Thursday, April 9, 2015

Crafty Thursdays: Bottle Cap Key Rings



Amanda Lee (the pen name for Gayle Trent) is here today to celebrate her new embroidery mystery, Wicked Stitch, and tell us how to make key chains from bottle caps. And don't forget to comment below to win one of two copies of Wicked Stitch. With two books it increases the odds of winning. 

First a little bit about the book:

When murder strikes the small town of Tallulah Falls, embroidery shop owner Marcy Singer isn’t afraid of getting into the knitty-gritty to clear her own name… 
For most small-business owners in Tallulah Falls, the upcoming Renaissance Faire is a wonderful way to promote their specialty shops. For Marcy’s nemesis, Nellie, and her sister Clara, it’s an opportunity to finally put Marcy and her shop, the Seven-Year Stitch, out of business. Apparently the sisters like to keep their grudges all in the family and have set up a competing booth right next to Marcy’s at the Faire.When Clara is discovered dead in her own booth—strangled by the scarf she had almost finished knitting—Marcy becomes the prime suspect. Now she has to do whatever it takes to keep her reputation from unraveling and get to the bottom of a most deadly yarn…

Materials and Tools
  • 1-Inch Round Stickers
  • Bottle Caps with Holes at the Tops and Bottoms 
  • Beads
  • Silver Plated Open Jump Rings
  • Key Rings (I used two different styles)
  • Crimping Pliers or Craft Tweezers
Step One:
Print your book cover onto the stickers. This will require reducing the size of each cover and making sure they fit your stickers. I used the cover of my cozy mystery, Wicked Stitch. You might want to practice with regular paper before you print on your stickers just to make sure the sizing is right and no stickers are wasted. 



Step Two:
Then put the stickers inside the bottle caps. 


That’s the easy part! 

Decide on how you’d like your finished product to look. I decided to experiment with different sizes of key rings as well as different bead combinations to complement the book’s cover.

As you can see from this enlargement of the cover of Wicked Stitch, red, blue, purple, yellow, and white beads would all work well. At the craft shop, I was able to pick up some red beads that were reminiscent of Pandora beads as well as some others that I thought would look nice with the cover.
The larger key rings (that look like bracelets) were by far the easiest ones to make. All you have to do with those is unscrew one of the ball-shaped knobs and then slide on your beads. 

The regular-sized key rings were tricky…at least, for me. Once you’ve managed to pry the key ring open wide enough (I wedged my pliers between the two sides of the key ring to hold it open), slide the beads onto the ring keeping in mind that you’ll be adding the bottle cap book cover once the beads are on. For example, on most of the key rings, I placed a large bead, a connecting or smaller bead, another connecting or smaller bead, and then another large bead. 
When your beads are in place, take your bottle cap, add a jump ring, and then connect the bottle cap to the key ring. With the larger, bracelet-type key rings, you can simply attach the jump ring and then place the bottle cap on the key ring where you’d like it.

I’ll be giving a key ring and a signed paperback copy of Wicked Stitch to two Mystery Playground readers located in the United States. If you’re an international reader, please accept a digital copy of Wicked Stitch


Please visit me online at http://www.gayletrent.com



Here are the rest of the stops on the tour:

April 7 – Babs Book Bistro – Review, Guest Post, Giveaway
April 8 – A Chick Who Reads – Review
April 9 – fuonlyknew – Review
April 9 – Mystery Playground – Crafty Thursday
April 10 – Brooke Blogs – Review, Giveaway
April 12 – Quirky Book Reviews – Review, Giveaway
April 13 – Back Porchervations – Review
April 14 – Cozy Up With Kathy – Interview
April 14 – Books Are Life – Vita Libri – Review
April 15 – Michelle’s Romantic Tangle – Review, Guest Post
April 16 – Melissa’s Eclectic Bookshelf – Interview, Giveaway
April 17 – Shelley’s Book Case – Review, Guest Post, Giveaway

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations Amanda/Gayle! You guys come up with some really neat crafts. patucker54 (at aol dot com)

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  2. This is such a creative craft. Wonderful feature and giveaway. Thanks. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

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  3. What a great craft, very unique. Love it

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  4. Your craft posts are always special and lovely. elliotbencan(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  5. I love that they can be personalized with different beads and colors.

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  6. Love crafty Thursday and today's craft is terrific. I am wondering about filling in bottle cap with resin. The book sounds good, too.

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  7. Great craft! The book sounds terrific~thank you for the chance to win a copy! woodrumbetty@gmail.com

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