DIY : Beautiful Recycling – Barcelets from Plastic Bottles

Bearing in mind that we should take a day at least 3 liters of fluid to us, a single human requires whole 730 1.5 liter bottles of water per year. The plastic bottles end up in the waste container and get melted under an enormous environmental impact, only to get very poor quality plastic. But with a little imagination you could tinker around 3,650 bracelets (5 pieces per bottle!) from this garbage. That would be so many bracelets that you could wear the next 10 years every day a new one! It would also save a lot of money and relieve the environment significantly. A nice idea, I think.

Under the slogan “Even with small steps we can progress” I will show you how to turn a plastic bottle to pretty bracelets. From plastic bottles (PET), some fabric and a little imagination you can tinker very pretty bracelets, which are also wonderful as a last minute own-Christmas present.

I made four different bracelets that you can use as inspiration. Elastic fabrics are the easiest to handle, as these are much more flexible. Solid fabrics should be at least twice as wide as the bracelet and be glued centered from the outside to the inside.

For this DIY project you need:

1.) Plastic bottle (PET bottle)
2.) Fabric (and, if desired sequins, buttons, ribbons …)
3.) Wide duct tape or adhesive masking tape
4.) Scissors
5.) Cutter (wallpaper knife)
6.) Hot glue gun (at the hardware store or from Amazon, about EUR 7, -)

THE TUTORIAL:

Wrap the duct tape around the plastic bottle. By this way you can easily cut and immediately fix the width of the bracelet.

Carefully cut with the cutter into the bottle along the tape. Use a solid surface (such as a cutting board from the kitchen), so the work surface is not damaged.

Here is the cut-off plastic part. As you can see, as a bracelet it is still too wide.

Therefore, cut the plastic bracelet with scissors. Now you can determine the desired size directly on your hand and then fix the ends with the duct tape.

Now wrap the whole bracelet with the duct tape at least twice (from inside outwards). This step is very important because it will be wrapped over the sharp edges of the plastic and does not melt later under the hot glue .

When you work with an elastic fabric, pull it gently in length before gluing, so that the edges curl, and thus disappear to the inside.

Attach some glue on one side only and, with the tip of the glue gun do not press too much to the bracelet.

Glue the double folded fabric diagonally and still wrap the band diagonally as well around the bracelet. Only at the ends some more glueing is required.

Arriving at the end, you still should have enough material left to let the fabric band ending at the inside of the bracelet. Smear some glue on the last few centimeter and fix it to the inside. DONE!

THE FINAL RESULT:

Now you can add some spicing up to your finished bracelet as you like. Your imagination knows no boundaries. Here are some of my examples:

Copyright: fashion.onblog.at and Michael Punzenberger (Publications of photos or text are not allowed. Every illegal publication will be charged.)