You’ve got a drawer (or jar, or shoebox) full of bottle caps and no plan for them. Here’s a plan: turn them into a checkers set that doesn’t look like a school project gone wrong and actually holds up to game night. This one’s a good pick for late summer, when you need something to do on the porch after the sun goes down and the bugs come out.
What you’ll need
- 24 bottle caps, as flat as possible (12 in two distinct colors, or 12 plus 12 you’ll paint)
- Acrylic paint or enamel paint pens
- Clear coat spray sealant
- A checkerboard — buy a cheap folding one, paint your own on wood, or print/tape one onto poster board
- Hot glue or E6000 if you’re adding felt pads to the backs
- A rubber mallet or the flat side of a hammer
Step 1: Flatten and sort
Bottle caps come out of the box with a slight dome and crimped edges, which makes them wobble on a flat board like they’ve had a few drinks. Set each cap crown-side up on a hard, stable surface and give it a firm, even tap with a rubber mallet. You’re not trying to smash it flat like a pancake, just knock down the dome enough that it sits without rocking. Sort your 24 into two piles of 12 once they’re done.
Step 2: Make them tell each side apart, instantly
This is the step people skip, and it’s the reason so many DIY checkers sets are annoying to actually play with. Squinting at bottle cap logos to figure out whose piece is whose is not a good time. Paint the inside of each cap a solid, high-contrast color — think matte black and cream, or navy and mustard, something you can tell apart across a table in low light. Two coats of acrylic paint usually does it. Let them dry fully between coats, then seal with a clear coat spray so the paint doesn’t scratch off after a few rounds of aggressive double-jumping.
If you want to get fancy, use paint pens to add a small symbol or initial to a few caps before they get “kinged” — a crown, a star, whatever — so you’re not stacking two caps on top of each other and hoping they don’t slide apart mid-game. Stacked caps are genuinely one of the more annoying parts of homemade checkers, so this workaround is worth the extra five minutes.
Step 3: Build or buy the board
You have options here depending on how much effort you want to put in. A blank wooden checkerboard is cheap, and painting your own eight-by-eight grid onto it is a satisfying afternoon project on its own. If woodworking isn’t your thing, a basic folding unfinished checkerboard from a craft supplier works fine as a base you can decorate however you want. Either way, make sure your squares are sized comfortably larger than your flattened caps — you want breathing room, not a board where every piece is touching its neighbor.
Step 4: Add grip on the bottom
Bare metal on a painted or laminated board slides around more than you’d think, especially if the board gets bumped. A tiny felt dot or a dab of hot glue smoothed flat on the underside of each cap fixes this almost completely. It also protects the board’s finish from getting scuffed up over dozens of games.
Once it’s dry, you’re done. If you or anyone at your table has forgotten how the actual game is played beyond “jump the other guy,” the official rules of checkers are worth a quick refresh — the forced-capture rule trips up more people than it should.
This one’s also a nice use for caps that are too dented or scratched-up to work for magnets or jewelry, since you’re painting over the tops anyway. Nothing goes to waste, and you end up with something you’ll actually use more than once, which is more than most bottle cap crafts can say for themselves.
