I love to repurpose and recycle.
And oh my gosh, you should see my craft room.
I have 1000 items I think should have a second life.
In fact, let me show you...
And even though spring has sprung and passed, I saw a version of this craft and thought it was right up my crafting alley.
At the end of the post, you can subscribe to get the instructions in PDF form.
Here are the materials I used:
Plastic water bottles
Rubbing alcohol for airbrush gun
Airbrush gun (I think you could figure out another way to paint these if you don't have an airbrush)
Heat gun or hairdryer
Drill or Dremmel
My airbrush set up
But first, grab a bunch of plastic water bottles. You'll need as many as the lights on your string.
Cut the bottoms of the bottles and cut and shape them to look like petals.
With the remainder of the bottle, cut out some leaf shapes.
Now, it's time to get messy!
Get out your airbrush or whatever you choose to color your flowers and go at it.
Using a couple of colors on each flower makes it more colorful.
Do the same with the leaves.
Another fun part...
After the flowers and leafs dry, take your heat gun..- a blow dryer works just as well - And carefully heat the plastic.
Just a little heat will give them a lot of shape - too much and they curl more than you want them to.
Check out my melted pieces:
Insert the bulb of the string of lights through the back of the flower.
You want just the bulb to be showing through the front.
Use a glue gun and glue around the back of the bulb to secure it to the flower.
Make sure you glue it on the back of the flower so the front looks prettier.
Once completely dry, pick a place to hang them and appreciate your work.
There are many other ways to reuse plastic you’d otherwise get rid of. Check out these 17 other ways to get creative with recycled plastic bottles.
And for another colorful, glassy-like project you can hang in your home, check out my Faux Stained Glass post.
You can also get a PDF version of this post when you subscribe to my newsletter. I only send e-mails when there are new tutorials.
Here are products to purchase to make this project:
