Here's A Creative Decor Solution For That Collection Of Bottle Caps Laying Around

Glass soda bottles first came into production at the turn of the 19th century, though the Coca-Cola company's "hobbleskirt" bottle design did not become the standard (still used today) until the 1920s. Those kinds of bottles now make up around 30% of global beverage packaging, according to the Journal of Applied Packaging Research, which means you undoubtedly have your fair share of leftover bottles — and bottle caps — lying around. Though unbroken clear, blue, green, and brown glass bottles can be recycled, metal bottle caps are considered too small to recycle. Luckily, there are plenty of craftsy things you can do with leftover bottle caps if you aren't hoarding for a "Fallout"-style future; one creative solution to consider is using your bottle caps as a decorative cover for something like a birdhouse.

A standalone bottle cap can do wonders in your yard by helping to deter garden pests. In terms of crafting, the small, rough edges of a bottle cap may be difficult to attach to anything other than their intended beverage receptacle, but it's plenty easy to hammer a bottle cap flat so you have disks with plenty of unique designs to mess around with. Using a pair of pliers can also help smooth out the edges by bending them in advance, and you can also save yourself on material costs by putting caps back into place if they've got a kink from snapping off the bottle. These flat disks could just be glued to the roof or walls of your birdhouse, but something like a pneumatic staple gun could also get them to be more firmly attached. The metal will be malleable enough to bend over the hump of the roof if need be, and you can trim their sides so that excess metal isn't sticking out over the edge of your woodwork.

There are plenty of projects you could enhance by using bottle caps as decor, but birdhouses are a great choice because birds and other pollinators are attracted to color. Different avian species will be drawn to uniquely colored flowers in nature, so, for example, orioles prefer oranges whereas goldfinches prefer yellow shades. You can pick the kinds of bottle caps that decorate your birdhouse to fit whichever local species you want to attract, and there's no shortage of unique options on the market to get you closer to those goals. In fact, if you thrift a lot of extra glass bottles, you can use them to help attract birds by DIYing a feeder to go alongside your bottle cap birdhouse.

As mentioned, it is a good practice to make sure you trim the bottle caps you're going to be using so that passing birds aren't cut by the sharp metal. But there are other concerns to keep in mind if you want to use bottle caps as decor for your birdhouse, namely the fact that this is an outdoor furnishing. Metal bottle caps will rust in inclement weather, so if you're going to use it as an outer layer of decor you should use some kind of anti-rust varnish or spray to help protect it. Old bottle caps can just as easily help you DIY succulent plant decor pieces as they can facilitate fun magnet or jewelry projects, so when you're done building out your birdhouse there's more options to keep you busy.