Want to show off some of the awesome beers/ciders/sodas/whatevers in your state? Create a cutout and brag about how awesome your state is, because of all of the superb alcohol (or non-alcoholic beverages) it produces. Perfect wall decoration for people who love beer, bottle caps, or both!
Supplies:
- Cardboard
- Writing utensil
- Brown paper bag
- Glue
- Scissors
- Bottle caps
- Hot glue gun and glue
- Draw out the shape of your state onto the cardboard. This is really the only difficult step. Depending how big you want it to be, you can print out a full-sheet picture of your state and use it as a stencil. Or if you want it to be bigger and do not have access to a printer capable of printing something that big, you can freehand it like me. It was a pain, but I think it turned out pretty well. You can also print out the image on multiple sheets, puzzle them together, and use that as your stencil. Whatever works for you.
- After you have your shape drawn, lay out your bottle caps to make sure they fit nicely. You might have to adjust your lines a bit if you want the caps to fit completely on the cardboard. Otherwise, you can let them hang off a bit.
- Once you have your shape perfected, cut it out.
- Glue on strips of the brown paper bag to smooth out the edges of the cardboard as suggested on the Tips page (find the full tutorial here). At this point, you can also paint it if you want a different color background. I chose to leave mine brown so that the colors of the bottle caps really pop.
- Now you just have to glue on your bottle caps and there you have it, some great boozy decor for your walls. It’s fun and a fantastic conversation piece.
*Bonus tip: Don’t have a continuous piece of cardboard big enough for the size your want? I pieced together a few different chunks of the same thickness, reinforced where the pieces met with thin cardboard on the back (like from a cereal box), and covered each side with another piece of brown paper bag. Stealthy.