Up-cycling Milk Bottle Plastic Into Beautiful Necklaces

What does going "green" really mean? (I'm a poet and I didn't even know it:))

I'm no expert, but in my house it means that we look a little closer at how we dispose of our everyday garbage. For me personally it started in 2010. My sister and her hubby were parents at a children's home at the time, and I was helping them come up with ideas for Christmas decorations for their house. All the houses at the children's home had to be decorated on the outside for the Holiday Season as part of a fundraising effort where in the public was being permitted onto the grounds of the children's home during the whole month of December to view the Christmas lights. It was the responsibility of the parents of every house to find sponsors for or make decorations themselves to decorate the houses with.

My sister and I make a great team when it comes to these kinds of things, but we were stuck. We didn't have a lot of time to prepare for it or to find great sponsors, and personally, money was tight.

So, what do you do in a situation like that? You pray and enquire of God. I heard a whisper on the inside of me saying: What do you have in your hands? (This is the wonderful way God works.) Looking around, what we could see there was a lot of at that house (a house where up to 20 girls at a time were being taken care of)...was garbage. A lot of food donations means a lot of plastic containers, cardboard boxes, egg cartons, etc. The garbage bins were overflowing. But we didn't really know were to begin. Next step...GOOGLE to the rescue!

My eyes were literally opened to a whole new world where words like 'recycle', 'up-cycle', 're-use', 're-purpose', etc. meant seeing the potential for beauty & purpose in things we usually discard and reject. The saying: 'One man's trash is another man's treasure'

came to mind every time I found another great way to turn some seemingly useless piece of junk into something lovely & beautiful. The bonus of it all was that, by doing our part and recycling and up-cycling, we were helping to clean up the earth.

Recycling, up-cycling, re-using and re-purposing has become a way of life for our family. For me it has breathed new life into my art and craft making. More and more I'm doing

'out of the box'-thinking...(or is it 'out of the bin'-thinking?)

To illustrate this...enter my range of

'Milk Bottle Plastic Floral Necklaces'...

Here's hoping I get a lot more customers for these "green" beauties:)

Blessings!

Surita

Lovely Little Trinkets

Hello Friday! Spent a wonderful morning photographing some of the lovely little trinkets that I've been working on since the end of 2011. After the photo session, which took up half the morning, it was time to start up my CorelDRAW Graphics Suite program and make collages of the different pieces.

Here goes...

1. White 'Milk Jug Plastic' Flower Necklace with Earrings (needs a prettier name?)

 Moi  is very happy with this little set...its 'belle belle!'. The flower pendant is made of milk jug plastic and a few crystal clear beads. Pretty cute hey? In keeping with the floral theme, different sized flower shaped beads were incorporated into the design.

Here I'm wearing said lovely creation...still can't believe a milk jug can be turned into something so beautiful. I plan on making lots more of them and do my part in keeping the earth green.

2. Pink&Pearl 'Soda Can' Blossom Necklace and Earrings

Making this necklace and the matching earrings was a whole day affair. Lots of cutting, sanding, embossing. My fingers were sore, back ached and eyes were crossed by the end of the day...but the result was absolutely worth it. An intricate, feather light, pretty and feminine piece of jewelry. Again, who would have thought a soda can could redeem itself and go to heaven...no rusty death at a garbage dump for this one!

3. Recycled Hardware 'Pink Blossom' Pendant Necklace

This little project has been brewing in my head for a long time, then last week everything came together. METHOD: Take one big washer looking toolbox find; give it a good sanding with some fine sandpaper; clean with a soft cloth; cut small flowers in 3 sizes out of a soda can; sand that clean on both sides and mold it a little so that it will hold a small amount of resin; paint the inside of the flowers with a pink pearl coloured nail polish; let dry; instead of dropping small amounts of resin inside the blossoms, I used a clear strong adhesive (Pratley Quickset Clear, me thinks it's basically resin) which I bought for gluing things permanently in the jewelry making process; let dry completely; then mix another very small blob of the adhesive and very quickly glue the blossoms in place on the washer looking thing (this adhesive dries in 3 minutes and sets permanently within 24 hours); mix yet another even smaller amount of adhesive to glue rhinestones in the centre of each blossom...bling! (didn't have a third tiny rhinestone for the smallest blossom so used a small blob of silver glitter glue)...and 'ta-da!' you have a very stylish pendant. All it needs is a suitable chain. Mine is made of two strings of pink and clear seed beads. Très chic, no?

4. Salmon Pink Peyote Tube Bead Necklace with Flower 

There's a trend here...pink...and floral. Something new I learned this week...making Peyote Tube Beads with seed beads! I found a great tutorial here: <http://inspirationalbeading.blogspot.com/2011/01/beading-tutorials-peyote-tube-beads.html> , after seeing the merveilleuse creations Emma from http://fredbeansnook.com/blog/ makes.

I guess that's all for today, but I can't log off without sharing something very cute and very sweet...

http://www.etsy.com/shop/allthatsassdesigns

Blessings!

Surita