Ginny made a bead curtain out of old plastic bottles and other stuff.
Rubbish! I can hear you say.
Well… yes! Exactly that. She’s made it from rubbish.
Just so that you know I’m not talking complete bolly – check out this photo.
You are all probably busting to know just how she used those coke bottles in this bead curtain, right? It’s not that hard – but if you are a small person, please get an adult to help you.
You need the following stuff:
- plastic bottles (cooldrink, water, etc – try to get different coloured ones)
- fishing line,
- beads and other cool stuff to thread or tie on,
- 2 pieces of 80gm paper,
- iron,
- sharp knife,
- scissors,
- glue,
- sharp point (a nail works well).
First things first, wash your plastic bottles very well – you don’t want sticky or oily goo all over everything.
Using a sharp knife, make a slit in the middle of the bottle. Then using scissors cut the plastic into strips. It’s easier to work with strips than huge pieces.
Believe it or not – that plastic is sharp, so work carefully. And be careful not to leave little bits of plastic lying around either for other people to tromp on and cut themselves.
Once you have the plastic cut into the shapes you want – squares, triangles, circles, oblongs – whatever! But don’t make them too small – Ginny used round shapes, a bit smaller than the bottom of a glass. (Don’t bother to make them perfectly round either – when you get to the next step you’ll see why.)
Next step… again get an adult to help you and for goodness sake – ask your mom first if you can actually use her iron. Ginny has an old one that she uses for fabric painting. (Plus she’s actually the mom – so if she ruins her own iron – toughies hey!) Although we should point out that it doesn’t ruin the iron – as long as you don’t iron directly on the plastic that is.
Heat up the iron. Not on steam setting though.
Put one piece of paper on a flat surface.
Lay your plastic bits on top of it – only one or two at a time.
Put the other piece of paper on top of the plastic bits.
Iron them flat.
In fact, you’ll have to experiment a bit and see which way works best for you. Ginny found if she put them with the curved side on top, they shrivelled into very funny shapes. If she turned them over – they stayed flatter with just the sides curling in. Either way – she found a use for most of the plastic bits she ironed.
Very important – like we already said, do not iron the plastic without a sheet of paper on either side.
Once you’ve got a whole pile of ironed odd-shaped plastic bits – you can start making your curtain strings. Be sure to have a long enough piece of fishing line. Put something nice and heavy at the bottom – like a big glass or metal bead or tie on something else interesting – bells or bottle tops also work nicely.
Make holes in the plastic bits using the nail and thread them onto the fishing line. You can also glue beads onto the plastic – or make lots of holes in larger plastic pieces and thread the beads through.
Go wild, use mirror bits, feathers, old nuts and bolds, pretty beads, old beads, piece of fabric, you can even thread bottle tops, cork and straws. Just make sure you tie or stick them properly, otherwise, they’ll fall off at some stage.
Of course, you don’t have to make a curtain either – you can just make a pretty mobile or dangly thing for your room, or for a friend. Or even Christmas decorations.
Main thing to do is have fun in the process.
Feel free to post pics on Sibo’s Facebook page so that the whole world can see how creative you’ve been.