The Bottle-cap Cross

Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

By Tracy Schruder

When I was a child, I would collect discarded items to create art projects. I used things like bottle caps, pieces of wood, sticks, tinfoil from cigarette packs, nails, washers, coins, and any other small items I found in my dad’s garage or around the house.

This brings me to the most ambitious DIY project I’ve ever undertaken. I promised my mom that I would make her something special for her birthday that year. I was seven years old, and it was the end of springtime and the beginning of summer. My dad had just finished a DIY kitchen project, and there were various sized pieces of chipboard, some slats from the trim, and a few nails left over.

I gathered all these materials and headed outside to design and create the perfect birthday gift for my mom. I set everything out on the picnic table and organized it into piles. I needed some more items, so I went to my secret junk trunk and gathered some tinfoil and bottle caps.

My younger brother got involved, asking, “What are you up to?” I replied, “I’m making a gift for Mom for her birthday.” Being the ever-helpful little brother, he offered to help. We discussed the materials we had on hand and decided that we would need some tools to help with the project.

On our way to the garage, we had the extra slats from the trim in our hands. I was scraping mine on the pavement, and my brother noticed something: “Hey, that’s looking kind of like a sword.” I responded, “Yes, it does.” This led to a side DIY project – we created two magnificent swords by scraping the slats on the pavement. We took some rope and tied smaller pieces of wood together to make the handles and proceeded to have a good old-fashioned sword fight. “On guard, de la sword” I stated standing in a battle stance. “I shall protect the princess at all cost!” He responded and the battle went on, haha. Such a nice memory.

I regress, after the sword fight, we continued with our original project. By this time, I was full of ideas – I imagined the castle and my brother as the steadfast guardian of the princess, I imagined his armour with a shiny silver cross on the breast plate and then a decision was made, “We will make a silver cross for Mom,” I suggested. My brother agreed, and the creative process began.

I set out a large square of chipboard and washed my bucket of bottle caps with the garden hose. We set them out in the sun to dry as we organized the rest of our supplies. We needed as many pieces of tinfoil as we had bottle caps and just as many nails – about 100, if I remember correctly.

After the bottle caps dried, we wrapped each one in tinfoil and arranged them into place on the chipboard. My little brother became bored and took off with both our swords on another adventure. I thought, “Yeah, great, so he takes off just as the hard work begins.”

I nailed each covered bottle cap into place on the chipboard; it took me at least four hours. The rest of the afternoon, as my memory serves. Extra time was spent flipping the board after each bottle cap and hammering down the nails sideways, as they were a bit too long.

As the last nail was secured, and the project-gift-masterpiece was completed, I relished in my success. I wish I had a picture of it to share, as it was a divine piece.

Later that week, it was Mom’s birthday, and for some reason, all my siblings – three sisters and my brother – decided to present this gift to Mom from all of us. I thought it must have been a real, genuine work of art for everyone to hop on board and take a piece of the credit. I hesitantly agreed, and on June 9, 1978, or ’79, we presented this beautiful gift to Mom for her birthday, and she loved it.

She put it on the wall and showed it to everyone who came over to our house. I was very proud of that, even though I had to share credit with my siblings. As far as Mom was concerned, it was a gift from all of us, but I knew secretly that it was my own, heartfelt, creation.

In 1986, we lost our house to a fire and lost almost everything. The gift survived, though it was burned around the edges, and the cross was blackened a bit, but it held its integrity. Mom held onto it for years afterward, but after she passed away, I couldn’t find it in her belongings. It must have met its demise sometime over the years.

This concludes my story about the most ambitious DIY project I ever took on.

I hope you enjoyed my story. Thanks for reading 😊🙏