DIY Transformer Necklace and Game

On Saturday, my sweet Jeremiah turned four years old.  That morning I posted a picture collage which listed things he likes.  If you still want to know even more about my sweet boy, read his BIO on our “Our Family” tab at the top.  I don’t think it came as a surprise to you to see Transformers at the top of the list.  Transformers have been the “thing” around here since the end of the summer, which led Matt to making them their transformers school desk.

As his birthday approached, J kept talking about how he wanted to have a Transformers party.  The poor guy has a birthday that always falls right around Thanksgiving, if not ON Thanksgiving, so we opted to keep it small and just invite our families over for this shin dig.  Which you know my family alone is a party waiting to happen.

We took last week off school, yet with three kids in the house, we are always learning.  They assisted me in making this DIY Transformers necklace that I am going to share with you today.

We first picked out a bunch of bottle caps (and practiced counting them as we made sure we had enough for each of our party guests to have one).  The boys were sure to point out which bottle caps there were more of, so we must like that beer more and which bottle caps there were few of, so we must not like that one.  Aren’t they smart?

Next, we chose a pretty color of spray paint from our vast collection.  J liked blue the best, so we went with it for his birthday.  I spray painted the bottle caps on the backside to cover up the logos.

Waiting for these guys to dry was hard for the boys, so I let them hammer flat the “extra” bottle caps.  We will be using these on another project soon.

Those last three pictures were a rabbit trail, but all of you with active young boys like me would appreciate this news.  That activity kept them busy for an hour!  They loved it!  Boys with hammers and destroying stuff.  It was a perfect activity.  Ok, now back to the necklaces.  🙂

Once they were dry, my amazing husband helped us by using a nail and hammering a hole into each of the tops of the bottle caps.

I then printed really small pictures of Autobots off the computer.  The boys spent a long time with me looking at images and telling me which ones were good and which were not.  We had to talk about “pixels” and other new terms with this part of the project.  It was really fun to have them involved and excited.

It took some perfecting and printing of different sizes to find the size that could be cut close enough into a circle with seeing the image as big as it could be.

Once all our bottle caps had an images, we threaded them with a cord or string.  We used whatever we had.  Once there was a string (that would allow the Transformer “charm” to go around our necks) we glued the images on top.  By doing the thread and gluing of the image in this order, we got a bigger image and covered up the hole, so our “charm” would not move around on the string.  It made it a more permanent piece, which is what I wanted.

I then painted the images with a thick coat of mod podge to make them shiny.  Once they were dry, they were all done!

We laid them out, and the boys loved giving all our guests one as they arrived for J’s party.

They were SO cheap to make.  If you are not into collecting your own bottle caps, you can order brand new ones online. Just Google “Bottle Caps” and you should find plenty of options for less than $5!  I hope you will give these a try for your Transformer fan!  You could also branch out and turn these into fun charms for a number of occasions. Replace the Transformer images with your favorite characters, names, or symbols. You could use your guest’s names and hang them on seats for assigned seating or a drape them around a wine glass stem to keep track of glasses. As always, the possibilities are endless!

One other thing you might enjoy for a Transformer themed party is a quick game!

My son, Caleb, cut out a bunch of Decepticon (the bad guys) logos for me.

We taped them up all over our little house.  They were on walls, lights, beds, and even people.  Thank you Sam for being an incredible sport with your Decepticon label!  I then gave out all our Nerf guns and told them to run through the house and shoot all the Decepticons.  The boys, and a few other party members, had a blast!  It was so fun!

See everyone wearing their necklaces?!  They were all such great sports in honoring my little boy.  He felt so loved and had the best day!  I can’t believe he’s four!!  I hope you enjoyed these Transformer fun DIY party ideas.  I’d love to know if you give them a try!  Do you have a Transformer lover in your family too??

Check back tomorrow for more pictures from this party and from Thanksgiving!

Linked up at:  Uncommon Designs, DIY Showoff, Setting for Four, Red Head Can Decorate, Song Bird Blog, Miss Information