for my Brownie troop, turning them into mini rice bowls for International Day. Keep the creative juices flowing!
http://altered-artworks.blogspot.com

B said...

it would also be really cute to flip them over, put your graphic inside, coat with Mod Podge dimensional magic and stick the magnet to the back. then you wouldn't have the magnet-thickness problem.
Darling! By the way, I think it is simply lovely you are sharing graphics with everyone.

jvlt said...

thank you so much for the free printables. I'd love to invite you to apply the The Craft Map.

http://thecraftmap.blogspot.com

Neisha said...

great idea!! I have some pop caps that I plan to do that with, though I plan to just use the graphic that's already on them :)

Nancy Ward said...

Hi!

Wanted you to know I posted a link to this tutorial on my blog today.

Nancy Ward
http://www.nancywardcrafts.com

Kayla said...

I printed these off the day that you posted them. I have had the paper laying in sight since then, but we moved so there was little time, AND I had no bottle caps. Now, every party I go to, I ask friends to save their bottle caps and I've started to make some! It is so fun and easy, so THANK YOU for the free printout! I will be posting pictures on my blog ASAP.

♥kayla

www.themindwandering.blogspot.com

Erin said...

Made 'em, love 'em, and blogged about you as a result! Thanks so much.

Sasha Holloway said...

I LOVE using bottlecaps for art .. I have been doing it alot lately .. love your graphics. We use to do it when I was deployed when we could have some down time. Now I send them to my friends deployed to different parts of this crazy world

Kayla said...

Here's the link to my poat about them!

http://themindwandering.blogspot.com/2010/07/bottle-cap-magnets-with-decoupaged.html#comments

Thanks for the free printout!

♥kayla

Caitastrophe said...

I love these! I just made some and glued them together using a glue gun, but the magnet tends to want to stay on the fridge and not on the bottlecap if I move it. Any suggestions for better gluing adhesiveness?

Jessica Jones said...

I think I used E6000 glue. Good stuff. My magnets are super strong but they still adhere to the bottle cap when I pull them off the fridge.

Dox said...

Thank you so much for sharing this. I have been looking for something my DS can do with his grandma... I think they will both enjoy this.

Anonymous said...

I zoomed the pitures, printed and modpodged/ varnished them on the coasters. They turned out so great that I cann't stop looking them each time I go next to my coffee table. They are great "conversation beginners" too. Great graphiques, I like them a lot! I was looking for them long time.
Thank you so much.
Hope you get this comment...

Sonia

nearteneparte said...

lovely idea! i want to make these for the earrings :-)
Anna-Nearteneparte

Husna Handycraft said...

Cute! ^_^ so simple but beautiful

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for providing the download file. I've been saving caps for this type of project and unsuccessfully looking for the right stickers to use.

These are perfect!

Anonymous said...

Could you buy scrapbook paper and mod podge that to the caps? My friend is wanting owl magnets and I found cute owl scrapbook paper.

lasercap said...

the used bottle caps accumulating in a cup in our kitchen: DIY mid century modern clock magnets.

just jill said...

Someone asked for other idea using bottle caps - make the magnets but put letters of the alphabet on them. They make great learning tools for the younger kids while you are in the kitchen. The magnets will stick to the fridge and the kids can learn to spell and leave messages with the words they assemble.

Hi! My name is erica. Would you be my friend? said...

Thank you for the images! I love those. :)

Think Bowtique said...

What a great idea! I love your images.

jackyolio57@sbcglobal.net said...

Since I don't drink beer and don't know anyone who does, where would I get the bottle caps?

Jessica Jones said...

Root beer, Coke, Izze sparkling juice, or lots of other sodas come in bottles.

Unknown said...

I love it and linked you as a part of my DIY-Design style feature about the "Best of DIY design style: mid century": http://nur-noch.blogspot.de/2014/08/best-of-diy-design-style-mid-century.html

Anonymous said...

a lot of beer caps come in color, so no spray painting required.

De Dollar said...

I love the retro AND the recycle! Great artwork and great idea!!! Thanks for the fun idea :))