Recycled Bottle Caps

While looking for shops that use recycled materials to make their products - I came across this amazing shop!! loranscruggs uses bottle caps to make the coolest whistles, pendants etc. Take a look!!


*Where are you from?
I’m from Port Townsend, WA. I think of the Pacific Northwest as home, having spent the formative years in it’s green lush canopy. I’ve also lived in San Francisco during art school and New York City after art school.

*Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am 44 years old living with my partner who is always yanking my chain about the collections of cans and bottle caps that are accumulating.

*Why did you start your business?
I started my business to convert my love of making things into cash so I could continue to make things. Sounds rather capitalistic, however I had an instructor David Ireland who would send a letter to people who purchased his work, he would thank them and then tell them about the next piece of work he was working on. The cash is merely a means to continue what we love.

*What got you started in reusing?
I love the challenge of working with a material that has served a function and now is slated for recycling or the garbage bin. I particularly like tin cans and bottle caps because they are colorful and cheery. I’ll spending hours pondering a particular material, once I come up with an idea that I like, I will make it.

*What’s your supply addiction; is there a specific color or type of supply you just can’t pass up?
Tin cans in second hand store…I have enough! Yet I can’t stop myself from going to have a look and then drag some more home. Awk!

*What motivates or inspires you to create?
Proportion, scale, ie bottle caps come one size…what can I make that puts that size to use. (whistles and animals on wheels) Pondering, an idea or material; for example I ponder Hunt’s tomato cans...tin cans are sharp…I cut myself... Hunt’s..red… hunt cut sharp.. Oee I know I’ll make a Hunting Knife out of Hunt’s tomato cans. Usually the pondering is with a lot more threads that don’t finish into anything.

*Which item in your shop did you enjoy making the most and why?
The tiger I had the tiger balm tin for ages and thought they would make great wheels it wasn’t until I saw a wood elephant on wheels in a shop www.oopsthatsart.etsy.com that it all came together. I was please for weeks after I came up with that one.

*What is your favorite shop that uses reused materials, and/or your favorite blog about recycling?
I have a lot of favorite shops on Etsy using recycled material, hard to choose from. I choose www.nickpaul.etsy.com because he has figured out a successful business for reuse of the bottles that I get bottle caps from. This isn’t a blog, but it is a favorite because it is about making things out of other things.
http://www.instructables.com/