Recycled Plastic Bottlecap Headpins
by Carol Wofford.
I’ve been playing around with recycled and repurposed materials lately.
I found a YouTube video on making beads from plastic and decided to try.
Didn’t come out as expected but I started thinking why not try coating the ends of copper wire for headpins. It worked great!
Here’s how I did it. First I cut the wire to desired length, then I grasped the end with tweezers and heated it over a candle for a few seconds.
Then with my other hand I held a milk bottle cap next to the flame until it started to get gooey.
Then I plunged the hot wire into the melting plastic and twirled it around to form a ball.
It took a bit of practice and each one is unique but I like the results. After they cooled I cleaned up the stems with steel wool.
I found that the purple bottle caps melted better than the white ones and the gooey purple was easier to control than the white ones too.
I’ll keep experimenting with others to see what happens.
Meantime I like the irregular balls that formed on the end of my wires.
Carol Wofford
