Recycled Jewelry Tutorial: Water Bottle Necklaces

What You’ll Need:
Note~ You can make this in whatever color you want, however, I suggest exploring the available colors of enamel paint before making your decisions.

~ Heavy duty scissors
~ Needle-nose Pliers

~ Candle

~ Soap and water

~ Dry cloth

~ Gold enamel paint

~ Small paint brush

~ Gold chain

~ Gold jump rings to fit through chain

~ Gold clasp

~ 1 thick plastic bottle

~ Drill with small drill bit (1/16th drill bit should work)
Instructions:

1~ Take your gold chain and wrap it around your neck, and drape it at the prefered length. Make note of where your clasp should go. With your heavy duty scissors, cut the chain. It should be pretty easy.

2~ Take one of the jump rings, and open it with the needle nose pliers. Loop it through the last link on one end of the chain.

3~ Do the same thing on the other side of the chain, but before you close it with the pliers, make sure to attach your clasp.

4~ With your scissors cut five large ovals out of your water bottle. I made the center oval the largest and made the rest taper in size, the outside ovals being the smallest. Then I cut eight small ovals out of the plastic, each about the size of a nickel, to put between each of my larger pieces.

5~ Select an oval and hold it with your needle nose pliers, wave it over a candle to melt into whatever shape you desire. If you hold it close to the flame it will warp it much faster. Don’t worry about the soot created from the flame.

6~ Melt the rest of the ovals, and wash them with soap and water to remove any soot acquired from melting them down. finally, dry your ovals completely with a paper towel.

7~ With your drill, make a hole in the top of each oval. I painted my ovals and then drilled them, and I wish I had done drilled the holes before.

8~ Carefully paint the outsides of each oval as best you can. I tried holding the oval pieces with pliers again and pressing them down with my fingers, and neither worked perfectly. Each piece is little different and it will become easier after you’ve done a couple.

9~ Let them dry completely 30 – 40 minutes to be safe.

10~ With your pliers, add a jump ring to each oval. Connect the largest oval in the middle of your chain. Attach the rest of your ovals to the chain, using smaller ovals as you work each end to the clasp.

Note~ I used two jump rings for my center piece to give it a little extra length.

 

Put it on and enjoy!