Happy Earth Day! In honor of today, this project is a straight up recycling DIY.

This project uses recycled plastic that would have otherwise gone in the trash. It may not be the most sturdy material, but I personally think it’s better than having it sit in the junkyard. You can use almost any kind of plastic – fruit containers are a good one. So is the (kind of annoying) packaging that some items come in.

Supplies:

– Plastic scraps
– Paintbrush
– Masking tape, preferably of a thin width (not shown)
– Scissors
– Super glue
– Small rhinestones, if you’d like
– Earring posts and backings
– Spray paint for base (I used Krylon in Flat Black, which is matte)
– Metallic acrylic paint

You’ll only need 2 small pieces for your earrings, so you can make a LOT out of one piece of plastic. These plastic containers once held croissants, jewelry supplies and a lens hood for my Nikon camera.

 

 1) Cut out 2 plastic triangles (or whatever shape you want). Place it against your ear, just to make sure they’ll fit comfortably. One of the points was digging into the side of my face, but I was easily to trim that down.

After cutting out one piece, you might want to trace it onto the next piece of plastic, so that both pieces are the same size.

2) Spray paint, and let dry a couple of hours (a MUST).

I spray painted on an old issue of Elle magazine – how ironic is it that I happened to open up to that page?

Dry.

3) Apply the tape in the pattern you want, making sure it’s completely flat. You can do a chevron print like this, or diagonal stripes, or horizontal stripes…totally up to you.

 4) Wipe off the excess paint off of the paintbrush, and carefully paint in the pattern.  Let dry for a bit.

 After peeling the tape off.

5) More tape, for the second half of the pattern.

6) Peel off when dry.

7) Glue on some rhinestones, if you’d like. Using super glue with a pointed tip will help with precision.

8) Glue on the earring posts, and let dry completely.

Finished. You can’t even really tell that it’s plastic!

Of course, you don’t only need to make earrings. There’s going to be a lot of plastic leftover, so you can even make a ring if you’d like. I used the same paint for this ring, but added more rhinestones.

Regardless of what you make, they’ll be really lightweight, completely customizable, and not in a landfill 🙂

I’ve been using that coffee sleeve for the past 5 years. I made it from a thrifted plaid button up and some scrap fabric. In those 5 years, I can’t even imagine how many cardboard sleeves I would have used otherwise.

I also usually use a coffee mug…but sometimes you can’t help but buy a cup when you’re running errands or meeting up with a friend. Thankfully, I always have a coffee sleeve with me.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. And if you celebrate Easter, hope that’s a good one, too<3

xo,

kirsten