Beer Cap Tray

I saw a foot stool once years ago that had beer caps hammered into the top and fell in love with the idea.   I never got around to making it... but I'm not giving up on that idea yet.  But I started with something a bit different instead.  I found this old tea tray at a thrift store and originally was going to cover the bottom with wine corks.  Then I inherited some of my dad's old beer steins and decided to make a centerpiece out of it.

I played around with the layout a lot.

Did some random patterns.  But decided I wanted to be a bit more creative...

First few attempts didn't really work the way I wanted though.

I tried a few different patterns.

I admit I'm picky and stubborn.

But I did eventually decide on one that I liked. It's subtle, but spectacular once I had it up on the shelf.

So here's the thing.  The pattern was probably the hardest point.  Once I had the pattern all set, I covered it with a two part epoxy just like I did with the penny table.  This one was a lot more work though after I poured the epoxy... hindsight being 20/20... take my advice and find a way to secure the caps to the base before you pour on the epoxy.  What hadn't occurred to me before hand is that each of those little caps holds air, so once the epoxy was poured... they wanted to float.  The Main Man and I sat for probably an hour with a pair of chopsticks pushing each cap down and trying to get all the air out as the epoxy cured.  What a pain.  I only used one box of the two part epoxy for this, I've let it be because at the moment this is a decorative piece, but it wasn't quite enough to completely cover all the caps.  That could be partly because of the floating cap problem though.  I'd probably add another layer if this ever gets to the point where I want to use it regularly.  Worth it in the end but I'll do things differently next time.

Penny Table

I wish I had taken more pictures of the table before I started staining it.  I honestly didn't even think about it.  This was an unremarkable coffee table bought at Goodwill or Savers, can't even remember which.  It sat in my house for a year or two just waiting for me to actually do something with it.  I finally decided to get to work and had the Main Man cut some molding to outline the top of the table to contain all the pennies and epoxy, and then I stained it all this beautiful dark brown.  Gluing, nailing, filling and staining that thing took the longest.

Then came time for the pennies...  It took more pennies than I thought it would...

It took a while to get the pennies all set the way I wanted.

I almost stopped there and decided to just glue the pennies... but since I already had the epoxy I figured I might as well keep on keeping on.   I used this, it's a two part epoxy that you mix together and pour on to give it a thick bar-top type finish.  There are better things to use I'm sure but it's coffee table that I don't expect to be under a lot of wear and tear and that stuff I could quickly and easily pick up at Home Depot.

Mixing it was tedious, you have to be careful.  Make sure to use a bowl you can throw away when you're done because cleaning it up is next to impossible.  I picked up one at the dollar store as well as a cheap plastic spoon for stirring it as well.

Make sure what you are covering is on a flat surface, you'll need to help spread out the epoxy after you pour it on the table.

I found I needed something to be able to push a few of the pennies back into place as well for about 20-30 minutes as everything set.  I used a pair of cheap bamboo chopsticks I had left over from take out.  There were also a few air bubbles that I needed to pop as well.   I kept a pretty close eye on it for nearly an hour to try to keep bubbling and shifting to a minimum.

Pretty darn happy with it!  I don't have a good picture of it but in this case it might have needed more epoxy for a completely smooth finish.  It took 3 days before I was comfortable that it was cured enough to bring into the house.  What we noticed as it dried though was that it shrank a bit.  So you can actually see little divots between each penny, giving it a slightly textured finish instead of completely smooth.   The Main Man thinks it adds character.  :)