Using bottle caps as bezels for resin is a great way to make jewelry without spending a lot of money on materials. If you are just starting to work with resin, I recommend using bottle caps for your practice pieces – they are free, and you probably have some lying around your house. Plus it’s recycling!

Here’s what you will need:

• two-part epoxy resin
• clean, dry bottle caps
• newspaper or plastic bags to cover your workspace
• scissors
• glue (I use mod podge)
• paper
• small found objects, bits of hardware, beads, glitter, or whatever else you hav that is small enough to fit inside the bottlecap
• drill & small drill bit (1/16 inch or smaller) (optional)
• water or other lube for drill (if using a drill)
• wire (16, 18, or 20g is what I would use)
• round nose pliers
• flat nose pliers
• wire cutters
• safety gear, including good ventilation & a respirator so you don’t breathe in the resin fumes

Now here’s what you do:

• Prepare your workspace: protect it with newspaper, or plastic such as plastic grocery bags.
• If using an image for a background, cut the image out to fit in the bottle cap & glue it down. Let glue dry completely before moving on.
  

  Bottle Cap Charms After Gluing

• Arrange your objects, glitter, etc in the bottlecap
• Mix the resin according to the manufacturer’s instructions and use a small stirring stick such as a popsicle stick or wooden coffee stirrer to drip just enough resin into the bottle cap to completely cover your objects and/or collaged image. Be careful not to overfill the bottle cap because cleaning up spilled resin is really not fun – trust me.
• Let the resin cure – this could take up to 72 hours – you may want to put something like an upside down pie pan over your pieces while they cure, so that they don’t get dust stuck to the surface
  

  Bottle Cap Charms with One Resin Layer

• If you are happy with the look of the piece, you are ready to drill or wrap it. If it looks like it needs more resin, you can pour a little more and let it cure again. I like to do two layers of resin so that I can place objects on top of the first layer, giving the piece a little more depth.

Once your final resin layer has cured, you are ready to make these into something. A few ideas:

• Drill a hole near the top & insert a jump ring or bail to make a pendant or charm (tutorial coming soon!)
• Wire wrap it to use as a pendant or charm (tutorial coming soon!)
• Glue it to a ring finding, brooch finding, or magnet