Cut down on our carbon footprint by recycling some plastic bottles and turn them into a statement piece. Randamona shares her way of upcycling your bottle into a gemstone. Save the planet with this fun, easy, and fashionable project.
Materials:
- plastic bottle
- Scissors
- Hot glue sticks
- Glue
- Toothpicks
To color your gemstones:
- Felt tip pen or fine liner (not permanent)
- non-stick surface: plastic, aluminum foil, glass, etc.
- For a pendant:
- Map tack
- Pendant
- Jump ring
Instructions:
Turn your plastic bottle bottoms up. With your scissors, cut out the small gemstone curved corners of the bottle. Make sure to cut it symmetrically from above and flat on the back. Viola, a gemstone base!
Now, take out your hot glue stick and, again, with your scissors, cut off small pieces. Be cautious, for the bits and pieces will fly off all over the place. Stay calm! It’s all part of the fun.
Next, cut those ones into even smaller pieces and even smaller ones for variation – a nice collection of different sizes.
Then, with glue, put a small layer over the inside of the plastic piece and add the bigger crystals while pushing them in place with a toothpick evenly. To avoid some sticking out, let it dry.
When dry, add more glue to the edges from before and the tiny pieces. You can adjust the placements again with a toothpick. Continue until every part is covered, leaving the backside as flat as possible.
When it has dried, your gemstone is done!
To get various colored gems, you can either use colorful bottles or color the crystal bits with a felt tip pen or a permanent fine liner in your chosen shade on a surface that the pen doesn’t stick to, like plastic, aluminum foil, glass, etc.
For the latter, on the surface, paint on it to get some ink on it. Then, quickly pour a little glue on the mixture and stir it with a toothpick. Next, throw in the crystal pieces, cover them in the glue to soak up the color, and spread everything out to let it dry, creating the perfect color for your crystals.
Don’t worry if the color turns out to be different. It’s normal.
Lastly, if you want to make it into an accessory, use a map tack to poke a tiny hole to attach the jump ring and pendant to it—flex it out!
How to Make DIY Plastic Bottle Gemstones
