How to make plastic bag earrings

It isn't a secret!

Most people realise that plastic melts.

Did you also know that if two pieces of plastic melt together they will fuse together?

It is fairly obvious but maybe it isn't something you have considered before.

It took me a while to join the dots but back in 2019 I started exploring different ways to make jewellery using materials that would otherwise have been destined for the bin, it was then I started to use this information and my bubblewrap earrings entered my jewellery collection.

For a while I limited this knowledge to bubblewrap but over time I started imagining other plastic options too although I am yet to explore a few - but today I want to share how to use old tired resealable plastic bags - I have hundreds of these, they are used by most bead suppliers to package their beads!

When I have used the contents of the bags, they go into my box of used resealable bags to be used again and again, eventually though they split and end up in my work room bin.

These earrings were made with one such bag.

plastic bag earrings

I am now going to show you how I made these.

Step one choose and prepare the bag - these were from my bin, I selected one and cut off the seal and cut down the sides

old resealable bags

I prepared the earring hoops by wrapping edge with a thin strip of cling film - remember I said plastic melts and fuses

wrap ear hoop with cling film

I then chose to cut small pieces of tissue paper to decorate the earrings

christmas cracker hats

tissue packaging

Next step

I placed the opened bag onto a thick folded tea towel.

Then I placed ear hoops onto one side of bag and sprinkled assorted cut up tissue paper from into the hoops and then folded the other side of the plastic bag back over the hoops.

sprinkle tissue paper into hoops

fold other half of bag over ear hoops

Time to add some heat.

Check that the work surface is protected from the heat - a folded tea towel works for me!

of course you could use an ironing board!

Then place some greaseproof paper over the bag

and iron gently, low to medium heat.

cover with greaseproof paper

ironing earrings

Lifting up the greaseproof paper after ironing for a minute and the plastic has melted and two sides fused together trapping the tissue paper inside.

fused plastic with ear hoops

Now all that is needed is to carefully cut around each ear hoop,

and add beads and or ear hooks to create your earrings

cutting out the earrings

the cut out earrings hoops

the finished earrings

So now you know, hopefully I have inspired you to let your imagination run riot and create

jewellery

decorations

key rings

pictures

cards

and more

reusing old plastic rubbish!

and help reduce waste by reusing some more of what you have in your bins