How to Make Plastic Bottle Beads

If you love to make your own jewelry and are crazy about recycling every last thing, making beads from plastic bottles is the perfect project for you. Plastic bottle beads have endless creative possibilities for you to experiment with.

Things You'll Need

• Plastic bottles in various colors
• Strong, sharp scissors
• Permanent markers
• Colored paint
• Pliers
• Heat gun
• Large needle

Instructions

1. Rinse your plastic bottles well and cut a variety of 1 cm strips. You may experiment with different colored bottles, combining strip and making different sized beads. You may find it easier to cut the ends of the strips to a tip to make the bead fatter in the middle.

2. Color the plastic strips with permanent markers or paint, which will make the final colors of your beads. Dripping paint along the painted strips adds a nice effect, especially when using gold and silver paints. Be creative.

3. Allow the paint and ink to dry slightly, but not so much that the paint cracks when you roll the plastic strip.

4. Roll up the plastic strips as tightly as possible with the paint and ink inside the roll and hold the plastic firmly with pliers. Caution, the plastic gets really hot, and if you are using non-insulated pliers, be sure to wear protective gloves.

5. Use a heat gun to carefully melt the plastic, working to hold the bead together in the desired shape. Again, experiment, get wacky, stretch the beads a bit, to make your own unique shaped beads.

6. Hold the almost finished bead with pliers for a minute or two, until the plastic is still slightly malleable, but not too hot to touch, and push a needle through the plastic to make sure the center hole of the bead remains. You can coat the needle lightly with vegetable oil to help pull it through with the pliers if necessary.

7. Allow the beads to cool and firm completely, and presto.