Here's how to get started with this fun project.
Materials needed:
Rubber stamp (an icon or single subject stamp works best.)
Shrink film (I used Grafix film in white. Black or opaque film works great, too.)
StazOn Jet Black ink (a solvent ink that dries fast on glossy surfaces)
Bottle cap (1 inch silver with magnet built in)
Metal adjustable ring blank
Large scissors
Solvent based markers
Heat gun or oven
Deep Red Stamps Zebra stamp measures, 2.75"wide x 3.1" tall
Draw a circle around the design and cut it out using any scissors. Decide to trim the design later depending on the size of your bottle cap.
Cutting the shrink plastic before heating makes it easier to trim once hardened since our desired final size is a circle.
I chose to heat shrink with a heat gun. The recommended method is to bake in an oven. Build a corral with acrylic blocks so the plastic doesn't fly across the table.
Use a pencil or X-Acto knife to unpin if edges stick together and quickly place acrylic block onto the plastic to get it to lay flat. You only have a few seconds before it completely hardens.
Photo above shows how much the plastic shrank, how cool is that!
Before you trim the plastic to fit (in this project for a 1 inch bottle cap) cut out a template piece out of velum or transparency and place it over your design. Decide what you want to be the final view of the design and draw around circle with pencil. This will be your trim line.
With very durable, large scissors (I used X-Acto brand), trim the cured plastic. Use an open box on the table to do your cutting in so that the pieces of plastic don't fly around the room. (Similar to using a box when spray painting.) A rough edge is fine, sandpaper will help smooth the circle.
Your new plastic medallion is now complete!
Optionally, add color to your new medallion.
Copic markers on hardened plastic work very well because they are solvent based.
Add E 6000 glue to the back of the medallion and place in the metal bottle cap. (Photo above shows my testing of marker colors on the back.)
Add Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to the bottle cap. Get rid of any bubbles with the tip of X-Acto knife. Let dry for 3 plus hours.
You can add pin backs, hair pin blanks, ring blanks, chain, etc. Depending on what type of bottle caps you decide to use. Many types of bottle caps are available on the market: ones with magnet already in them or pre-drilled holes ready to attach to a necklace. The one pictured above is a black, flat bottle cap that a pin back was glued onto the back.
For the Zebra Ring, I used a silver bottle cap with the magnet already in it and it easily attached onto a metal adjustable ring base.
