Irene sitting in a tree making daisy pop top chains. 1977
In the seventies, we used to clean up our campgrounds by taking all the discarded soda pop top tabs we could find on the ground, and turning them into chains. We called this pop-top daisy chains (as shown in these historical pictures).
I recall manufacturers stopped mass producing cans with these discardable tabs in the eighties, as they were littering the environment, and a growing environmental problem.
They were replaced with a style of pop top that remain attached to soda cans, semi-permanently with a screw. Gone are the days when we saw pop tops littering every road, park and campsite…
An example of a soda pop daisy chain. 1977.
My soda pop daisy chain. 1977.
How to Make Pop-Top Daisy Chains:
A soda pop-top from the 1970’s.
- Find as many soda pop top tabs as you can (the old-fashioned kind dated from the seventies).
- Take the tab part of one pop top, and lace it into the circlet of another pop top.
- Fold the tab part over a few times, until it links to the circlet, like the link in a chain. Keep it loose enough to allow some movement.
- Keep chaining the tabs to one another, this way.
Crafts with Modern Pop Tops:
I just started a Pinterest Board this morning called Crafts with Pop Tops…Creative projects that use soda pop tops. I’ve collected about a dozen ideas for using the modern pop tops in art and craft projects. For example, people have used pop tops to make: crochet flowers, purses, necklace pendants, bracelets, earrings, crowns, purses, chain mail armor, hand bags, picture hangers, Christmas ornaments, and even full-length evening dresses! It cheers me up to see so many ideas for pop tops.
Blog layout: There is a lot of entertainment on your blog, the theme looks great, and pictures are very unique. I like the picture of the butterfly with broken wings, I think nature is very pretty and I’m always looking for those type of things when I’m outside I have a bunch of rocks from different places but it will be nice to do something fun and pretty with them.
Overall look and feel: I feel like you have a good topic and I enjoy your blog, it inspired me to do art!
Use of widgets: I didn’t see any widgets.
Blog topic: Arts Scraps Blog, I like this blog a lot.
Quality and clarity of posts: Pictures are great!
Spelling/grammar/punctuation: No grammar errors
#CS5711
I liked seeing a picture of a butterfly with broken wings. The blog looks real good.
Widgets: didn’t see any
Blog Topic: Arts Scraps
Pictures: good
#CS5711
Thank you both! It’s nice to hear an encouraging word esp. on the butterfly. Sometimes images are happy accidents I needed a scrap and it just so happened I had this butterfly photo from a friend. I also wanted to point out the color glass marbles he sits on make good art decorations and supplies, available at craft stores or pet stores. It’s harder to find a broken wing butterfly!
I enjoyed reading about the daisy chain process.Brings back memories of my kids when they were young. It is a shame that poptops are so hard to come by today. It deprives young people of something that was funand inexpensive (free) that they could do themselves. On the other hand, the new style tops protect wildlife and are not likely to be swallowed by very young children. Probably a good trade-off. s5711
Thanks Carl. I too am nostalgic of my childhood when thinking of them!