10 Ways to Reuse Plastic Bottles

Plastic bottles are everywhere.  They are easy and convenient when you are on the go.

Unfortunately they are filling up our landfills and clogging the ocean.  Recycling is a little better, but it takes a lot of resources to recycle a plastic bottle.

The best option is to not use plastic bottles at all.  The 2nd best option is to REUSE plastic bottles.

Here are some ideas:

1.  Make a cool and funky mobile!


2.  Make a terrarium with a 2 liter plastic bottle. Tutorial for bottles with the base, and tutorial for bottles without


3.  Here's a whole list of crafty things to do with plastic bottles

4.  Give them to your local crafty or artsy person. Maybe even local elementary schools' art programs would like them.

5.  Here's another list of awesome crafty ways to reuse plastic bottles, such as the vase above! 

6.  Fill up a two liter bottle with water and put it in your tiolet tank.  (Flush it to empty it completely first.)  When your tank refills, you'll use less water because the bottle will take up some of the room.
It will also decrease your water bill while using less water.  Win, win.

7.  Cut the top off bottles to use as funnels.  Using different size soda and water bottles will give you different size funnels.

8.  Build a house!  Okay, probably not for everyone.  This professor in Serbia build this house from 13,500 bottles.

9.  Make a loom.

10.  Use them to plant an herb garden.
What do you do with your plastic bottles, or do you have any ideas now?

Plastics Quiz - How Much do You Know About Plastics?

National Geographic has a quiz on plastics to test your knowledge.  I got one wrong, but even as I was answering it, I knew I was putting the incorrect answer.

Please click on "comment" below and let us know how you did!

Giveaway Winner - Plastic Bottle Week

I picked a winner old school for the giveaway.  Usually I use random.org, but I got to thinking that #1 never seems to get picked and I think it's unfair that the first person to jump in never seems to win.  So I wrote down names and picked them from a hat.

That being said, #1 still didn't win.  (Sorry, Ken!)

The winner is Julie!

Julie contact me with your mailing address and I'll get your new earrings right out to you!  

I hope everyone enjoyed Plastic Bottle Week and got some good information about how horrible the problem is and some ideas of what to do with your bottles.  

Thanks for your comments!

Reuse or Refuse Plastic Bottles

I shared a slide show earlier in the week about plastic polluting our ocean, here's another video about the how plastic is polluting our ocean and beaches.

Here's an informative article:  Plastic Ocean:  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

On a more positive note, I found this fantastic artist who does sculptures with plastic bottles:  David Edgar, Plastiquarium.

He has also co-written a book, Fantastic Recycled Plastic. 

(Don't forget to comment on the giveaway post by tomorrow at 2 pm Eastern for a chance at B.B. Bellezza Recycled Plastic Earrings!)

Plastic Bottle Week Giveaway Reminder

Just a reminder that the giveaway is still going on for these fun Upcycled Plastic Bottle Earrings!  Comment on the giveaway post for a chance to win them.  You have until 2 p.m. Sunday, Eastern Time to enter. 

By the way, if you don't have a blog or a sign in, you can post anonymously.  Just make sure to leave your email address so I can contact you if you win.  This giveaway is open to everyone who appreciates handmade upcycled jewelry - across the world.

Good Luck!!

Ways to Reuse Plastic Bottles

1.  Here's a list of things to do with old plastic bottles from the Waste Aware Scotland Blog (a great blog to read for recycling ideas)

2.  Make a Mobile!  See previous blog post right here on the B.B. Bellezza blog for a tutorial.

3.  Make a Recycled Silver Bangle Bracelet (I didn't try this yet, but I definitely will be!)

4.  Here's a crafty list of things to do with old plastic bottles from Make-Stuff.com

5.  Make a terrarium with a 2 liter plastic bottle.  Tutorial for bottles with the base, and tutorial for bottles without.

6.  Here's a whole list of crafty things to do with plastic bottles 

7.  Give them to your local crafty or artsy person.  Maybe even local elementary schools' art programs would like them.

8.  Here are 10 Extraordinary Ways people have reused plastic bottles

9.  If you have any pink bottles, I personally am very interested in them at this point.  If you're in Lancaster, PA contact me if you have pink bottles!

10.  Here's a video with 8 very cool ways to reuse a 2 liter bottle.  Included are ways to use them around your house.

Obviously, though, the best thing for our planet is to try to not use plastic.  If you do, reuse it.  It never goes away, it just breaks into little tiny pieces.  And A LOT of plastic isn't actually recycled like we think.

(Don't forget to add a comment to the giveaway post by Sunday at 2 pm Eastern for a chance to win Recycled Plastic Bottle Earrings!)

Upcycle Plastic Bottles into a Cool Mobile - Tutorial

I had this idea to use cut out shapes from plastic bottles and make a mobile.  I'm pretty sure that my friend Kate's gorgeous recycled copper mobiles (of Shiny Tings) is my original inspiration, although sometimes these things just pop into my head without me knowing where they came from.

Materials and Tools:

• Empty plastic bottles (I used 3 shampoo and conditioner bottles)
• Wire clothes hanger
• Scissors - heavy duty, they need to cut through the plastic bottles
• Awl (or something else to poke a hole)
• Embroidery Floss and needle 
• Ribbon, Yarn, Lace, or some sort of string

Step 1

First collect some plastic bottles.  You can use any plastic bottles in any color - whatever you have around.  A lot of shampoo bottles are in interesting colors.  If you use the same shampoo all the time (thus the same color of plastic bottle), ask your friends to save their bottles for you.

Clean out the bottles thoroughly.

 Step 2

Unwind the clothes hanger and form a circle.  There is no easy way to make a perfect circle.  Honestly, you won't notice in the long run if it's not perfect.  Also, I wanted to cut off the handle part of the hanger, but I didn't have anything strong enough to cut it, so I just wrapped it around.  

Step 3

Cut the bottles.  To do this, I took my scissors (which are very heavy duty.  You can cut through some plastic with just regular scissors.)  The most difficult part is the top as it is thicker than the rest of the bottle.  So, I cut through the top and followed the seam line down and then just cut around the top to cut it off.

Step 4

This is what it looks like when you cut the bottles apart.  See how imperfect my cuts are here, that's fine, you're cutting shapes out of this anyway.

You might find that the bottles are still a little wet or have something left, you can easily clean or dry them now.

Step 5

Cut the plastic bottles into shapes.  I used circles, but you can use any shape you want.  You could also use a bunch of different colors and shapes.  I got 2 circles out of each half of a bottle that I cut.

The plastic will curl up because it was a bottle.  Either cut around the curled up parts, or use it in your design.  I put the plastic under a stack of books and it flattened it somewhat, but it wasn't perfect.

Step 6

Set out the shapes some sort of a pattern that you would like for your mobile.  

Step 7

Now we're going to start to put the mobile together.  Use an awl (or some other tool) to poke a hole in the top of your pieces.  If you are going to have a couple of your pieces hanging in one string, you will need a hole in the top and bottom.

Step 8

Use embroidery floss to tie your pieces together.  You could really use any thread, string or yarn that you can pull through the holes you made.  Also tie a piece of string to the top that you will attach to the hanger.  Just eye up how long you would like the mobile to hang.  Mine is about 16 inches long at its longest.

I made 6 hanging ropes for my mobile, but use as many as you like.

Step 9

Tie the string to the hanger that you made into a circle.  Place them evenly around the hanger.

Step 10

Cut 3 pieces of ribbon, lace, yarn, etc. and tie to the circle evenly to use to hang your mobile.  I used vintage ribbon that complimented my orange bottles.  Pull the 3 pieces up and tie at the top to form a hanger

This project doesn't take long at all and there wasn't a cost since I just used what I had around the house.  If you don't have actually what I used, get creative and use other string, etc.

Have fun!!

Plastic Bottle Week - Giveaway!

Plastic bottles are everywhere.  We buy these little convenient bottles of water, soda, etc. to take with us on our way during our day so often, we probably don't even give them much thought. Plastic bottles hold our shampoo, our lotions, our dish detergent and can basically be found throughout our daily life.  Think about how many different plastic bottles you use in a day.

This is why this week I am going to devote the whole week to plastic bottles - so we start to think about how they affect our planet and we can consider using less of them and reusing the bottles we do purchase.  I'll also be bringing you some fun projects to use our plastic bottles in fun and beautiful ways so they aren't clogging up our oceans and killing sea life.

To kick things off, I'm going to give away a pair of my Recycled Plastic Bottle Flower Earrings.  These earrings were made from shampoo and soda bottles.

I hope that when you wear them and people ask you about them that you tell them they are made from materials that didn't wind up in the ocean or landfill.  (And even recycling takes up energy....these just took some of my time and carbon-free energy.  Also, a low percentage of bottles even actually are recycled.)

To enter to win these earrings, just leave a comment here with your thoughts on plastic bottles, let us know a creative use for plastic bottles or even leave a link to a tutorial or someone who is putting them to use in a unique way.

I'll pick a winner on Sunday afternoon around 2 p.m.  Good luck and check in each day this week for articles on plastic bottles, how they affect our planet (and especially the ocean), and creative ways to reuse them.

Plastic Bottles

Image ‘Bottles in a Landfill’ Source North Carolina Aquariums

via the Run For One Planet Blog

This week will be all about plastic bottles.  What they are doing to our planet, what we can do, crafty ways to use them.  Monday I'll be starting a giveaway, too, so make sure to check back tomorrow!

Newspaper Flower Tutorial - Flowers that Never Wilt

Newspaper Flowers - Flowers that Never Wilt
Tutorial

This is one way to use up the newspapers that pile up every day (if you read papers.) If you don't get the paper, you probably have a friend or neighbor who does and who would love to give you a pile!

Materials:
Newspapers
Plastic shampoo or other bottle OR button
Floral Wire
Flower Pattern (this is in pdf form - you can also draw your own!)
Scissors
Pliers
Awl (not pictured)

Step 1:
Print out and cut out the Flower Pattern. You can also draw your own pattern. Just make one shape smaller than the other shape.

Step 2:
Pin the pattern onto newspaper. I used 8 sheets of newspaper for each pattern piece.
Don't worry about putting the pin in, it just leaves a couple of holes that you won't notice and the middle will cover it up later anyway.

Step 3:
Cut out the flower pieces.

Cut out both the smaller flower and the larger flower pattern.

Step 4:

Curl the "petals" up using a pencil. I curled up the first couple of sheets individually, then did the back sheets all together.

Step 5:

Stagger the petals on a pile.

Step 6:

Carefully cut the plastic bottle and then cut out a circle. (Instead of doing this step, you could use a button.)

The plastic may be a little difficult to cut - be careful!

Step 7:

Use your awl to poke 2 holes in the plastic circle. It will look like a button. (Again, if you are using a button, obviously skip this step.)

Step 8:
Use your awl to poke 2 holes in the middle of your newspaper flowers. I was able to use my awl to go all the way through the newspapers.

Step 9:

Bend the floral wire in half

Step 10:

Place the plastic circle or button on the wire.

Step 11:

Place your cut out newspapers on the floral wire.

Step 12:

Twist the floral wire together. (This photo shows a very sloppy job! You can fix it up as you go along.)

I hold the wire with my pliers and carefully twist by the top flower part. You can also twist this by hand, but it will be a looser twist.

And here is the completed Newspaper Flower!

Make a bunch and you have a full bouquet! Use for decorations or give them as a gift. You could put them on top of presents instead of buying bows.

Have fun!