Let's craft a bottle cap garden. I haven't done one in 2 years but this is part of a giveaway so settle in, lads.

Pick a cap from your collection (it's never too late to start one lololol) and peel off the inner rubbery part.

That's as good as it gets. Honestly, this step is optional. I've made ones with the rubber intact and it made no difference after baking. You'll be fine if you skip this.

Pick out your polymer clay colors. I'm going for a cottagecore-ish theme so a bunch of browns and greens, maybe a red idk we'll see

Flatten a ball of brown clay into the bottom of the cap. Use your tools of you need to, or use your fingers. Doesn't have to be smooth. It's the ground, so expect some bumps.

Grab your choice of green clay, roll and flatten on top of the brown. Use a dotting tool or heck even a toothpick to texturize the top. Obv this is the grass. You can cover the whole area, or not. Up to you.

Granite clay is my fave. It's so beautiful. Roll it around your fingers until you have a rock/pebble-like shape. Flatten one side against the table, then place it anywhere in your garden.

Make friends for big rock. They look like dinosaur eggs right now but let's keep going

Take a light colored clay. This pearlescent one was closest, but white or beige works too. Roll a thick snake and cut off the stubby ends so you have a tube. Use a ball tool to punch a shallow hole where the tube will go next to big pebble. This just helps anchor it.

We're making a fly agaric mushroom. Take some red clay and fashion a bowl shape. I used a ball tool but you can do this without. Then take the same color clay that you used for the stem in the previous step and fill the "bowl" with it.

Realize the stem isn't sturdy enough so busy out the liquid clay and use it to glue the parts together.

Let's make blades of grass. Roll a long, thin snake and cut it up into smaller pieces. Roll one end until it's sharp like so.

Place them around the garden. I used a small ball tool to help grip and place the clay.

Maybe make one more mushroom friend

And some yellow grass

Gently rub a tiny bit of your grass clay onto the pebbles so it looks like moss

Bake for 275°F for ~15-20 mins or according to your the clay's packaging instructions.

Time's up. Oven is off but I'm letting it cool inside so it bakes just a little bit more. You can't really overbake it if you leave it in for a few more minutes. I just want to make sure it firms up as much as it can before I add the finishing touches.

Once it's cool enough to touch, use a dotting tool or a toothpick to paint white dots on the mushroom. Acrylic paint is fine.

Wait for the acrylic paint to dry!!! Then glaze the mushrooms. You can also glaze the pebble rocks, or the entire thing. Or don't glaze anything. You do you. For this piece, I'll just do the mushrooms. Remember to wash your brush immediately after or the glaze will dry stiff.

It looks cloudy right now. Takes a few hours to dry. Usually I leave it alone overnight. So I guess I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm not usually this crap at it but I'm rusty. Here are ones from 2017 when I did just this and crochet

I totes forgot I made this. Idk where it is now. Maybe I gave it away as a present? Those were real mini sea stars that my ex got from Hawaii or wherever