Reclaimed Plastic Earrings

I like working with recycled plastic because it is a) good for the environment and b) absolutely free! Plus if you make a mistake you can just melt it down again - it is endlessly reusable.

I dedicate this Instructable to the slightly sad piece of MDF you can see in all of the pictures - I don't have a workshop or a workbench so I cut a bit of old MDF and hot glued some felt on the back. This means I can put it on top of any surface and use the panini press (hot) and the drill (hole-making) without angering the rest of the house by ruining the floors and kitchen worktop!

I go into more detail about the melting process for plastic in another Instructable, but I would also suggest going to the Brothers Make YouTube channel - they have some really helpful and thorough videos on it.

• HDPE bottles (with the number 2 printed on them) in at least 2 colours
• Panini press
• Baking sheets
• Silicone gloves
• Coping saw
• Knife
• Drill
• Earring attachments and jump rings

It is important to wash the plastic fairly thoroughly otherwise you get strange smells and sometimes burning when you melt it. I used a knife to cut up the bottles into small pieces, but if the material is thin you can put it straight in the press whole (it gets a bit awkward to keep it in though!).

You need more of the milk bottles than any colour you use - which is good as milk bottles are very common, but coloured HDPE less so. I found this pink bottle in a friend's bathroom - she was throwing it out so I asked if I could have it. It was a really nice deep pink. If you are not as lucky the most common colours you might be able to get are green/blue/red (depending on the type of milk you drink) or something like a bright yellow which is used in bleach bottles.

I melted the white plastic first, then the pink. I have found you get a cooler, more marbled pattern if you don't melt them together straight away. I then squish and twist them together, repeating until I am satisfied with the pattern. I really liked the effect I got with the pink - you can see the size difference between pink and white in the picture. As is the case with paint you only need a small bit of colour.

When it is in the press I put a heavy book that I didn't care too much about on top, I also used this book when I took it out and it was cooling to keep it flat. It didn't entirely work - the finished sheet was still a bit wavy - but it was definitely better than leaving it to cool in any shape it wants.

I used some masking tape to mark where I was going to cut the plastic, positioning it over the bit that I thought looked the prettiest. I would recommend using a clamp and some sort of electric saw - but I don't have these! So I made do with my hands holding it down while I used a coping saw to cut it, I found the trick was to do it as slowly as possible or it would end up with wobbly edges.

You also get a fair bit of wastage when cutting so I would do it over some sort of bin/box - you can reuse and melt down these little bits of plastic in future projects. For those who are interested when I sawed it the shavings looked pale pink rather than a mix of white and pink.

I cut a triangle shape but you could make anything! I did try doing some hoop earrings which were much more difficult, I struggled with cutting a small circle on the outer edge and then getting the saw inside the middle. I ended up drilling a lot of holes and removing the blade from the coping saw so I could get it in the middle. The two circles ended up vastly different thicknesses!

This is a really fun stage of the process because as soon as you start to take shavings off the edge it gets really shiny and looks lovely. You could achieve this from sanding the whole thing but I wanted to avoid creating microplastics and also couldn't afford some really high grade sandpaper (your basic poundland level sandpaper oddly doesn't give that great a finish ;) but I like the finish from whittling anyway luckily).

I cut off small pieces from the edges, making them more rounded rather than square. Top tip would be don't get distracted by listening to music and accidentally cut off a massive chunk, meaning you have to cut a whole new triangle. (may or may not have happened to me, oops). Also be careful with knives and don't cut your fingers off.

The plastic is surprisingly soft even in a thick sheet, if you pressed hard enough you can cut bits straight off with a knife, but it hurt my hand to do this so I whittled.

I used the tiniest drill bit I could find and held down the triangle (keeping fingers away from the drill - another peril of having no clamps!). I tried to do it as close to the top as possible so a jump ring would fit around the top to connect it to the earring. I probably needed to drill even higher because it was still too low (or my jump ring was too small).

For a couple of pounds I bought these little earring pieces and some jump rings. The jump rings did not fit! Which was annoying, but I found a workaround. I used the longer bit of wire on some of the spare earring bits, cut them from the ball and spring, and used pliers to make them into a circle. I then attached a small jump ring, and an earring bit to this.

Why the extra jump ring? I found it made them hang better from the ear - downwards rather than sideways if you can picture it.

And they're done (with only a few injuries in the process). I really like how these turned out, although as pink is not my colour I will be gifting them back to the friend who gave me the pink bottle. I think the same material could also look cool as a rectangular earring - I may experiment more in future.