• About
  • contact
  • Advertise

Picklebums

Activities, recipes, free printables and life with four kids

  • Home
  • Activities for kids
  • family food
  • parenting
  • Printables
  • farm tales
  • shop

Melted Bottle Jewelery

Posted on January 30, 2013 25 Comments

My kids have been nagging me to get some shrinky-dinks for ages. But that stuff is not easy to find here, and it’s not cheap either! I’d seen a tutorial on pinterst (of course) for using recycled plastic packaging in the same way, but we never seemed to buy anything packed in plastic that had the right number on it. But I had a vague memory of my Mum melting PET soft drink bottles when I was a kid, and in the interest of experimenting, and celebrating the last day of the school holidays, we decided to have a go.

melted bottle necklaces

Melted Bottle Jewelery

You’ll Need…
Plastic PET bottles or any kind of PET plastic.
Scissors
Permanent markers
Hole punch
Oven tray covered in foil
A moderately hot oven
String

You’ll Do…
Cut up the plastic bottles into medium sized pieces of various shapes. This can be a little tricky so you might want to pre-cut the bottles and using a craft knife to make the first cut is also helpful, unless you slice open your finger with it (ask me how I know!). Careful of sharp corners on your cut up plastic too, you might want to round them off a little.

Then go to town drawing and colouring on the bits of plastic. We found drawing on the inside of the bottles and filling the pieces with LOTS of colour worked better.

melted bottle art

Once you are done colouring, punch holes all around the edge of your piece of plastic. The more holes you punch the more likely you are of getting one in a decent spot to make your necklace later on.

plastic bottles read to melt

Then pop your plastic pieces on the foil covered tray, making sure there is a little room between each one, and put them in the oven.

melting plastic in the oven

It won’t take long for the pieces of plastic to start to curl up and shrink a little. Once they have melted to your satisfaction (it only takes a minute or two, any longer and they will begin to smoke and burn) take them out of the oven and allow them to cool. Put on your exhaust fan or pop them outside if you like as there will be a slight plasticey smell as they cool

melted bottle bits

It was really interesting to see how the differently thickness and shapes of the plastic melted and shrank differently. The bottoms of the bottles just shrunk down a little, and the thicker parts at the neck of the bottle didn’t curl as much as the thinner sides.

We each selected a favourite piece that had a hole in an appropriate spot and threaded it on some string for a necklace.

melted bottle necklace

The necklaces soon became ‘rainbow viewer’ necklaces and ‘magic whistle’ necklaces. Morgan didn’t take his off until this morning when he put on his school uniform for the first time. He carefully put his magic whistle around my neck and said ‘keep it safe till I get home’…. so now even I have a melted bottle necklace and it is the most precious piece of jewelery I own.

417 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Activities for kids, Farm Tales, Fun for Everyone Tagged With: activities for preschoolers, activities for school kids, art for kids

Read the comments or scroll down to add your own:

  1. Danya Banya says

    You’ll be thinking of Morgan all day :)

    Reply
  2. Penny says

    Kate this is a stunning craft activity! So artistic, so much fun and you’re recycling too. I’m sooo going to do this idea. Pinning now!

    How did Morgan go?

    Reply
  3. Kate - An Everyday Story says

    We used to do this when we were little too. It’s crazy fun, isn’t it, watching the roll and shrink.

    Reply
  4. Aleta @ Hinterland Mama says

    What a great idea! I too looked at shrinky-dink plastic on-line (LOVED making them as a kid). But your idea of recycling is so much better. ?

    Reply
  5. rhonda says

    I am not sure that this is very safe. Isn’t PET plastics toxic which is the reason we are unable to recycle them?

    Reply
    • katef says

      Perhaps you are thinking about something different? PET bottles here in Australia have a number 1 on them and are used for lots of things.

      Also PET bottles are very recyclable ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling) and they are also considered safe to hold and store both drinks and food.

      I am sure that breathing in the fumes of any melted plastic is not healthy, but we did this under a exhaust fan and allowed the melted plastic to cool completely (and therefore stop giving off fumes) before we used it.

      Reply
  6. Rebecca says

    These are so bright and colourful, they turned out great.

    Reply
  7. Varya @ Little Artists says

    What an amazing idea! Would love to do it wit my 4 year old but our kitchen window doesn’t open. Will have to wait!

    Reply
  8. Sandy in SoCal says

    Great idea! And I love your picture of the children all watching the oven with great anticipation and curiosity!! I will have to try this!

    Reply
  9. Nathalie Brown says

    When my daughter was little she loved the shrinkable stuff especially ones with fairies it was cheap to buy in the Uk, do love this idea I know Mr 7 will be keen.

    Reply
  10. Julie - Ladybug's Spots says

    These turned out fantastic! What a fab idea :-)

    Reply
  11. Jode says

    These are so bright and colourful Kate…you brought back some memories for me with this post! love the whistle necklace idea too! Thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply
  12. Kylie @ Octavia and Vicky says

    I’ve been meaning to try out shrinky dinks – these look awesome! Pinned it :)

    Reply
  13. Kelly says

    Love your twist on these! I had such fun making shrinky dinks as a kid – all those chip packets in miniature were so cute :-) Will have to keep my eye on the plastic in the house!

    Reply
  14. [email protected] Little Bookcase says

    Very, very cool!

    I remember melting plastic in the oven when I was a kid. So much fun.

    Reply
  15. Jennifer says

    Hi, Just wanted to let you know I loved this idea SO much that I am doing it with all three of my kids classrooms for Valentine’s Day next week. About 80 kids! It saved me a ton of money on crafts that would not have been original and this gives them all a chance to create their own special item. Now to find enough plastic LOL
    Thank you!

    Reply
  16. Christy says

    What temperature and about how long did you do it? Did you only use clear plastic?

    Reply
    • katef says

      We only used clear PET plastic bottles (it has a 1 in the recycling triangle here in Australia). We used a moderately hot oven about 180-200 degrees C, and it only took a minute or two for the think bits of plastic to curl and shrink… a little longer for the thicker parts of the bottles. Hope that helps!

      Reply
  17. Leanne says

    Kate you are a legend for thinking this one up! As a kid in primary school I had a pair of twistie packs I used to hang on my sleepers. Now I have a very creative 3yr old, we are going to do this for everyones christmas presents! Thanks so much for the inspiration!

    Reply
Newer Comments »

Trackbacks

  1. 74 fun things // 04 - 74 Lime Lane | 74 Lime Lane says:
    February 1, 2013 at 2:37 pm

    […] Melted plastic bottle jewelery at picklebums […]

    Reply
  2. 35 Easy Kid Activities That Aren't Lame - Craft Cravings : Craft Cravings says:
    July 23, 2013 at 10:14 am

    […] Melted Bottle Jewelry […]

    Reply
  3. 35 Easy Kid Activities That Aren't Lame - Craft Cravings says:
    July 25, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    […] Melted Bottle Jewelry […]

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Home » Melted Bottle Jewelery
welcome
pinterestfacebooktwitterinstagram

Search around a bit…

You might also like…

ocean playdough with fish, shells and more

Ocean Playdough – Free Printable Accessories

How to make this lovely folded paper bracelet.

How to Make Folded Paper Bracelets

Find our printable puppets here Find our easy art activities here find our easy dinner recipes here

Find Activities by Age

  • Baby play
  • Toddler Fun
  • Preschooler Fun
  • School Kids Fun
  • Fun for Everyone

Subscribe to our newsleter

Find posts by month

Browse all my crazy categories

Copyright © 2021 • Powered by WordPress
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Home
  • contact
  • advertise
  • Privacy Policy