Project: More Plastic Bottle Beads

I made some more plastic bottle beads today, trying some different techniques.

This time I decided to color sheets of plastic before cutting them into the triangle shapes so that I would have sets of matching beads. I also just scribbled the colors on, no designs or details. Here are all the finished beads. I have learned that if you keep the heat gun in one place too long the plastic bubbles on the edges and turns milky, I like this look. I also tried wrapping them with the small point in, this made the bead look like a macaroni noodle, not what I was going for. I used the flat parts of two 2-liter bottles and one 20 oz. bottle to get all these beads (54 to be exact). Everyone that has seen them could not tell what I made them from and they all really liked them. I also think that they look like glass beads although they are not as heavy as glass would be. I am anxious to make them into necklaces, but I want to figure out a way to make a focal pendant to go with them. I may just use them to accent my polymer clay pendants or as components in charm bracelets.

Project: Beads from Plastic Bottles

I have had this project for making beads from plastic soda bottles bookmarked forever on Craftster and today was the day to try it. I just got a new heat gun last week at hobby lobby where they were on sale for $9.99.

I had everything else that I needed. I used mostly paint pens in black, white, silver and red, but I did experiment with sharpie markers too. My kitchen shears made it super easy to cut the bottles.

I stayed pretty abstract. I really liked the one on the far left before shrinking. Rolling the plastic up was slightly challenging, but when you heat the plastic up it shrinks down to make the holes smaller. The only difficulty I had was keeping the point of the triangles from sticking out. I ended up heating the point up and then rolling it on cardboard to stick it to itself. Next time I may try rolling them with the narrow end to the inside.

Here's the finished beads. I think that they look like cocoons. I cut the purple strip in half before shrinking it. This project went really fast.

I think that making lines or random dots is the way to go as more complicated designs are lost in the rolling and shrinking. If you want to make a coordinating set you could color the plastic before cutting it apart. I would also like to mention that to get the shapes even the beads should be rotated and the pliers should be stuck into both ends while melting or the beads tend to curve like crescent rolls. The paint pens worked well and give a more opaque look, but if you overheat the beads the color "burns" off the edges, I actually liked this look. Sharpies gave a more transparent look and the color selection is a lot better. This was just my first try and I will be making more of these beads. I really like how they turned out and I also like recycling. Now I just need some more colors of sharpie markers!